King Khufu’s 4,600-Year-Old Solar Boat Has Been Transported To The Grand Egyptian Museum

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - King Khufu's 4,600-year-old solar boat has been transported from the Pyramid's archaeological site to the Grand Egyptian Museum.

Experts say it is the largest ancient royal vessel ever found in Egypt and one of the oldest planked vessels in the world. It was built for Khufu (Cheops), the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom, who was the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt around the middle of the third millennium BC.

King Khufu's solar boat being transported to the Grand Egyptian Museum. Credit: Egypt's Tourism and Antiquities Ministry

King Khufu's solar boat was unearthed in a carved stone pit next to Giza's Great Pyramid in Egypt.

“According to some Egyptologists, the ship was a Solar Barque, a boat to carry the dead king of Egypt, resurrected and floating with the Sun-god on his eternal journey across the sky. Others proposed that it was a pilgrimage boat used by Khufu during his lifetime. In fact, archaeologists who investigated the boat's remains found evidence of rope markings clearly showing that the boat had been used in the water.

During the early hours of Saturday morning, the Grand Egyptian Museum received the first ship of King Khufu, 48 hours after the start of the process of moving it from its display in the pyramid antiquities area to the Grand Egyptian Museum. Credit: Egypt's Tourism and Antiquities Ministry

Additionally, the boat did not fit into the pit whole but had to be dismantled, which means that the stone pit was not constructed specifically for the boat.

After painstaking reconstruction works, as many as 1224 pieces of the ship were assembled together.” ¹

The boat, built of cedar trees from the mountains of Lebanon is a  42-meter-long (138-foot), 20-ton vessel.

Credit: Egypt's Tourism and Antiquities Ministry

Egypt's Tourism and Antiquities Ministry has now announced King Khufu's 4,600-year-old solar boat has been brought to the soon-to-open Grand Egyptian Museum inside a metal cage on a remote-controlled vehicle imported from Belgium for the occasion.

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According to the press statement, “the compound will remain inside its metal structure until the completion of the building of the Khufu Boat Museum, where a tight environmental control system was put inside the structure. Monitoring temperatures and humidity and making sure to maintain proper proportions to maintain compound.

The aim of the transportation project is to protect and preserve the biggest and oldest organic artifact made of wood in the history of humanity for future generations.

Written by Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com Staff Writer