Other Features of the Giza Plateau

The Funerary Boat

In 1954, the Giza site yielded yet another technological masterpiece. Kamal al-Mallakh, then Antiquities Director of the Giza plateau, discovered two pits cut into the rock on the South side of the Great Pyramid. Each of these pits was about 30m long, and was covered with 41 large blocks of limestone, each weighing about 18 tons, sealed with a thick layer of mortar. When the blocks were lifted, they revealed a large, dismantled cedarwood boat, its 1,224 constituent parts neatly and systematically stacked up in 13 layers, with the largest single piece being 23m long, down to the smallest at just 10cm.

This boat was carefully restored and reconstructed above the pit in which it was found, and now stands in the "Boat Museum", an ugly-looking modern structure on the South side of the Great Pyramid.

The construction of this boat is interesting; the many cedarwood pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, and are held together by rope threaded through the inside, in other words it is sewn together! The practical result of this is that when the boat was in the water, the wood swelled and the rope shrunk, creating the necessary watertight seal.

It is the design of the boat however, that poses the most questions. With its characteristic high prow and stern, it is clear that this boat was designed to sail in the open seas. It is worth reminding ourselves that the ancient Egyptians were not regarded as a seafaring race like the Phoenicians, but here they are in posession of a vessel, to quote one expert "...with prow and stern soaring upward...to ride out the breakers and high seas, not to contend with the little ripples of the Nile."  In fact, this boat's design makes it a much more seaworthy craft than any ship available to Columbus when he undertook his voyages of discovery, (or re-discovery) nearly 4,000 years later.

The unanimous opinion of Egyptologists points to a symbolic purpose for the boat, alledging that it symbolises the dead pharaoh's journey in the afterlife. I find this hard to believe. Apart from the complex and unmistakably practical nature of its design, there is also evidence that the boat was used extensively, and sailed in open seas; the wooden gangplank is deeply scarred and worn at the edge which would have rested on the shore, and on the hull are scarred marks which have been identified as being caused by grounding on coral.  But whatever the arguments as to function, there can be no doubt that this boat is another stunning example of high technology in ancient Egypt, standing out from the accepted history like the preverbial sore thumb.