At the first stage of navigation, boats and ships did not move far from the coast. Crossing a river or a lake, shortening the path, or bypassing the land occupied by a hostile tribe along the sea along the coast is a practical and understandable matter, but setting sail on an unknown sea-ocean is already another calico, agree. The first navigational landmarks were signs visible from the water : Pomors, for example, put stone crosses, the transverse crossbars of which were oriented in the north-south direction. And at night, you can use the simplest beacons - signal fires, lit to facilitate orientation or warning of danger (stranded, reef, strong current, etc.).

Lighthouses are already mentioned in Homer's Iliad, and the most famous lighthouse, Alexandria, appeared in the 3rd century BC. e. on the island of Pharos, at the mouth of the Nile on the way to Alexandria.

Its height was 120 m. A huge bonfire burned around the clock on the upper platform, the light of which was reflected by a complex system of mirrors and was visible, according to historians, at a distance of 30 miles (about 55 km). Another example of an ancient navigation sign is the statue of Athena, erected in the 5th century BC. e. on the Acropolis: it was made of bronze, and in the rays of the sun it was far visible from the sea.

With the growing scale of navigation, it became necessary to systematize and transfer navigational knowledge. And now the ancient Greeks create peripluses - descriptions of coastal voyages in different areas, where everything was entered, from the weather to a description of the coastline and the customs of the native tribes.

The oldest periplus that has come down to us is the Carthaginian Hanno, it dates from the turn of the 6th-5th centuries BC. e. In fact, the periplus is an ancient version of the modern sailing boat. Illiterate peoples also had their own pilotage: they transmitted such knowledge in the form of oral stories and even songs. Only in the 13th century did more accurate portolan charts appear with plotted compass lines diverging from individual points, the so-called wind roses, which were used to plot courses.