We have Dr. Bob
Brier, recognized as one of the most
distinguished Egyptologists. And senior research fellow
at the CW Post campus of Long Island University. He conducts pioneering research
in mummification practices. And he's investigated some
of the world's most famous mummies, including King
Tutankhamen, Vladimir Lenin, Ramesses the Great, Eva
Peron of Evita fame, Marquise Dai, the Chinese
noblewoman, and the Medici family of Renaissance Italy. You know, with midterms
coming up next week, I can't help thinking this is
a great discussion question. What do these mummies
have in common? [LAUGHING] In 1994, Dr. Brier became the
first person in 2,000 years to mummify a human cadaver
using the exact techniques of the ancient Egyptians. This research was the subject
of a National Geographic TV special titled Mr. Mummy. He was the host of several award
winning television specials for TLC, including Pyramids,
Mummies, and Tombs and Mummy Detective. More recently,
National Geographic TV presented his research
in a documentary called Secrets of
the Great Pyramid, discussing a new theory of
how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Dr. Brier's research has been
featured in such media venues as CNN, 60 minutes,
and the New York Times. His most recent book
is Cleopatra's Needles, The Lost Obelisks of Egypt. That's 2016. But there's a long trail of
publications before that one, including Egyptomania,
Our 3,000 Year Obsession With the Land of the
Pharaohs, in 2013, The Secret of the
Great Pyramid, How One Man's Obsession Led to the
Solution of Ancient Egypt's Greatest Mystery, 2009,
The Murder of Tutankhamen, 2005, Encyclopedia of Mummies,
1998, Egyptian Mummies, Unraveling the Secrets
of an Ancient Art, 1996. And that is just a sampling. That is not even all of it. So tonight, though,
it's all about Giza, one of my favorite
places on earth. And it's all about boats. So without further
ado, please welcome Mr. Mummy, Dr. Bob Brier. [APPLAUSE] Thanks, Peter. I should correct him, though. It may not be right
that I'm Mr. Mummy. When National Geographic
did this documentary about the mummification project,
they titled it Mr. Mummy. I had nothing to
do with the title. And we were talking
about it, and I think it refers to the
mummy rather than me. I think they would've said Dr.
Mummy if it was me, I think. But anyway, what I'd
like to talk to you today about it is a project I'm
working on now, just beginning. And it involves one of
the great discoveries of the 20th century, one of the
great archaeological discovers, the Cheops boat. But let me give you a
little bit of background. This is-- this will work. It was found on the
Giza plateau, which is a World Heritage site
and houses the only one of the seven wonders of the
ancient world still standing, the Great Pyramid of Giza. All right? But it's a lot more
than the pyramid-- I got to get used to this thing. There. There are plenty of
other pyramids here. And let me explain why
my slide, my title slide, said Cheops boat, But the
poster said Khufu boat, right? The pyramids, the big ones-- let me do it here. I think it's going to work. Let's see. Wait. Yeah. Now, this is the Great
Pyramid of Giza here. Right? Now, it's called both Cheops
pyramid and Khufu's pyramid. His mama called
him Khufu, right? That was this ancient
Egyptian name. But when the Greeks
came in the name was corrupted by the
Greeks to Cheops. And when the boat was discovered
it was called the Cheops boat, though it was built
by the pharaoh Khufu, right? And for 50 years it's been
called the Cheops boat. So I sort have a
tendency to keep calling it the Cheops
boat, though it's built by the pharaoh Khufu. All right? So anyway, there are plenty of
pyramids on the Giza Plateau, also. But there's more. Now, it's a cemetery,
the Giza Plateau, and one of the important
features is here. This is a cemetery, right? These are mastabas. It's Arabic for bench. Each one is an individual tomb
where the nobles and royals were buried. There's an eastern
and Western cemetery. Right? And if you go closer
in, this is what it looks like from the ground. It's a city of the
dead, literally streets where you can walk. And you can go in and
visit these places. This is an example of one
of the mastabas right? And if you really want
to see details of these and can't go to Egypt, go
to Harvard Giza Project. I think that will do it. I did it that way. And you can-- they have
everything archived. You can actually take
almost a walking tour through the mastabas. You can see all the details. It's really a
wonderful thing to do. So the pyramid is not
the only thing there. There's an awful lot more. Now, it's all about death,
the whole Giza Plateau. It's all about death. And there are mummies
