The Ancient Egyptians enjoyed different kinds of sports and one of them is fishing. Egyptian Fishing was an exciting sport. The meat was not eaten very much by the peasant farmers; they stuck mostly to bread and beer, vegetables and dried fish. It appears that hunting was reserved for the richer nobles.

Fishing in ancient Egypt was one of the sports practiced by kings, princes, and commoners. There are many drawings of scenes of fishing as a hobby on the Saqqara tombs of the Old Kingdom as much as there are on the New Kingdom monuments. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo comprises numerous kinds of fishing rods and hooks of various shapes, which indicate the advance of such a sport in ancient Egypt.

Different Egyptian Fishing Artifacts

Many different Egyptian Fishing artifacts such as roads and various types of hooks have been unearthed to show the versatility of their equipment. Several pictures display fishing in a recreational context. This evidence suggests that Egyptians were the first to fish for pleasure. Boating was another leisure activity of the Egyptians. The pharaohs prided themselves on their pleasure boats with multiple decks containing cabins, kitchens, dining rooms and lounges.

Fishermen used nets and fishing hooks that would not look out of place in a modern fishing tackle shop. The boats made by ancient Egyptians included components like cedar wood planking and oars, ropes of half a grass, wooden dowels and battens, and copper staples.

Types of Boats

The ancient Egyptians created three types of boats. These are simple reed rafts, wooden boats, and papyri from a boat. Simple reed rafts were used for hunting in marshes. Reed rafts also served for fishing.

Wooden boats generally replaced papyrus rafts for Nile travel, and, since they were faster and more stable than rafts, they were also used for transport. The third type of boat was the papyri form boat, their shape reflected royalty and gods. These ships were used as pleasure boats and also transportation for royalty. These ships were also used for funeral and burial purposes.

A group of people would wade out into the ocean someplace where it was pretty shallow, and when they were out as far as the fish they would spread out the net and walk forward, and then the men on the end would walk towards each other and close up the net, and they would all carry it back to the shore. Fish were much more plentiful in the Nile than they are today.

But real fisherman faced real dangers. There were species of poisonous catfish and one of the most dreaded foes of all the crocodile. If a boat capsized, there was a real risk of being devoured by this monster of the Nile. However, Egyptian Fishing was also a time for fun. There are tomb paintings showing fisherman playfully trying to jostle each other with their fishing poles.