Khufu Pyramid Ship

I have been interested in Egyptology for many years, and a few months ago I came across this book in my favourite second hand book shop, bought it and read it. It appealed to both of my interests in Egyptology and ships.

It is the oldest ship in existence.

It was found in 1952, buried in a stone chamber next to the base of the great pyramid of Cheops/Khufu. The ship was deliberately buried, carefully, in disassembled pieces. Complete, even with the ropes that joined the planks together. The wooden ship survived 4500 years, because the chamber was airtight, and the area receives very little rain.

The ship was excavated, and painstakingly reassembled over the next decade. The book pictured is largely about the known history of the ship, its reconstruction, and thoughts about its purpose.

It is a sizeable vessel… 43.6m (143′) long, 5.9m (19.5′) wide, 45-50 tonnes weight, made mainly of cedar from Lebanon. Powered with 24 oars, plus steering oars, but possibly towed by another vessel or from the river banks.

It is not an attractive shape in my eyes, but very interesting from a marine technical viewpoint. It does show evidence of having been actually used in water as a ship.

So, I wondered if it had been modelled, and in my Internet searches discovered a Japanese source of a wooden kit,, which I purchased.

1:72 scale. The laser cut parts, planking wood, etc were impressively well packaged, labelled, (in Japanese plus Arabic numbering). However the instructions were also in Japanese. A search of the site revealed that there were no non Japanese instructions. Thank heavens for Google Translate, which performed an almost flawless English version for me. However there was no means of saving the translation except by saving screen shots on my PC.

The kit sat unused for several months. I have been busy with Constitution, and other machine projects of which regular readers of this blog will be familiar. And I have been busy planning my scratch build of a 74 gun ship. But I have been waiting and waiting for some plans of the 74 to be copied and printed so I can make a start on the 74. Still waiting, (paper supply then printer problems). So I started on the kit build of the Khufu ship. This post is a pictorial summary of progress to date. 3 days work so far.

The laser cut parts are very accurate. The wood is spruce I think. Excellent quality. A simple job with a scalpel to cut the parts from the frames. The bulkheads and longitudinal pieces are temporary and are eventually broken out of the semi completed hull.
Bow and stern pieces fitted. Nothing glued yet.

Some stringers were fitted and glued to the frames, and the bottom plank was glued to the stringers. The bottom plank does not classify as a keel.

Stern and bow blocks fitted but not glued, then 4 more stringers glued to the frames and bow/stern blocks.
Steps so far had been completed quickly, but the stringers were fiddly and tricky and took a whole day.
The side planks were soaked in water to facilitate bendability, and glued to the frames. They did not require shaping. Again the laser cut outlines were accurate.
The bulkhead forms and longitudinal pieces were removed, broken out where necessary, just leaving the frames and planks and end pieces.
Starting to look like a hull. Mostly using CA glue so far, but later switched mainly to Gorilla Glue.
Assembled and shaped the prow and stern pieces. These are typical ancient Egyptian shapes, probably reflecting the shapes of papyrus reed boats.
The stern piece. Sanding will be required to merge the end pieces with the planking.
Some years ago I experienced a retinal detachment requiring surgery, then cataract surgery. Consequently everything which I see from one eye is wavy, no straight lines. So that is my excuse if the prow and stern pieces are not precisely lined up.

So far, the build has taken 3 days. Maybe 4-8 hours each day. I reckon that I am about half through the build.