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Some say the vessel is a solar barge, used by the Pharoah during his daily voyages across the sky. Others say the ship was a funerary craft for transporting the Pharaohs body to the afterlife...
Among the many dazzling discoveries from Ancient Egypt were the solar ships and boat pits that were found. The most famous boat of all is the Khufu ship, which has been restored and preserved in the Giza Solar boat museum on the south side of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The Khufu ship, built for King Cheops, was one of the two boats to be discovered in 1954 by the Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh. Sealed in a pit at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Khufu had remained since around 2500 BC. Almost all of the boat was made of Lebanon cedar. All 1,224 pieces of the boat were reassembled with great care and attention over many years by Haj Ahmed Youssef, a conservator for the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation who led the team that painstakingly reconstructed the vessel.
It is thought that the Khufu was a solar ship, a mythological representation of the sun riding in a boat. Gven this context, the Khufu Ship may well have had a symbolic function as a sun boat, carrying the Pharoah to the afterlife.
The Khufu ship is one of the oldest, largest, and the best-preserved boats from antiquity. If placed in a lake or river, it would have no problem in being able to sail.
