Our main interest is with swimming, but swimming as it is conceived today is a fairly new activity in the history of humankind; it is no older than one century. However, pictures of people in the water can be found in prehistory: among the rock paintings of Gilf Kebir dated at 5000 BC and later in Egyptian hieroglyphics (Figure 1). In fact, swimming had little practical use. In many countries, water temperature is too low to make swimming pleasant, and besides, the density of the human body allows floating without effort if no load is carried. However, farmers and soldiers did not only wish to cross the river themselves, but also to transport their equipment to the other side. Humans have therefore always been more dependent on accessories such as rafts than on their ability to swim. Assyrian soldiers used inflated leather bottles to support their bodies and weapons and the Medieval knights stretched rope across rivers.
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