With poetic language and striking illustrations, Weitzman tells the story of how one of the greatest boats of ancient Egypt came to be built-and built again. In the shadow of the Great Pyramid at Giza, the most skilled shipwrights in all of Egypt are building an enormous vessel that will transport Cheops, the mighty pharaoh, across the winding waterway and into a new world. Pharaoh's boat will be a wonder to behold, and well prepared for the voyage ahead. But no one, not even the Egyptian king himself, could have imagined just where the journey of Pharaoh's boat would ultimately lead.

Drawing on archaeological and literary evidence, Dilwyn Jones examines the importance of the boat in Egyptian ritual and belief, as well as in everyday life. The sun god was thought to travel across the sky in a solar boat, and Egyptians believed that the deserving might join the god Osiris in his divine bark after death. Boats played an important part in funerary ritual; models were often placed in tombs to provide the deceased with safe passage through the Winding Waterway in the underworld. Also, boats are frequently depicted in tomb paintings. The Nile has always been a vital transport artery for Egypt and boats the principal means of travel. Early papyrus skiffs gradually gave way to wooden craft of increasing size and sophistication, ranging from fishing boats and barges to seagoing warships, splendid ships of state and enormous obelisk barges used to transport stone to temples and monuments. Dilwyn Jones traces the development of the different types of boats and the techniques of their construction through the Old, Middle, and New Kingdom periods. The book is illustrated with photographs of boat models and paintings and with line drawings.

Traces the history of Egyptian civilization, which began in the Eastern Desert over six thousand years ago.

With poetic language and striking illustrations, Weitzman tells the story of how one of the greatest boats of ancient Egypt came to be built--and built again. In the shadow of the Great Pyramid at Giza, the most skilled shipwrights in all of Egypt are building an enormous vessel that will transport Cheops, the mighty pharaoh, across the winding waterway and into a new world. Pharaoh's boat will be a wonder to behold, and well prepared for the voyage ahead. But no one, not even the Egyptian king himself, could have imagined just where the journey of Pharaoh's boat would ultimately lead .s.s.