in the mastabas We're looking, by the way, at
the mummy of Ramses the Great. All right? This is probably the
only face from the Bible you will ever see. He's probably the
pharaoh of the Exodus. Now, the reason we
have the pyramids, and the mastabas, the tombs,
is their belief in life after death. The Egyptians were
Resurrectionists They believed that
the body was literally going to get up and go
again in the next world, so you had to preserve it. And that's why we have mummies. Right? Now, where was the body
going to go when it got up and, you know, resurrected? The answer was in the west. The west was always
associated with death. The son died in the west And
was reborn in the east, right? So even when the Egyptians
died, they had the phrase, he went west. And the dead people were
referred to as Westerners. Kind of like our euphemism
when we say he passed on, it's quite similar. Right? Or the dearly departed
is going on a trip. It's similar. So everything on
the Giza Plateau pretty much relates
to death in some way. Now, how are you going
to get to the West? Right? How are you going
to get to the West? Well, the Egyptians
really only had one way of traveling
long distances, by boat. By boat. They weren't a desert people. They didn't have camels. That's a later introduction. So if you wanted to go
anywhere by distance, you had to take a boat. So the Egyptians believed that
the pharaoh, when he died, like Ramses, when he went
West, he would go by boat. Right? Actually, he'd go by two boats. He had one boat
for the night sky, and one boat for the day sky. So it's also all about boats. And you'll see. But that's not what we're
going to talk about yet. OK. Now, what I'm
interested in is here. Let me see if I can show you. Yeah. This pit here. I think you can
all see it, right? And there's another one here. These are boat pits. On the Giza Plateau, boats
were buried with the pharaohs. Now, these pits are
empty, as you can see. And they were empty
throughout modern times. The wood was robbed. We think there
were boats in them. We think. Never found the boat on the
Giza Plateau up until 1954. We think there
were boats in them. Not sure exactly
what the use was. But they were robbed because
wood was very valuable in ancient Egypt. It was worth a fortune. So no boats found
yet, until 1954. Let me show you what a boat
looks like-- a boat pit. That's up close. That's the boat. All right? Now, if you look over
here, straight lines. These are walls. The pyramids had walls
around them, enclosure walls. The idea was to keep
the riff raff out. This was a pharaoh's burial. You weren't supposed to
be walking in and out. So they were enclosure walls. And in 1954, a young
architect working for the Egyptian
Antiquities Service, was given the job of removing
one of the enclosure walls around the Great
Pyramid of Khufu. And he started his work. And he was an architect, so
he's taking measurements, careful measurements. And he discovered that
three of the walls were the same distance
from the pyramid, but the fourth wall was
a little bit closer. And he wondered why. And when he removed the wall,
he discovered the Cheops boat. Under the wall by
the wall was a pit. And this is what it
looked like somewhat. These are limestone blocks
covering the top of the pit. And inside was the
boat, looking like this. All right? It's in pieces intentionally. Hasn't fallen apart. It was placed that way. 13 layers, all right? And it's basically
like a big model boat kit with no instruction. [LAUGHTER] All right? And it's kind of daunting. I mean, you look at it
you say, how are you going to put this baby together? Now, fortunately, the pit
was virtually airtight. So the boat-- the wood still
had about 99% of its moisture. So it was strong. It wasn't fragile. It could be moved. And there was a possibility
of putting it together. Now, the man who put it
together is a bit of a hero and a legend in the
field, Haj Ahmed. He was a conservator,
a wood conservator. Really good. Very patient man. And it took two years to take
the pieces out of the pit. And it took him another 10 to
put the boat back together. All right? He interned at boat
yards in Alexandria, learning how they made ships. He carved models. And then he started
putting it together. Let me give you an idea of
what it looked like as he's putting it together. So he's built a shed. And he's got the boat, and
they're putting together. Now, the construction
of the boat was unusual. Egyptian boats are not
made the way we make boats. This is called a sewn boat. I think you can see
all of the holes-- let me see if I can
find it in here. It's going to come. Come On. It will get there. There. You see all the holes? This boat is not
