The Khufu solar barge c. 2,566 BCE - a cross-section model, scale 1:10 by Dan Pariser

[shipmodel]

Some thoughts on the construction of the Khufu solar barge derived by building an accurate scale cross section model.

By Dan Pariser

 

   First, thanks to all who have followed me from my prior build log of the SS Mayaguez.  Thanks as well for all the likes and comments and suggestions that this community provided on that project.

   As will be seen, this project is based on information, plans and drawings which have much less precision and certainty than when I was building that modern steel-hulled ship.  I invite and request that all of the readers of this log give me their comments and suggestions to improve the model and keep me from going too far astray.

 

Part 1 - background and research

 

     Ancient civilizations have always fascinated me, especially Pharaonic Egypt, whose culture and religion were so focused on death and the afterlife.  Other early peoples were certainly focused on death, mostly the death of their enemies in war, but this one was all about their own deaths.  Strange.

   

     Somehow though, this philosophy led to some the greatest architectural, engineering and artistic works of the dawn of history.  This was true in shipbuilding as well.  Since the land is dominated by the long, straight river Nile, boats were incredibly important to move people and goods up and down its narrow fertile valley.  Boats of all types are depicted on the walls of tombs and were taken into the afterlife as models which would magically become real for the use of the deceased when the right spells and chants were said. 

 

   One of the oldest of these, and the best preserved, is the solar barge or funerary boat of the Pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza.  (Figure 1) He wanted to take it with him into the afterlife, not as a model, but the actual boat.  To do this he had it fully built and then disassembled and buried in a sealed underground limestone crypt (Figure 2) next to his pyramid where it remained from about 2,560 BCE till being discovered in 1954, a span of over 4,500 years.  Yet because the seals had not been broken the wood was still in remarkably good condition. (Figure 3). 

   A team led by Egyptian archaeologist Dr. Hag Ahmed Youssef Moustafa spent 13 years putting back together its more than 2000 pieces.  The fully assembled boat was displayed in its own modern purpose built museum next to the Great Pyramid (Figure 4).  It has recently been moved to new quarters with better air conditioning in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

 

   The saga of the discovery and reconstruction has been documented by American historic marine construction expert Paul Lipke (Lipke) based on over a hundred hours of translated interviews with Dr. Moustafa and hundreds of photographs and drawings of the boat and its parts made during the reconstruction. (The Royal Ship of Cheops, British Archaeological Reports, 1984).   His fascinating and comprehensive report is mandatory reading for anyone interested in this iconic craft.  He reproduces dozens of photographs of the reconstruction process and gives precise measurements for many of the boat’s details.  He also drew preliminary scale plans of the boat. (Figure 5).  

    Many additional photographs can be found in the book, “The Boat Beneath the Pyramid” by Nancy Jenkins, another must-read source, while other drawings and plans were developed by famed marine archeologist Bjorn Landstrom in “Ships of the Pharaohs”.  The final source that was central to this article is “The Construction of the Khufu I Vessel (c.2566 BC): a Re-Evaluation” by Samuel Mark (Mark) of Texas A&M University, published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2009).

 

     From Lipke’s initial plans and measurements various drawings have been created of the boat which give a better idea of its particulars. (Figure 6).  As you can see, the boat itself has a striking shape.  It is quite long at 43.6m (142 feet), but with a breadth of only 5.9m (19 feet) at its widest point.  Its shallow draft is only 1.78m (6 feet) from keel to sheer, with a freeboard from waterline to sheer of less than a meter.   The boat tapers symmetrically to points at both ends which curve up high above the waterline with carved ends that reflect the shape of papyrus reed boats from the dawn of Egyptian history.  On deck is a lightly built deckhouse which may have housed the Pharaoh’s coffin and a small open altar near the bow.

 

     Its construction is unusual to us as well.  Hull planks, 12cm (5 inch) thick, are fitted to their neighbors with mortice and tenon joints.  The planks are then laced to each other with ropes that snake through “V” shaped tunnels chiseled into the interior faces of the planks.  Rounded battens cover the plank seams and are held in place with the same lashings. (Figure 7).   Multiple beams span the hull from sheer to sheer, locked in place and strengthened by two notched side stringers above the beams and a central spine below.  The central spine is supported on short stanchions which rest on frames which spread the deck loads to the bottom planks.  These too are held in place with rope lashings. (Figure 8).   Taken together, the wooden pieces and lashings form a truss structure which would have been quite strong and rigid.

 

     However, these cross sectional and perspective drawings are somewhat simplified and stylized.  There are also two cross section models that I know of, but they are also similarly simplified, although the one built for Texas A&M University is quite accurate in its general configuration. (Figure 9).  This is perhaps because no one has been able to accurately measure and draw plans based on the actual ship.  Even the plans drawn by Lipke were derived from a 1:20 scale model built by Dr. Moustafa to aid his reconstruction work. 

 

    Compared to photographs of the boat’s interior, the profiles in the drawings and the model are too high and steep, the planks are too regular, the battens covering the plank seams are too narrow, rounded and straight, the lashings are too regular, and the tunnels that the lashings go through are not accurately represented. (Figure 10).  Because of this, certain conclusions about construction methods and sequences have been made which are, in my opinion, somewhat inaccurate.

     I decided to attempt the construction of a precise scale cross section of a specific location in the boat to see if I could replicate a workable method and sequence for how it might have been built.  I also resolved to build it as was done by the Egyptians, with mortice and tenon joints, rope lashings, and, most of all, no other fasteners or glue. To do this, instead of relying on the prior drawings I went back to the original boat. 

