Cheops ship details

Cheops 1 is 42 m long. The hull is flat- or slightly round-bottomed, built "shell first" with cedar-wood planks joined edge to edge by "mortise-and-tenon" fashion and fixed together with rope. It has 10 oars but no mast or sail.

The ship is papyriform, imitating a papyrus boat, with the bow and stern ends formed as papyrus bundles.

bow from port side

bow from starboard, gangway visible on left side

stern from starboard, the deck cabin has two rooms each with its own door

stern detail with steering oars

bow detail, the little roof ahead of the oarsmen is for the captain

the flat keel consists of a wide plank

the cabin's double roof would be covered with e.g. canvas, splashed with water, making a simple air conditioning

a rope joint fixes each oar to the hull

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all text and photos by Per Åkesson, May 2004

Reference

  • Museum of Cheops boat (Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities 1997)

  • IJNA 15.2 1986

  • Skyllis 1.1999

  • Björn Landström: Seglande skepp (1969)

Links

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