nailed or pegged. It's tied together. All the pieces
are tied together. And I'll explain why
in a little while. So that's an unusual
construction technique. The other unusual
construction technique is that they build the
hole first and then put the ribs in afterwards. So it's unusual. So Haj Ahmed had to
learn new techniques, see how this thing's working. And he puts it together. It takes him 10 years to put
it together the first time. He finish 1968. Right? It's discovered in '54,
puts it together in '68, and figures out he did it wrong. He had to take it apart. It's kind of like when you
were a kid doing a model and you had pieces left over. You sort of knew
it wasn't right. So he took it apart. But you know, as I
said, he carved models, to give you an
idea I think you'll see there's also something
else unusual about the boat, the oars. I mean, it's a
strange configuration. Haj Ahmed sort of made that up. There were no places for rowers
to sit on the boat and row. There were no oar locks
where the oars were attached to the boat. So he just sort of
displayed it that way. But very unusual. How were the oars used even? And the third thing that's
very unusual about the boat, it had no mast and
it had no sails. All right? What was it used for? This gives you an idea of how
the thing was constructed. You can see there's
ties here throughout. Just a little model. The rope was still in the boat. They found plenty of
rope, still pliant. And you get an idea of how
things are tied together. And this is the hull. And it's-- now, look over here. That's one of the ties. You don't see the ties
in general on the boat, because they're going
through the wood. It's five inch thick planking. So the ties go through
and out to another one, kind of like lacing a sneaker. But you don't see
it on the outside. Right? And this is pulled
away a little bit-- It's pulled away a
little bit so you see it. Also, notice the way
the wood fits together. All right? Not even planks. And the idea is twofold. One, is it gives you a little
more structural strength. It's going to shift. You know, it won't shift. And the other thing is you're
using every bit of wood. It's very, very valuable. This plank, by the
way-- let me show it to. This one right here. Whoops. Don't let me do that. Yeah. This one. It's the longest
plank in the boat. It's 74 feet long. This thing is 144 foot boat. All right? It is one of the largest and
certainly the best preserved boat from the ancient world. But the question
is, how is it used? Not clear. Not clear. Now, this is what it looks
like in the boat museum today. It's a beautiful thing,
big, really impressive. Anyway, as soon as
the boat was found, people started to speculate
on how it was used. The first one out of the gate
was a really good Egyptologist named Cerny-- Jaroslav Cerny. And he hadn't even
seen the boat. It was still in the pit. And he came up with
the theory that it was for mythological use. It was a symbolic boat, going
through the sky in some way. Let me show it to you. This is a tomb painting. And this is one of
these celestial boats. The pharaoh is going to
go to the next world. And the Gods are going
to accompany him. And this is one of the boats
that's going to go with him. And Cerny figured this
is one of those boats. Now, he had a strange reasoning. He's a really good
Egyptologist, really good, but his reasoning is strange. There were five boat pits
around the Great Pyramid. And Cerny reasoned, that
since you only needed two for the boat to go through
the night sky and the day sky, the Cheops boat couldn't
be one of those. All right? It couldn't be one of those. That had to be something else. So he figured it
was mythological. But we'll see about that. But there's a better theory. Better theory. The temple at Abydose is
one of the most sacred spots in all of Egypt. It's dedicated
primarily to the God Osiris, the God of the dead. Right? Now, this is Osiris,
God of the dead. He's green because that's
the color of resurrection. So everybody's going to
resurrect in the next world. He is also bandaged
like a mummy, because he's God of the dead. He's holding the
symbols of power. And the hieroglyphs on the left,
which read from left to right, says Osiris, ruler of eternity. Right? And then there's another
name for him, Wennefer But the important
thing is Osiris is tied up with a real
possible use for this boat. According to the myth of Osiris,
it's a very long and involved myth and I'm not going to
go into the whole thing, but let me give you
the comic book version. Osiris comes to Earth
to civilize Egypt. Now, by civilize
Egypt what we mean is he's going to teach Egypt
farming and cattle raising. So they're no longer going
to be hunter-gatherers. They're going to be
