Three systems of water
Egyptian shipping did not follow a single network. It used three main systems: the Nile, the eastern Mediterranean coast and the Red Sea. Each had its own conditions, ports and cargoes, and they were connected by roads, desert tracks and the Delta. This article is about geography; the goods are covered in the article on Egyptian maritime trade, and the royal voyages in the one on Egyptian expeditions.
The Nile highway
The Nile flows north from Nubia to the Mediterranean, and the prevailing wind usually blows from the north. This allowed boats to travel downstream with the current and upstream under sail. The river was therefore both a road and a means of linking the Delta in the north with Upper Egypt and the First Cataract near Aswan in the south. The cataracts, areas of rapids, interrupted navigation further south, and goods bound for Nubia sometimes had to be moved overland around them.
Major cities and cult centres, such as Memphis, Thebes and Abydos, had quays and canals that connected them to the main channel. In the Delta, several branches of the river divided before reaching the sea, and ports in this area handled traffic that moved between the river and the Mediterranean. A canal linking the Nile with the Red Sea is recorded in later periods, though its early history is debated and the details are not covered here.
The Mediterranean coast to Byblos
From the Delta, ships could sail along the coast of the Levant. The usual picture is of a route that ran east along the Sinai coast and then north past the ports of modern Lebanon, with Byblos as the principal destination for cedar and other goods. Egyptian objects found at Byblos, and inscriptions naming Egyptian rulers there, indicate a long relationship that goes back to the Old Kingdom.
The sailing pattern probably followed a loop. Winds and currents in the eastern Mediterranean tend to favour a counter-clockwise movement, so ships may have gone north along the Levant coast and returned south or west via Cyprus and the Aegean, though evidence for specific voyages is patchy. Cyprus, known as Alashiya in some texts, was a source of copper. Contacts with Crete and the Aegean are indicated by Egyptian references to Keftiu and by Aegean pottery found in Egypt, but the details of the ships involved are uncertain. For the larger picture of the sea, see the overview of Mediterranean seafaring.
Coasting was the norm. Ships stayed near land, anchored at night where possible, and avoided the winter months when storms were more common. The Uluburun shipwreck, though not Egyptian, shows a similar kind of route, with a ship working its way along the southern Anatolian coast.
The Red Sea and Mersa Gawasis
To reach Punt and the southern Red Sea coast, the Egyptians needed a harbour on the eastern side of Egypt. One of the best-known is Mersa Gawasis (also called Wadi Gawasis), on the Red Sea coast, which was used in the Middle Kingdom, around the twentieth to nineteenth centuries BCE. Excavations there since the early 2000s have found limestone anchors, coils of rope, fragments of ship timbers, pottery and storage galleries cut into the rock. Inscriptions record expeditions to Punt and other places.
Reaching the coast required an overland journey. A well-known route ran from the Nile at Coptos (modern Qift) through the Wadi Hammamat, a dry valley, to the Red Sea. Supplies and ship parts were hauled across the desert, and boats may have been assembled at the coast. The distance was several days’ travel on foot or by donkey.
In later periods, ports on the Red Sea such as Quseir al-Qadim and Berenike were used, particularly in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, when the trade connected Egypt with the Indian Ocean. These came long after the pharaohs, and the discussion of the monsoon trade winds explains the later developments. Red Sea navigation presented difficulties of its own, particularly reefs and shifting winds, and these are described in its own article.
Beyond the usual routes
Some routes are known only from scattered evidence. Egyptian-style objects found in the Aegean and Egyptian references to distant lands suggest contacts that may have involved intermediaries rather than direct voyages. In many cases goods probably changed hands several times, passing through Levantine or Cypriot ports, so an object’s origin does not prove that an Egyptian ship carried it.
What shaped the routes
Geography set the pattern. The desert on both sides of the Nile limited access to the sea, so Egyptian ports clustered at the Delta and on the Red Sea coast, with long journeys between them. Wind and current favoured certain directions at particular seasons. Timber and fresh water were scarce along some coasts. Political conditions also changed routes, since friendly ports in the Levant were needed, and conflict or collapse could close them.
Our picture of the routes is built from harbour excavations, inscriptions and scattered finds. It will probably change, since archaeology at coastal sites continues, and some places that are now far from the sea may once have been ports.