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27-504: Millwall Dock is a dock at Millwall , London , England , located south of Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs . The scheme was developed speculatively by a partnership of John Kelk and John Aird & Co. The engineer responsible for designing the scheme was Sir John Fowler . The construction was undertaken by Kelk and Aird and the dock was officially opened in March 1868. After a slow start to

54-543: A 60 m × 30 m (197 ft × 98 ft) building of unknown function that is divided into 13 long rooms, and a series of 25 to 30 storage galleries carved into limestone outcrops further inland. The building of unknown function is the largest pharaonic building discovered to date along the Red Sea coast. The storage galleries are between 16 and 34 m (52 and 112 ft) long, and are usually 3 m (9.8 ft) wide and 2.5 m (8.2 ft) tall. Inside

81-417: A dock may be created by building enclosing harbour walls into an existing natural water space, or by excavation within what would otherwise be dry land. There are specific types of dock structures where the water level is controlled: Where the water level is not controlled berths may be: A dockyard (or shipyard) consists of one or more docks, usually with other structures. In American English , dock

108-529: A very particular marl composition which had previously been identified in Fourth Dynasty contexts at other sites, including across the Gulf of Suez at Tell Ras Budran . Ten of the papyri are especially well preserved. The majority of these documents date to the year after the 13th cattle count of Khufu's reign and describe how the central administration sent food and supplies to Egyptian travelers. One document

135-582: Is also an area where several housing developments and apartment towers have been developed. During the 1980s the Clippers Quay housing estate was built around the old dry dock while the Mill Quay housing development was built on the site of the old Wheatsheaf Mill. The dock was a location for boat stunts in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough . The dock is L-shaped, with an 'Outer Dock' running east–west, and an 'Inner Dock' running north from

162-460: Is also commonly used to refer to wooden or metal structures that extend into the ocean from beaches and are used, for the most part, to accommodate fishing in the ocean without using a boat. In American English , the term for the water area between piers is slip . In the cottage country of Canada and the United States , a dock is a wooden platform built over water, with one end secured to

189-618: Is of special interest: the Diary of Merer , an official involved in the building of the Great Pyramid of Khufu . Using the diary, researchers reconstructed three months of his life, providing new insight into everyday lives of people of the Fourth Dynasty. The papyri are the oldest ever found in Egypt. Three groups of buildings were found 500 m (1,600 ft) to the northwest of the harbor. The rectangular construction and organization of rooms into

216-460: Is technically synonymous with pier or wharf —any human-made structure in the water intended for people to be on. However, in modern use, pier is generally used to refer to structures originally intended for industrial use, such as seafood processing or shipping , and more recently for cruise ships , and dock is used for almost everything else, often with a qualifier, such as ferry dock , swimming dock, ore dock and others. However, pier

243-416: The Gulf of Khambhat has the highest tidal amplitude and ships can be sluiced through flow tides in the river estuary . The engineers built a trapezoidal structure, with north–south arms of average 21.8 metres (71.5 ft), and east–west arms of 37 metres (121 ft). In British English , a dock is an enclosed area of water used for loading, unloading, building or repairing ships . Such

270-611: The Nile Valley and the Red Sea , crossing the Eastern Desert . The site is across the Gulf of Suez from the small Sinai fortress of Tell Ras Budran . A somewhat similar ancient port is at Ain Sukhna , a little north of Wadi al-Jarf. The site was first discovered by J. G. Wilkinson in 1832. It was rediscovered by a French team in the 1950s, who named it Rod el-Khawaga . Archeological work

297-690: The Port of London Authority (PLA) took over the Millwall Dock, along with the other enclosed docks from St Katharines to Tilbury . From 1905 Magnus Mowat worked as Engineer to the docks, being promoted to Director around 1912. With reorganisation by the Port of London Authority in the 1920s, the northern end of the Inner Dock was connected to the West India Docks by the Millwall Passage. The dock

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324-457: The Red Sea coast. Archaeologists also discovered anchors and storage jars near the site. A dock from Lothal in India dates from 2400 BC and was located away from the main current to avoid deposition of silt . Modern oceanographers have observed that the ancient Harappans must have possessed great knowledge relating to tides in order to build such a dock on the ever-shifting course of

351-459: The Sabarmati , as well as exemplary hydrography and maritime engineering . This is the earliest known dock found in the world equipped to berth and service ships. It is speculated that Lothal engineers studied tidal movements and their effects on brick-built structures, since the walls are of kiln -burnt bricks. This knowledge also enabled them to select Lothal's location in the first place, as

378-511: The Outer Dock (one of 6 originally planned), and later lengthened to 555 ft (169 m). Dock (maritime) "Dock" may also refer to a dockyard (also known as a shipyard ) where the loading, unloading, building, or repairing of ships occurs. The earliest known docks were those discovered in Wadi al-Jarf , an ancient Egyptian harbor , of Pharaoh Khufu , dating from c.2500 BC located on