sedentary people. He's very successful. He goes off to civilize
the rest of the world. His wife, Isis,
is left in charge. And her job is really to keep
her brother-in-law intact-- or her brother intact-- Seth, the evil-- the
archetype of the devil. He tries to do bad things. Isis keeps him intact. But eventually, when Osiris
returns, Seth kills him, kills Osiris, hacks
him into 13 pieces, scatters the pieces
up and down the Nile. Isis sets out to find
her dismembered husband, gets most of the pieces,
reassembles them, and buries them at Abydose. So Abydose is where
Osiris is buried. It's a sacred place. And every Egyptian--
every Egyptian-- wanted to make a
pilgrimage to Abydose to visit the tomb of Osiris. And the idea was if
you left an offering you'd have a better chance
of resurrecting with Osiris. So on tombs throughout
Egypt we have depictions on the walls of the
Abydose pilgrimage, people going in their boats-- in their boats-- to Abydose Here's one. And what's really,
really interesting is if you look at the oars. They're not seated. The men are standing up. But they're--
also, a sale is up. Now, let me say something
about the Egyptians as sailors, and what we know
about what they did. The Egyptians were
rather poor sailors. They were a boat culture. Boats were a very significant
part of their civilization, but they weren't
really good at it. They weren't good at navigating. Because they were river people. Rivers are easy,
especially in Egypt. The dominant breeze
comes out of the north. The current goes
from south to north. So when you're going
in one direction, you put your sales up
when you're going south, and you go with the wind. When you're coming back you
can put your sails down, and you go with the current. No navigation. You can see the
banks on either side. It's a piece of cake. They really didn't
like to venture out. The Mediterranean, for example,
wasn't a thing they often did. It was called-- they
called the Mediterranean the Wadj-Wer, the Great Green. The great green. It was kind of a little scary. So they used boats, but
they weren't great at it. Now, this is an interesting
one, because you can tell which direction they're
going now because the sails up. They're going south. Right? And the guys are pulling-- I think they're not rowing. They're using these oars as what
we would call quarter rudders. They're steering with them. They're just to direct the
boat, not to gain power. So that's a guy
going off going off to Abydose on his pilgrimage. I'll show you another one. There. This is a great one. I love it. I love it. Let me show you so you get the-- yeah. Now first, here's
is the captain, and he's taking a sounding. He's got a long pole, and
he's taking a sounding. And he's giving his
results to the little kid up here on the yard arm. And he's yelling it back
to the guy who's steering so they can avoid a sandbar. All right? Now, if you look at the rowers,
you'll see they're at rest. Right? The sail's up. These guys don't have to row. They're sitting at rest. They've kind of all got the
same posture, except this guy. He's getting a drink of water. You see that? It's kind of cool. And the captain here
taking a sounding, he's in a little receptacle,
a little enclosure, so it doesn't fall overboard. So we have plenty of scenes of
the Abydose pilgrimage on tomb walls. And there's an interesting
sort of holdover, or maybe descendant of this
practice, in Egypt today, all Egyptians want
to make a pilgrimage. If you can afford
it, you're obligated to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. All right? And for every Muslim
who can afford it should make a pilgrimage
to Mecca and Medina. And in the 1960s they did
this a lot, more than now. But I'll show you, they
painted their pilgrimage scenes on their houses. And that's one of the scenes
on the outside of a house in a village in Luxor. And a guy is showing, oh, we
took the boat to the plane, and then we made it to
Mecca and we saw the Kaaba So they're showing also
that, I made the pilgrimage. So there's an
interesting holdover. Now, maybe, just
maybe, this Cheops boat was used for the
Abydose pilgrimage. It's a possibility. But let me show you
another possibility. This is a large river craft
going on an expedition south on the Nile to Nubia. Now, Nubia is where
the Sudan is today. And this is where the
Egyptians got their gold. The gold of Egypt, the
gold mask of Tutankhamen came from Nubia in the south. This is a tomb
painting of a man named Huys boats, H-U-Y. He
was the Viceroy to Nubia for Tutankhamen. And on his wall he showed that
boats he took to get to Nubia. So you can see the sails up
in one, sails down in another. And what I want to show you
