16 March 2000 (morning, continued)

The Solar Boat museum as seen from a distance.

After our tour of the Great Pyramid we skirt around on foot to the Solar Boat Museum.

According to my official Museum of Cheops booklet, published by the Ministry of Culture, Egyptian Antiquities Organization, the present structure, which opened in 1982 and was built directly over the pit where the boat parts were discovered, “…brought a good deal of controversy, and all of it on the same topic — how is it possible to build a modern construction in the shadow of the Great Pyramid itself, without looking totally out-of-place?”

Indeed. What to do, what to do?

The less than prepossessing Solar Boat Museum.

Again, according to the booklet, “The problem was solved by the architect designing the project with an outer shell of steel-reinforced concrete and all the façade of transparent glass, to make it complement its stern surroundings as well as to conceal its vast size and unusual shape.”

The result is, of course, an aesthetic disaster; a big-butt ostrich of a museum with its head in the sand, pretending no one can see it. It sets my teeth on edge just looking at it, but my annoyance is quickly overcome by my desire to visit the boat.

Inside, we put thick cloth booties over our shoes to help cut down on dust and then see the enormous cavity that housed the boat. The ancient Egyptians carved a hole in the native rock and roofed it with forty-one gigantic, rectangular limestone blocks. The blocks were mortared together and then concealed under a layer of beaten earth, then further obscured by a wall.

Other boat pits — long empty — were well-known on the plateau, but this one and another went undetected until 1954, when archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh and his crew discovered them while clearing old dig dumps and wind-blown sand from around the southern side of the pyramid. It had been so perfectly sealed for those forty-five hundred years that the cedar smelled as pungent as the day it was tucked away.

Next, we examine a model of the boat and photos showing the reconstruction process. The challenge of puzzling out how the 1,223 pieces of the dismantled craft fit together fell mostly to one man: Ahmed Youssef Moustafa, Chief Restorer of the Department of Antiquities, who devoted fourteen years to the effort. Then we go upstairs and see the actual boat.

Khufu’s boat as viewed from the bow.

The cabin of Khufu’s boat, looking toward the stern.

There are two viewing levels in the museum, and from the lower level the boat looks like it’s floating in the air. The planks are surprisingly (to me) thick, and the bottom is quite flat. Bow and stern both rise in a steep curve and end in the form of a papyrus bud. It is stunningly beautiful.

The cabin of Khufu’s boat, looking toward the bow.

We go up to the second level, and from this vantage point can look down on the deck. The gangplank is quite wide — certainly wide enough to accommodate men carrying a coffin, if that was indeed its purpose. While some believe this was a sacred or “solar” barque, used only once to transport the king’s body in a funerary procession, Ahmed Youssef Moustafa believed wear on the timbers and other features showed the boat had been used many times. I’d like to think it was one of the king’s favorite yachts and a defiant thumb-of-the-nose at the “you can’t take it with you” mindset.

Monolithic simplicity of Khafre’s Valley Temple

After the Solar Boat Museum we get back on the bus and drive down to Khafre’s Valley Temple. Khafre succeeded his father Khufu, and his pyramid is the second largest on the plateau, rising to a height of 471 feet, just ten feet shy of the Great Pyramid. All of the Giza pyramids had both “Mortuary” and “Valley” temples linked by long causeways. The mortuary temples nestled against their respective pyramids, while the valley temples hugged the Nile. Khafre’s temple is the best preserved, built from colossal limestone blocks encased in granite.

We spend some time contemplating the gigantic blocks, then use the remains of Khafre’s causeway to march up to the Great Sphinx. The ol’ sphinx is free of scaffolding and looking good.

It is a fantastic day at Giza, with the pyramids in the distance and the paws of the sphinx resting in front of us. Never mind the brazen Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken directly across the street.

Great Sphinx, Giza