Egypt: Restoration begins on ancient boat after arrival at Grand Egyptian Museum

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The Grand Egyptian Museum began restoration and maintenance work on the boat of ancient Egyptian pharaoh King Khufu, ‘The Solar Boat’, on Tuesday in Giza, after it was moved to its new location in the museum, which is scheduled to open this year near the pyramids.

The boat was transported in a wooden box for safekeeping after parts of it were dismantled, and the museum’s restorers are currently working on sterilising and reinstalling it, in preparation for display in its own building.

A press conference was held inside the Egyptian Museum to explain the details and conditions of transporting the boat, and the technical method used to transport it from the place of its discovery in the pyramids to the Grand Egyptian Museum.

“We disassembled the parts that will be disassembled in front of you, these parts exactly, and they were packed very precisely. This took more than a month and a half - two months with great care. It is now in the Grand Egyptian Museum. And it’s excellently packaged,” said Atef Moftah, the museum’s general supervisor.

“The case of the boat is currently very, very excellent. The condition of the wood for the first boat is more than wonderful. It will be processed again, and we will see if some of the 1,224 pieces may need strengthening,” said Issa Zeidan, director-general of the restoration and transport of antiquities.
In ancient Egypt, the solar boats were buried in pits next to the royal burial chambers, in the belief that they would transport them to the afterlife.

The Egyptian government hopes the inauguration of the Grand Museum, along with other prominent discoveries made in recent years, may revive the stumbling tourism sector, which accounts for 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

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SOT, Issa Zeidan, Director General of the Restoration and Transfer of Antiquities at the Grand Egyptian Museum (Arabic): “The case of the boat is currently very, very excellent. The condition of the wood for the first boat is more than wonderful. It will be processed again, and we will see if some of the 1,224 pieces may need strengthening. Or sterilisation or chemical-mechanical cleaning, it will be preserved, as it is a relic of King Khufu.”

SOT, Issa Zeidan, Director General of the Restoration and Transfer of Antiquities at the Grand Egyptian Museum (Arabic): “After the boat arrived, it was put in a very excellent display environment, where there is environmental control of temperature, humidity and lighting, and we will do a second thorough disinfection of the boat. This was previously done on-site twice before the transfer process. We will do a comprehensive survey of the boat, to find out every piece in it of the 1,224 pieces and make restoration work for the pieces that need restoration. After that, we will reassemble the oars and put the captain’s cabin back in place.”

SOT, Issa Zeidan, Director General of the Restoration and Transfer of Antiquities at the Grand Egyptian Museum (Arabic): “The length of the boat is about 42.3 meters, and the maximum width of the boat is 5.66 meters. The boat contains 122 steering oars, a cabin for the captain and a cabin for the king. The boat is of course made of multiple kinds of wood, the most important of which is Lebanese cedar, of the many types of imported and local wood from which the boat was made.”

SOT, General Supervisor of the Grand Egyptian Museum, Atef Moftah (Arabic): “We did the following: we disassembled the parts that will be disassembled in front of you, these parts exactly, and they were packed very precisely. This took more than a month and a half - two months with great care. It is now in the Grand Egyptian Museum. And it’s excellently packaged. Typically wrapped to be preserved. The twelve oars plus the front and aft, plus the leader’s or captain’s cabin, plus the canopy. We also preserved the king’s cabin.”

#Egypt #Giza #KingKhufu #AncientBoat #GrandEgyptianMuseum

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