Expedition to the ancestors. The most important “solar boat” and its structure
Transporting the solar boat from the foot of the Khufu pyramid to the new museum
Glory to you, Osiris, God of Eternity, king of the gods,
whose names are countless, whose incarnations are holy.
You are the hidden image in temples;
the soul-double will always be sacred to visiting mortals. Hymn to Osiris. Ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead"
whose names are countless, whose incarnations are holy.
You are the hidden image in temples;
the soul-double will always be sacred to visiting mortals. Hymn to Osiris. Ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead"
Artifacts stories. Not long ago, several articles appeared on VO devoted to the ships of Ancient Egypt, and in particular to the “solar boats” of the pharaohs, on which they were supposed to be transported to the afterlife. And... all these materials collected a lot of comments of various kinds. And a number of readers asked to continue and develop this topic, they found it so interesting. The conversation also turned to the architectural features of the Nile ships, and this topic was also approved by VO readers for its further continuation.
Well, this time we will have to start a little from afar and remind our readers that the same pyramids of Egypt did not arise out of nothing and immediately in the form in which they are usually talked about. The first was the step pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser at Saqqara. Moreover, it began as a traditional rectangular mastaba, but its builder Imhotep, adding more and more steps in the shape of a mastaba, achieved that he gave his design a pyramidal shape.
Interestingly, Djoser's royal vizier Imhotep was not only one of the first recorded architects of ancient times, but among his dozens of titles he also held the title of overseer of the pharaoh's shipyard. That is, it was also related to shipbuilding!
After the completion of the first pyramid, the Egyptians continued to hone their building skills. Moreover, by the end of the third dynasty, the pharaoh became the sole focus of all Egyptian life. The so-called "Palermo Stone" is known to record the most important events in the lives of the pharaohs from the first to the fifth dynasties, so it can serve as a useful reference point for our discussion of early Egypt.
Moreover, on the “Palermo Stone” there are records of several pharaohs, each of whom made several trips around the country to conduct a census of the population and tax it. And the people easily obeyed him, and all because the second pharaoh of a united Egypt accepted a title that combined the names of Nekhbet and Wadjet, goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt, respectively. He became the key to maintaining Ma'at, the Egyptian perception of truth, justice and order in society.
And Pharaoh Snefru even took the title “netjer nefer”, which literally meant “perfect god”, and built three pyramids at once - “Broken”, “Red” and “Pyramid in Meidum”.
And just like that, the “Palermo Stone” contains a description of the ships he built from wood, 100 cubits long, and 60 boats, sixteen cubits long. Moreover, one of the 100-cubit boats received the name “Praise of Two Lands” - a direct allusion to the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.
The stone also reports that Sneferu saw "the arrival of forty ships of cedar wood", which is sometimes interpreted as "ships laden with cedar wood". In any case, this description is seen by many historians as a reference to trade with Lebanon or Byblos as it was called in ancient times.
Bas-relief from the tomb of dignitary Ti at Saqqara: construction of a boat
That is, it was Sneferu who started the “Golden Age of Pyramids” of the fourth dynasty and the construction of ships made of cedar wood (and not acacia blocks, by no means!), but it was his son Khufu who built the Great Pyramid in Giza and... buried at least two of them there rooks.
If some seer or visitor from the future could have warned Khufu that his tomb would be plundered immediately after burial, but that his burial ships would remain hidden from people for entire millennia, he might have changed his burial plan. But he was not given any advice for the future, and everything happened as it happened.
“Solar boat” in the museum at the foot of the pyramid of Khufu - oars, which, when transporting the pharaoh’s mummy, his entourage had to hold on to, expressing their devotion to the deceased. Naturally, the boat itself was in tow
What happened was that they began to clear the sand from the base of Khufu’s pyramid and found the remains of the wall that surrounded it on all sides. The existence of the wall was known even before work began, that is, before 1954, and this discovery only confirmed the assumption that this wall originally extended around the entire pyramid.
But the fourth wall was built 5 meters closer to the base than the others, and no one understood why this was so. This was only realized by a young archaeologist named Kamal el-Mallah, who came to the conclusion that this wall was built closer to the pyramid in order to hide something that was under the surface of the plateau.
Mallah said he had long been interested in boat pits associated with other Fourth Dynasty pyramids: five empty boat pits were found carved into the rock near the Funerary Temple of the Pyramid of Khafre, also located on the Giza Plateau. Boat pits were also present at other Fourth Dynasty pyramid sites, not to mention the three empty boat pits that had already been discovered around the base of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.
