Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/99

 them to transport from the quarries the enormous blocks of stone of which the Pyramids and temples were constructed, some of these having to be brought for more than five hundred miles. Such works could not have failed to demand considerable mechanical invention.

Nor indeed is this all. Remains still existing show that the Egyptians were well skilled in the use of metals, and in their application to delicate as well as rough work. The paintings in the tombs, and abundant drawings preserved on the Egyptian papyri, demonstrate also their knowledge of at least the elementary branches of the Fine Arts; while their colossal statues exhibit great power in the working of sculptures in a very hard and untractable material.

During the earliest periods there is no record of any large vessels having been in use, for those employed for the conveyance of the huge blocks of stone from the quarries were doubtless rather rafts or barges than boats. In the reign, however, of Rameses II. (the Sesostris of the Greeks) we hear of vessels of large dimensions; these, however, it is most likely were all of Phœnician origin, and simply hired for use during his foreign expeditions. Prodigious sculptured memorials of this king exist all over Egypt, and there is still a curious relief of him at the Nahr el Kelb near Beyrût, which was seen by Herodotus. Tacitus further tells us that others were shown to Germanicus when in Egypt. It is not necessary here to discuss the vexed question of the conquests of Sesostris; it is enough to suggest that, in whatever extensive expeditions by sea he