Sailing Into Antiquity: Unearthing Clues About Ancient Egypt’s Sea Trade

Originally published January 11, 2010 | The Boston Globe | by Colin Nickerson | Here's an excerpt:

The archeological digs at Egypt’s Wadi Gawasis have yielded neither mummies nor grand monuments.

But Boston University archeologist Kathryn Bard and her colleagues are uncovering the oldest remnants of seagoing ships and other relics linked to exotic trade with a mysterious Red Sea realm called Punt.

[...]

'She’s found the first fragments of an ancient Egyptian seagoing vessel - a ship that actually sailed in pharaonic times,' Wachsmann said.

This month, Cairo’s Egyptian Museum will open a special exhibition, Mersa/Wadi Gawasis: A Pharaonic Harbor on the Red Sea, featuring, among other things, cargo seals, voyage accounts, and a shipping crate marked in hieroglyphic text: "Wonderful Things of Punt."

Follow the link to the video on PBS NOVA: Building Pharaoh's Ship.