Bottom of the “solar boat”
Mallah workers continued to excavate the unique wall running along the southern base of the Great Pyramid and, going down to the rock, made a shocking discovery. The wall was built on a layer of compressed rubble and mud, forming a plaster-like surface. Even more sensational was Mallah's discovery that beneath the surface of the plaster was a mixture of cement-like mortar, which was used as a binder by the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom.
Steering oars with large blades were certainly used for their intended purpose
It must be said that the Antiquities Service did not share his enthusiasm at all and very reluctantly gave permission to drill one hole in one of the slabs he dug out from under this mortar. And on May 26, 1954, Mallah did just that.
A dark space was revealed, in which there was clearly something worthy of attention. Therefore, excavations were continued. They were carried out carefully so as not to split the stone slabs, which could collapse on any precious treasure hidden underneath them.
After digging two meters below the surface, they reached a rocky outcrop. We now know that this ledge ran the entire length of each side of the huge pit and served as a shelf on which massive stones could rest. Having reached this ledge, Mallah realized that they were already close to the opening.
Years later, recalling the day when he finally opened the hole into the historical pit, Mallah wrote:
“I closed my eyes. And then, closing my eyes, I smelled the incense, a very holy, holy, holy smell. I smelled time... I smelled centuries... I smelled history. And then I was sure that the boat was there.”
His premonition came true: the boat was really there. And not just any boat, but a boat that is undoubtedly the largest and best preserved example of an ancient ship.
The cabin in which the pharaoh's mummy was supposed to be located
Mallah's discovery of the boat pit provoked two significant events at once.
Firstly, it caused a storm of national and even international interest.
Secondly, it brought about a very long conservation process, since the ancient wood had to be preserved at any cost.
Just a few days after Mallah made the first hole in the pit, a Life magazine photographer stuck his camera into it and took one of the first photographs of what lay buried on the outskirts of Khufu's pyramid. In the foreground of the photo you can see one of the ship's pointed oars, lying on neatly stacked planks. In the background, at the far end of the pit, a pile of rubble can be seen, as well as dust and debris scattered across the reed mats covering them. It was a truly historic photograph of parts of the ship that had lain underground for so long.
Model of Khufu's boat with part of the deck removed for demonstration, which clearly shows the method of fastening its planks
The task of putting them together fell to the chief conservator of the Antiquities Service, a man named Ahmed Youssef Mustafa. But he was forced to wait until they were all removed from the pit, and the process of safely removing them took... several months.
A giant canopy was erected around the pit and all the limestone slabs were removed using cranes. However, once each was removed, the team placed a similar-sized wooden roof over the pit, covered with waterproof fabric, to keep moisture in the pit and prevent the wood from warping.
Six months after the discovery, the last stone block was removed, but another full year passed before Ahmed Mustafa could begin dismantling the ship's parts and preparing them in a restoration shed built nearby.
By the end of June 1955, he was able to begin the painstaking process of cataloging each item as it was removed. He photographed each layer, making a composite photograph of the layer so he knew exactly where each piece was placed by the people who buried it, and as the removal process progressed, he began to notice a logical sequence in the placement of the pieces.
Appropriate measures were taken to ensure that nothing was lost that could be saved, and the result was that after two years of work the pit was finally empty.
In total, 1 individual parts were discovered, from the largest plank and bowsprit to small decorative details that decorated the cabins.
Having laid out the parts in his workshop, Ahmed Mustafa began assembling the ship, which was originally intended to be reassembled in the afterlife. And then he noticed that the parts of the boat bear images of four types of signs and realized that in this way the Egyptians divided the hull of the ship into four parts: two left ones (bow and stern) and two right ones, also bow and stern, which made assembly much easier for him this... puzzle.
It is important to understand the fact that before the discovery of Khufu's ship, almost nothing was known about the internal structure of Egyptian boats and ships. Herodotus mentions in passing the fact that Egyptian ships did not have “internal fins,” but many historians have rejected this fact.
And so, having started assembling the ship and seeing repeating markings on many of its individual parts, Ahmed Mustafa began to little by little understand how this ship was constructed.
The modern method is to start from the inside of the ship, where the keel is used as the basis for a frame of frames, to which the planking is then attached. Khufu's ship, like many ships of the Ancient World, was built completely differently: construction began with the outer skin and moved on to a reinforcing frame without frames. This method is often called the "shell first" method or the "edge joining" method, both names being taken literally.
Builders began construction of the hull by joining irregularly shaped planks together along their long edges, achieving a hull shape typical of a boat. The edge-joined planks of Khufu's ship are also a prime example of the ancient technique of using mortise and tenon to join planks together. In this case, slits were made on the long edges of the boards, and the boards were fastened together using tenons, which were a wooden strip that fit equally into both slots and prevented the boards from slipping.
