Surely everyone remembers a picture from childhood: you open a box of pencils, take them out, sharpen them, and … a delicate woody aroma begins to hover in the air, slightly tart, resinous, unobtrusive. This is a cedar. Its wood is very durable, fragrant, not subject to decay, and the unique smell can be felt, as it turned out, for several hundred years. Yes, yes, it really is. The tree has been valued for its unique properties since ancient times. The cedar is also mentioned in the biblical writings. At that time, in addition to construction needs (beams, boards, material for building a fleet), cedar was extremely necessary for Egypt as a source of resin, which was part of the complex composition of balms for processing mummies. In Phenicia, cedar wood was used to build military and merchant sea vessels, so needed by Phenicia itself, then for the Persian fleet, and only then for the Arab.
Now let's turn to a very interesting story.
May 26, 1954 for the Egyptians was, most likely, an ordinary hot day, when everyone was busy with their own business, and someone, on the contrary, took a break from these very affairs. But this day has become a landmark for historians around the world. During archaeological excavations, under numerous layers of stones, sand and limestone, a unique object was discovered that is directly related to the history of Ancient Egypt - the Cheops' solar ship.
"Solar boat" - a view from the nose.
How did this happen? Everything is very simple. The Second World War has ended and the Egyptian government decides to put in order some of the pyramids, which were located near Cairo. Near Giza there is a magnificent complex of pyramids, which includes the pyramid of Cheops - the largest of the pyramids of Egypt.
It all started with an archaeological expedition working near neighboring tombs. A team of hired workers, clearing the sides of the pyramid of dirt and sand, worked tirelessly. Working diligently, they dumped the excavated earth at the foot of the Great Pyramid.
"Solar boat" - view from the stern.
Finally, only the south side remained uncleared. In spite of the fact that the earthen pile was already raised as a kind of waste heap about 20 meters high, the workers had no right to use the equipment, as they risked catching and, God forbid, destroying something valuable and unique. Spatulas, hoes, brushes - this is the whole set of tools that could be used with great care in excavations.
View of the middle part and the "cabin".
As the excavations continued, archaeologists discovered a number of carefully hewn sandstone blocks. The row was about 5 meters wide and 60 centimeters thick. The total number of stones was 40. It followed that there might be something behind them.
"Pit" in which the boat was buried. By now, the same storage facilities have been discovered, both empty and with one more rook.
On one of the stones, slightly towering above the others, Mallah, the first who saw the boat, noticed the hieroglyph meaning the name of the pharaoh "Djedefra". Jedefra was the son of Cheops. The archaeologist suggested that there may be a pit with a boat under the layer of stones. Several fragments of wood dug up and rotting pieces of rope indicated that a ship once lay here. To be convinced of the correctness of the hypothesis, several more objects or their fragments were needed, and therefore the workers began to excavate even more energetically.
And here is the resting place of the boat Khufu - the Museum of the Sun Boat.
Towards noon, the diggers were finally able to make a hole in the layer of stones. The midday sun was so bright that it blinded the eyes, and Mallah saw absolutely nothing in that hole. To make out at least something in the dark, I had to use a pocket mirror. Mallah directed a sunbeam into the hole and, peering into it, tried to look at something that snatched a ray of light from the pitch darkness. This "something" turned out to be the blades of a long rowing oar. And before the blades, a subtle, barely perceptible, delicious aroma of incense, whose age was almost five thousand years, escaped free. The most striking of them was the scent of the cedar tree, from the wood of which, according to scientists, the ship was built. Looks like Fortune has turned to face the artifact seekers!
The construction of a completely unusual architecture, to be sure!
A fragment of the ship's side plating was taken for examination, which was taken to the chemical laboratory of the British Museum. The laboratory confirmed that this is the cedar wood of the Cheops era, which is also perfectly preserved. Due to the fact that the pit was covered with stones and plastered over, the tree was not exposed to external influences. Thanks to this, the ship lay in the ground for more than one thousand years and is perfectly preserved. In order to preserve such a unique find intact, a canopy was erected over the pit, then a crane was fitted. The work on the transportation of stones lasted for two months.
After the ship was taken out of the ground, it was handed over to the restorers. Here the first difficulties began to arise. The chief restorer of Egyptian artifacts, Hajj Ahmed Youssef Mustafa, had to deal with a number of problems that, in principle, were inevitable. The vessel consisted of several parts. And this "constructor" had to be assembled. Only a small detail interfered with this: none of the scientists working there knew at all in what order all this should be collected.
"There is a shadow here!"
