No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Egyptian pottery shows boats with sails from around 3100 BCE. Possible earlier evidence for sailing is debated and not settled.
About credit
Sails were probably adopted independently in several maritime cultures. Nothing links the idea to a single inventor.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before the Sail
Boats were paddled or rowed, which limited both the size of a crew-powered craft and the distance it could go.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Early sails were simple square sheets set across a mast, usable mainly when the wind blew from behind. Over centuries sailors learned to shape and trim them. The triangular lateen sail, used widely in the Mediterranean from late antiquity, let ships make progress closer to the wind.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Sail, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Catching the wind
A sail turned square to the wind is pushed along. Boats run fast with the wind behind them.
Catching the wind
Sailing across the wind
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Trade
Bulk cargoes such as grain and timber moved by sea more cheaply than over land.
Contact between peoples
Sailing ships connected coasts and islands, spreading goods, languages and crops.
Wind-driven ships could carry far more cargo than rowed ones. Trade, exploration and migration over water grew from it.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Sail
Before
Rowing for days, limited by the crew’s endurance.
After
Using the wind, with the crew free to steer and trim.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
Steamships eventually replaced sail on most trade routes.
VII
Human stories
The people and the moments
Ships on a pot
Some of the earliest evidence for sailing comes from decorated pottery. What we know of the first sailors comes from the pictures they left rather than from any written account.
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.