One way or another, all the boards were secured with these grooves and tenons, and reeds were placed between the edges of the boards as caulk. Because the reeds expanded when wet, they worked well as a tight water barrier while the ship was in the river. On the inside of the body, along the inner seam of each edge of the board, there was a wooden support strip, which was a wooden rod flat on one side.
V-shaped holes were then cut into the inside edge of each board at regular intervals. The hole was not punched all the way through, and this allowed the builders to further strengthen the joint of the boards, since they could thread rope through holes running perpendicular to the edge of each board and secure the wooden support battens tightly along the seams.
In the description it looks somewhat abstruse, but the photograph clearly shows the structure of the bottom of such a ship and all its fastenings.
View of the inside of the "shell" of Khufu's ship at the Giza Museum. All the features of the rope fastenings of the hull parts are clearly visible
Another image of the various construction methods used to waterproof Khufu's ship. In practice, the design of Khufu's ship was quite ingenious because as soon as the boat was lowered into the water, the wood swelled and the lashings along the internal structure contracted, tightening the fastenings even further and keeping the ship watertight for the Nile journey.
And such a ship could easily be disassembled, transported overland, and then reassembled for return to the next body of water.
Internal structure of Khufu's ship: the hull planks are held together partially by pegs (1), but more importantly, by a system of ropes threaded through seam holes (2) and not extending to the outer surface of the boat. Long, thin hemispherical slats (3) are fixed in an arc so that caulking is unnecessary. Frames (4), inserted into the hull to strengthen it, support a series of struts (5), which in turn carry the weight of a central beam or stringer (6) running the entire length of the ship. Beams or deck beams (7) are inserted into the grooves of the stringer. Side shelves (8), similar to the central stringer, rest on the sides and provide additional rigidity to the hull structure
It is clear that even after the Egyptians began building wooden ships, they still deliberately sought to recreate the style and shape of their first watercraft, the papyrus boats. Khufu's ship is a perfect example of this, as the curved ends of the hull resemble the shape of curved bundles of papyrus.
We see this homage to papyrus not only in the silhouette of the ship, but also in the small decorative details of the papyrus bud carved on the columns of the ship's cabin, or in the imitation of the rope fastenings of the papyrus reed raft that we see on the bow of the ship.
This ship was built with traditions in mind, but none of them associated with Ancient Egypt were more important than its religious rituals.
The shape of the boards from which the body was assembled. Now it’s not a problem to cut them out of thin wood with a laser or on a CNC machine, but then I simply can’t imagine how to assemble an authentic model with a length of, say, 30 cm from them, and I won’t undertake this task!
Then we must ask the questions: what motivated the Egyptians to build such a magnificent ship? And why did they only use it once and then bury it?
By the way, there is evidence of its use.
Rope markings on some parts of the wood indicate that they were likely immersed in water for a short period of time, allowing the wood to swell and the ropes to leave their marks on them.
However, all the answers to these questions can be easily found if you get acquainted with the Pyramid Texts. These texts were found inside Old Kingdom tombs and sarcophagi dating from the 5th and 6th dynasties. Their detail and widespread use in tombs suggests that these texts must have existed before they were written down, just as oral traditions always lead to written traditions.
Thus, it turns out that these religious concepts were present in the thinking of the Egyptians even at the time when Pharaoh Khufu was buried in Giza. The Pyramid Texts indicate that the sky is separated from the earth by a body of water. After death, the pharaoh's path to heaven lay through water, and the person who took him there was a certain ferryman.
The Pyramid Texts 263 mentions “two celestial rafts of reeds” that were “set up for Ra so that he could cross on them to the horizon.” Statements 300 to 311 describe the carrier himself and explain to the pharaoh that in order to board his ship, he needs to know the names of its parts and ... all the names of the carrier himself.
By the way, there were two pits with ships near the pyramid, but the western pit was ignored.
It was only in 1987 that radar research revealed the presence of a second boat in the western pit. That same year, archaeologists drilled a hole in its roof to insert a tiny camera into it and photograph the wooden planks. However, it was only recently, in 2008, that more than $10 million was raised to begin work on its extraction and restoration.
In 2011, workers began removing the stone lining of the pit, and even then it took another two years before the boat began to be removed in June 2013. It was necessary to lift approximately 600 fragments discovered during scanning from the pit.
So the second ship was smaller than the first, so experts expect the restoration process to take another four years.
However, the discovery of this second ship is very important. Indeed, in order to transport Khufu to the next world, exactly two ships were required: one for the day, and the other for the night...
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