Ancient Egyptian boats are defined as river-going vessels (in contrast with sea-going ships). Their use from late Prehistory through the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods included general transportation and travel, military use, religious/ceremonial use, and fishing. Depending on size and function, boats were built from papyrus or wood. The oldest form of propulsion was paddling, although there is some evidence for towing as well. Sailing was probably introduced towards the end of the late-Predynastic Period.

Transportation in ancient Egypt entailed the use of boats and ships for water travel; for landtransportation, attested methods include foot-traffic and the use of draft animals—especiallydonkeys and oxen, but also, from the first millennium BCE onward, camels. Land vehicles,including carts, chariots, sledges, and carrying chairs, were dependent on the existence and natureof suitable routes, some of which may have been improved or paved along at least part of theirextent. The transport of large objects, especially stone blocks, obelisks, and statues, requiredspecialized techniques, infrastructure, and vehicles.

Seafaring either to or from Egypt cannot be specifically documented before the Old Kingdom, but evidence points to the possibility of sea contact between Egypt and the Syro-Palestinian coast in the Early Dynastic Period, and it is not implausible to suggest that such contacts could have been established in the Predynastic Period or earlier. Egypt’s wooden boat-building industry appears to extend back that far, and while all currently available evidence is oriented towards Nile River shipping, there is no obvious reason why Predynastic Egyptian vessels could not have navigated coastal waters, as Mesolithic and Neolithic Aegean watercraft certainly did. Old Kingdom texts and images confirm seafaring on both the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and this activity continued throughout documented Egyptian history. By the Roman Period, Egypt was the nexus of a far-flung international maritime system that tied the Mediterranean to distant ports in East Africa, Arabia, and India.