405-401: The Red Sea, indicating trade between the two sites. A large number of papyrus fragments were found at Wadi al-Jarf, providing insight into life during the Fourth Dynasty. The papyri are the oldest ever found in Egypt. The first known documentation of ancient harbor structures at Wadi al-Jarf was in 1832, when J. G. Wilkinson noted their existence. He discovered a series of galleries cut into

432-648: The business and financial difficulties, Kelk and Aird surrendered control of the company to lawyers acting for the investors in December 1868. In recognition of its settled status the business was renamed the Millwall Dock Company in 1870. From 1897 to 1921, it was served by the Millwall Docks railway station on the Millwall Extension Railway , with goods services continuing to the 1970s. In 1909

459-483: The discovery of an ancient harbor and dozens of papyrus documents at the location. Those are the oldest papyri ever found in Egypt (ca. 2560–2550 BC, end of the reign of Khufu ). The harbor complex consists of a ca. 150-metre-long (490 ft) mole or jetty of stones that is still visible at low tide ( 28°53′20″N 32°40′53″E  /  28.8888°N 32.6815°E  / 28.8888; 32.6815 ), an alamat or navigational landmark made of heaped stones,

486-503: The eastern end. It originally contained around 36 acres (14 hectares) of water and had a 200-acre (81 hectare) estate. The western end of the Outer Dock was originally connected to the Thames at Millwall by an 80 ft (24 m) wide channel. The spoil from the docks formed the area of wasteland known as the Mudchute . A graving dock for ship repairs was constructed at the south-east corner of

513-469: The galleries lay several boat and sail fragments, some oars, and numerous pieces of ancient rope. Twenty-five stone anchors were found under water, and 99 anchors were found in an apparent storage building. The discovery of anchors in their original context is a first in Old Kingdom archeology. Many of the anchors bear hieroglyphs, likely representing the names of the boats from which they came. The port

540-481: The harbor predates the second-oldest known port structure by more than 1,000 years. There is some trace evidence of use during the early part of Fifth Dynasty , after which the harbor was likely abandoned. Numerous stone food and water storage jars, textile and wood fragments, and a collection of hundreds of papyrus fragments were also found at the site. Many of the jars feature names of people or boats in red ink, indicating their owners. The jars are characterized by

567-476: The shore. The platform is used for the boarding and offloading of small boats. Wadi al-Jarf Wadi al-Jarf ( Arabic : وادي الجرف ) is an area on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, 119 km (74 mi) south of Suez , that is the site of the oldest known artificial harbour in the world, developed about 4500 years ago. It is located at the mouth of the Wadi Araba, a major communication corridor between

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594-542: The stone which he believed to be Greek catacombs . In the 1950s, a group of French amateurs in archeology began to explore some parts of the site, which they named Rod el-Khawaga, but they were expelled during the 1956 Suez Crisis . Their notes were published in 2008, spurring interest to resume work. Systematic excavation resumed in 2011 by a joint Egyptian–French archeological team led by Pierre Tallet (University Paris IV-La Sorbonne) and Gregory Marouard (The Oriental Institute, Chicago). In April 2013, archaeologists announced

621-544: Was also a prominent local politician in Poplar. From the 1960s onwards, the Millwall Dock experienced a steady decline – as did all of London's other docks – as the shipping industry adopted containerisation , which effectively moved traffic downstream to Tilbury . It finally closed to commercial traffic along with the other Royal Docks in 1981. The West Ferry Printing Works, the largest newspaper print works in Western Europe,

648-603: Was built on the north side of Outer Dock between 1984 and 1986. The Docklands Sailing and Watersports Centre, located at the far West end of the dock where the dock previously connected to the Thames , was established by the London Docklands Development Corporation and the Sports Council at a cost of £1.2 million in 1989. While much of the area has been occupied by commercial office towers, Millwall Dock

675-532: Was quickly abandoned when the Suez Crisis broke out in 1956. A joint French–Egyptian team resumed excavation in 2011. The harbor at the site dates to the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt , approximately 4,500 years ago. Also discovered at the site were more than 100 anchors, the first Old Kingdom anchors found in their original context, and numerous storage jars. The jars have been linked with those of another site across

702-458: Was the starting point for voyages from mainland Egypt to South Sinai mining operations. It is speculated that the harbor may have also been used to launch voyages to "the mysterious Land of Punt ", a known trading partner of Egypt. The harbor was developed in the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu (2589–2566 B.C.), whose name is inscribed on some of the heavy limestone blocks at the site. That means

729-528: Was used mainly for timber and grain, a trade which eventually moved down river to the Port of Tilbury with the construction of a major grain terminal in the 1960s. A McDougall's flour mill, the Wheatsheaf Mill (constructed in 1869), stood on the south side of the Outer Dock, but was demolished in about 1980. Nearby Sir John McDougall Gardens is named after one of the McDougall brothers, John McDougall , who

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