  

     Although I have no access to the boat itself, there are photographs of the exterior planking and interior structures which are reproduced in the several sources mentioned before, as well as on the internet.  I am also indebted to Mr. Lipke who kindly provided me with others from his personal collection.  Then there are the drawings created by Dr. Moustafa from the boat pieces, as reproduced by Lipke and Mark.  Though many are noted as not being to scale, they are the closest to accurate drawings as can be found.  Wherever there was a conflict between the photos and the drawings, I went with the photos.  Finally, there are drawings on contemporary tomb walls showing boats under construction, as well as academic studies of contemporary boats which also informed my investigation, and which will be referenced later.  These were used a supplements to the first two.

 

     From these I selected one photograph which contained many of the construction details that I wanted to recreate.  Here is that shot, an interior view of the hull taken during reconstruction. I call it my Primary Photograph. (Figure 11). Contrasted with the simplified drawings and models, it shows planks of various widths and shapes, lashing holes in irregular patterns, and flat battens which are pieced together from short sections with angled ends.  Note the large triangular batten piece to the left which must cover seams between several planks. 

   

   Based on the photo I decided to build out the model from the line of lacing in the foreground to just beyond the dark frame, which would then include the large square batten pieces tied with crossed ropes that are sitting just in front of the frame. This would give the model sufficient visual interest for the viewer yet still allow my close adherence to traditional building methods.  

 

     Next time, the development of the working drawings.

 

     Be well

 

     Dan

 

    

[Jack12477]

I'm in, Dan ! 

[thibaultron]

I'll be following! Great research.

[mtaylor]

Fascinating.  I'm also in, Dan.

[druxey]

This is well worth looking forward to, Dan. Thanks for sharing your process.

 

I note the difference in mortices for the lashings between the battens on the ship itself and the cross sectional model. the lashings just appear and disappear again.

[shipmodel]

Hi all - 

 

Glad to have you along for the journey.  It will be a work in progress, both the writing and the building.

I have just hit a snag, though.  Not with the building, but with the writing.

I have tried to use only open-source photos and drawings, but the technical drawings from Lipke and Mark are under copyright.

I have contacted them and I expect permission soon, but I can't post my next segment until I do.  

 

Happy Thanksgiving to every one, American or not.

 

Dan

[shipmodel]

Hi again to all - 

 

Thanks for the likes and interest.

 

My next segment was going to be the development of my scaled and measured working drawings.  For the illustrations I need to include the copyright materials, for which I have only partial permissions.  So instead, this will be part 3, a discussion of Egyptian construction methods, moved up to part 2.  The sequence numbers for the images are therefore out of order, but they are all from open source websites.

 

Before cutting wood, I wanted to look into historic Egyptian shipbuilding.  I made a commitment on this model to build it by relying on the original Egyptian techniques, at least as closely as possible for only one workman building a miniature.  So here is a quick dip into the original techniques might have been in use at the time that the Khufu ship was built. 

 

I was fortunate in this regard with information from a remarkably preserved tomb which has a series of wall carvings that show boats under construction.  In the cemetery at Saqqara is the tomb, or mastaba, of Ti (or Ty).  He was a long serving senior official and royal architect during the Fifth Dynasty, only 100 years or so after the Fourth Dynasty, the time of Pharaoh Khufu.  The tomb was discovered in the late 1800s by French archaeologist August Mariette and has some of the best bas-relief carvings of daily life from Egypt’s Old Kingdom.  In one of the outer chambers is a unique carved wall showing five boats under construction and two side panels with men working on planks for the boats. (Figure 21). 

 

It is a shame that I could not find a color image of the wall, just some smaller sections, since the carvings and even the polychrome pigments have survived for all this time. (Figure 22 – ti wall detail).  

 

Ti is known to have been in charge of the decoration of the tombs of several Pharaohs, so he must have had a long career where he was perfectly placed to assign the best craftsmen to work on his own tomb.  In this close-up you can see that even individual fingers were delicately carved.  You can certainly see what the workmen are doing and the strange tools that they are using.  (Figure 23 – using adzes)

 

Here are a selection of the actual tools.  At the top is a large axe, with two different saws below it, while at the bottom left are several small awls and chisels.  In the middle is a bent wood bow for a drill.  The largest tool, the one the workmen are using, is an adze, like a plane blade mounted on a bent handle. (Figure 24 – tools).

 

In Figure 23, above, three workmen are using adzes to trim wood and to smooth the outside planks of the hull, a technique called dubbing that is still used today.  The quality of the carving is so high that you can see the subtle differences in the shapes of the adze handles to do the two different tasks.  In the hieroglyphics there are representations of several tools.  Above the upper worker is a short handled axe, a hatchet.  To the right of the feather is an awl or chisel.  Maybe the rest of the symbols are talking about that tool, but I have no idea.

 

In the next scene a man is doing some sawing with a weighted stick and rope that is holding the kerf in the workpiece open (or closed, it is not clear).  Two others are sitting on an upended plank and chiseling mortices into its edge.  Above them seem to be carved images of the two types of saws and another chisel. (Figure 25).

 

In the third detail image the first man is, I believe, using a two-handed sledgehammer.  A similar type of hammer is still used to drive in fence posts.  The second man, who seems to be left-handed, is holding an awl or a marking tool, it is impossible to tell.  In the carvings the only thing that might be a tool is the twisted rope at the top left.  But what the paired faces of the monkey and Alfred E. Newman are supposed to be saying, I truly have no idea. (Figure 26).

 

What does all this mean for my project?  That the ancient Egyptians built their boats with the same techniques that we would use if all the electricity were turned off.  They were not stupid or unsophisticated, and didn’t need the help of aliens to build boats or pyramids.  I feel confident that my use of similar techniques, but with a few power tools, will not compromise the historic accuracy that I am working to achieve.

 

More soon when I can post drawings.

 

Be well

 

Dan