Making a boat fit for a king

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine el-Aref)

Giza plateau was crowded on Monday as journalists, TV anchors, photographers and antiquities officials flocked to the northern side of King Khufu's Great Pyramid to witness Japanese scientists and archaeologists taking samples from different parts of Khufu's second solar boat, which is still buried in sand after 4,500 years. The boat's wooden beams are to be subjected to laboratory analysis to determine the types of fungi, insects and viruses that are affecting the boat, as well as the amount of deterioration that has taken place, so that an appropriate method can be selected to restore it and place it on display beside King Khufu's first boat, which is on display in a museum especially constructed for it on the plateau.

"This is the third phase of the five-year project to restore Khufu's second boat," Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim who told journalists. The first phase began 20 years ago, when in 1992 a Japanese scientific and archaeological team from Waseda University in collaboration with the Japanese government, offered a grant of $10 million to remove the boat from its original pit, restore and reassemble it and put it on show to the public.