Before proceeding with the assembly, each fragment should, according to the rules, be photographed (or sketched) as detailed as possible, from all sides. After all the fragments were sketched on paper or photographed, it was allowed to remove them from the pit and immediately treat them with chemicals, since an unprocessed object that had lain in the ground for more than one thousand years could crumble into dust in an instant.
Unfortunately, Mustafa did not have special literature on assembling fossil fragments. I had to rely on my own intuition. After making copies of all 1224 parts to a certain scale, he enthusiastically set to work. The work was creative. Having carefully studied the wall bas-reliefs on which the ancient Egyptian ships were depicted, and after examining the fragments of the ship, they came to the conclusion: the planks of the sheathing in those days were fastened together with a rope, several long pieces of which were found in the same pit. The technology for fastening the boards was great in its simplicity: the rope was threaded through a small hole, which was made in the board on its wide side, and it exited through the rib, so that the rope was not visible from the outside at all. The know-how was amazing at its core: sheathing boards seemed to be laced to one another! Moreover, the lacing was very tight, in accordance with the "requirements" of the construction of ships of those times. The ropes had to hold the boards firmly so that they would not come apart, and, in addition, the wooden sheathing a priori had to not let water through. This was the main rule of the "shipbuilders" of those times, and today too.
As a result, the restoration work lasted as much as fourteen years, because at first no one really knew in what order and how the wooden parts that made up the ship should be connected and then fastened together. Mustafa had to make five versions of the ship's model before finding something suitable. The rebuilt ship was over 43 meters long and almost 6 meters wide. The displacement of the vessel was 45 tons. The ship had two cabins. Scientists determined that the draft of the boat was 1.5 meters, which is not much for a sea vessel, and hence the conclusion that the ship was intended to sail exclusively along the Nile. The movement of the boat was to be provided by five rowers, who had at their disposal five pairs of oars, different in length.
And this is how its discoverers worked on the assembly of the ship.
The very fact that the vessel was used for passage along the Nile also did not raise any doubts. The fact is that traces of river silt were found on the fastening ropes, which eloquently testified that the vessel was used specifically for river transportation, because there is only one river in Egypt.
There was one more circumstance due to which the work on the reconstruction of the ship took so much time. The fact is that the structure of the ship's hull is absolutely different from what we see today. Its essence is as follows: all current ships and even the Viking boats had as their basis a keel - a bar running along the entire bottom of the ship. Frames were attached to it - a kind of "ribs" of the hull, the contours of which set a certain profile for the ship. Here was a completely unique case: the Solar boat of Cheops lacked both the keel and frames! Unbelievable but true! And the ship was assembled elementary: board to board, as if someone was putting together a giant mosaic, of course, in a strictly defined sequence. Hence, it becomes clear the reason why the Egyptians found it so difficult to decide to go long distances by sea: storms, powerful waves could instantly break such a "puzzle" into pieces. And therefore, the Egyptians invited Phoenicians to sail around the African continent, and perhaps they sailed this way using their ships, made, as you know, from the same famous cedar tree that they mined in Lebanon.
The gods of Egypt sailed on such ships.
The ship of Cheops was probably intended as a ritual vehicle for transporting the body of the pharaoh from Memphis to Giza. It was easier to transport him along the Nile, and therefore the ship was dragged down the river in tow. And after the mummy of the son of the god Ra arrived at the place, the ship was immediately disassembled and buried.
It is worth noting that the Nile was and, incidentally, remains for the Egyptians a river of "strategic importance", without which there would be no life in the hot sands of Egypt. It is both a source of moisture for all living things and a vehicle. That is why the ancient Egyptians considered the Nile a sacred river.
Since the Nile flows from south to north, the ships of the Egyptians went downstream without a sail, and with a raised sail they went up, against the current. It is curious that even in the writing of the Egyptians this was reflected. The image of a boat with a sail meant "sail south", and without a sail - "go with the flow" or "sail north". The ancient Egyptians were firmly convinced that the sun god Ra daily traverses the heavenly path in his solar boat, and at night he also swims across the Underworld.
This is how the Egyptian ships looked like, on which the Egyptians sailed to the country of Punt.
The restored ship has been perfectly preserved to this day. And so that descendants could see this miracle, scientists did everything (and even more!) To keep it safe and sound. In the place where archaeologists found it, a special museum of original architecture was built. Every year it attracts a considerable number of tourists who come to Egypt to gawk at its wonders.
If you are in the Valley of the Pyramids, be sure to visit this unusual museum. After all, the pharaoh's ship, which found its refuge here, undoubtedly deserves that every lover of antiquity would spend a little of his time to pay tribute to the memory of Khufu himself and the ancient shipbuilders who built such an amazing ship, which to this day remains one of the the most unusual monuments of the "era of the pharaohs".
