Explore a Pharaoh's Boat
Purpose
Over a half century after the boat's discovery, scholars still debate its purpose. Some say the vessel is a solar barque, which Khufu would have used in his persona as the sun god Re during his daily voyages across the sky. Others feel the ship was a funerary craft for transporting Khufu's body on the Nile to the Giza necropolis or on a final pilgrimage to holy sites. (Here, a funerary barge as depicted in the Book of the Dead of Heruben.) Like much else surrounding this magnificent creation, its function remains an enigma.