Scholars will reconstruct ancient Egyptian wooden boat buried beside pyramid

Published Saturday July 19th, 2008

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CAIRO, Egypt - Archaeologists and scholars will excavate hundreds of fragments of an ancient Egyptian wooden boat entombed in an underground chamber next to Giza's Great pyramid.

Enlarge Photo

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Amr Nabil

Belgium tourists visit the ancient Pharaoh king Cheops' first solar boat during their visit to the boat museum at the Pyramids site in Giza, Egypt, Saturday, July 19, 2008.

They will then try to reassemble the craft.

The 4,500-year-old vessel is the sister ship of a similar boat removed in pieces in 1954 from another pit and painstakingly reconstructed.

Experts believe the boats were meant to ferry the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid in the afterlife.

Starting Saturday, tourists were allowed to view images from inside the second boat pit from a camera inserted through a hole in the chamber's limestone ceiling.

Professor Sakuji Yoshimura of Japan's Waseda University says the excavation of around 600 pieces of timber will begin in November.

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