Waterskin

Normally made of a sheep or goat skin, it retains water naturally and therefore was very useful in desert crossings until the invention of the canteen, though waterskins are still used in some parts of the world.

Though it may have been used over 5,000 years ago by tribal peoples, the first pictures of it are from ancient Assyrians, who used the bladders as floats in 3000[citation needed] BCE.

Goat skin bottles used to transport water were typically found all throughout the Near East, including the Arabian Peninsula, where, in Yemen, it was common in the 18th century to see a slave carrying a waterskin on his back, or else 3 or 4 waterskins carried by donkey or by camel from the water source.

[5] The Bedouins of the Negev would occasionally store clarified butter (samen) and olive-oil in special skins called عُكة‎ (ʿukkah).

[7] After flaying the carcass and removing the hairs, the skins were prepared by submerging the goat-skin in a boiled, bath solution containing the bark of either Acacia raddiana or Pistacia atlantica, or else the root of sumac (Rhus tripartita), or the rinds of pomegranates (Punica granatum), and left in that state of immersion for 1 to 3 days.