Ancient pharaonic boat taken to Egypt’s grand new museum

CAIRO: Egypt has transported the Pharaoh Khufu’s intact solar boat dating back some 4,600 years to the country’s soon to be unveiled grand museum, the antiquities ministry said on Saturday.

Solar boats were buried in pits next to royal burial chambers in the belief that they would transport the departed into the afterlife.

Cairo’s Great Pyramid -- also known as the Pyramid of Cheops -- is the largest of the three Giza pyramids and houses Khufu’s tomb.

"After... crossing the streets of Giza on a smart vehicle, the first boat of King Khufu discovered in 1954 at the southern corner of the Great Pyramid has terminated its long journey to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM)," a ministry statement said.

The boat was commissioned by Khufu, a Fourth Dynasty monarch who ruled during the Old Kingdom. The ministry boasted that the 42-metre (138-foot) long and 20-tonne solar boat is "the biggest and oldest organic artifact made of wood, in the history of humanity".

Its journey on a special remote-controlled vehicle imported from Belgium began late on Friday and took 10 hours, the official MENA news agency reported.