here, and this is a big boat-- it's a big boat-- he's got his horse with him. He liked horses, and he's
taking his horses with them. And they're on the deck. In ancient Egypt,
they did not use the hold of the ship for cargo. Everything went on the deck. Everything. Right? So he's got his ship
up-- his sales are up. He's got his horse. And he's off to Nubia. So it's a possibility,
just a possibility, that the Cheops boat was used
for expeditions south to Nubia. Maybe. Last possibility,
it's kind of neat, is that the ship was used on
an expedition on the Red Sea. All the way to the land
of Punt, P-U-N-T. Now, we don't know exactly
where Punt is. We think it's either
Eritrea or Somalia. Somewhere like that. And this is a relief,
a carving, that's on the temple of Queen
Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, her Mortuary Temple. She was very proud of
the expedition to Punt. She sent five ships there. And on the walls
she shows her ships. And it's kind of neat. You can see, by the way,
that everything on the deck-- I mean, it's really crowded. This is the frankincense
and myrrh, sacks of frankincense and myrrh. But Hatshepsut is really cool. She's also bringing back trees. And there are the
trees with the basket-- with roots protected in
the basket right there. So she's going to grow her own
frankincense and myrrh trees. Right? And there's also, if you look
carefully, there's baboons. She's going to
bring back baboons. There's a baboon right there. And there's the
trees and their pots. So maybe just maybe Cheops boat
went to the Red Sea, to Punt. We'll see. We'll see. Now, the Hatshepsut boat
is a really great example of why the Egyptians had a
tie their boats together. It was absolutely necessary. It wasn't a choice almost. They lived along the Nile. Almost all Egyptians
lived along the Nile. Now, if you're going
on the Red Sea, let's see how you're
going to do it. Just a second. There. There's the Nile. Now, let's say you
want to go to Punt. Here's the Red Sea. You're going to have to
take your boat all the way through the desert
to the Red Sea. You're going to have to haul it. Now, think about the Cheops
boat, 144 feet, 38 tons. How are you going to haul that
through the desert 100 miles? All right? Not easy. You tie it, and
you take it apart. So you sail it down to where
you want to go on the Nile. You take it apart. You have several hundred
men carrying the parts. And you port it through a place
called Wadi Hammamat to the Red Sea, reassemble it, and
you go on your expedition. You had to take it apart. That's why they sewed boats. Now, if you want to go
to the Sinai over here to get your copper
and your turquoise, you would take it across
from the Nile here. And in the last 10
years, they have found really interesting things
relevant to the Cheops boat on the Red Sea. And I think it's changed the
way we view what they did. One of the things they
found are boat houses carved into the cliffs
right by the water. Now, look at it. It's about the size for
a Cheops boat dismantled. So what I think they
did is the following. We used to always think, they
hauled the boat to the Red Sea. They put it back together. They went to the land of Punt. They sailed back. They took it apart. They hauled it back to the Nile. They took their-- right? No. I think it was a
one way journey. They took it apart. Carried it to the Red Sea. Put it back together. Sailed to where they're going. Sailed back. And then they left
it on the Red Sea at the port in these
boat houses so they wouldn't have to carry it
back all the way to the Nile. So it was only a one way trip. So it's kind of tricky. And in here, they have
found pieces of boats. That's cedar of Lebanon. And even papyri, some of
the oldest papyri we have. And in the upper
left hand corner I think you can see
there's a cartoon of Khufu. Right? So it's just the time of Khufu. Now, this is all sort
of speculation about how the boat could have been used. Maybe Abydose pilgrimage,
maybe it's a celestial boat, mythological, maybe it
went to the Red Sea, maybe it was used for an
expedition down to Nubia. Speculation. No hard data at all. This changed just by
sheer luck in 1994. 1994, I was director
of the National Endowment for the
Humanities program called Egyptology Today. The idea was we were going
to bring high school teachers and junior high school
teachers to my campus and teach them Egyptology,
make them junior Egyptologist. And the idea was it would
invigorate their teaching. So we had art teachers, history
teachers, science teachers. And they would go back to
their schools after the summer being able to
translate hieroglyphs, knowing about history. And they would then incorporate
it into their lesson plans and have something new to do. That was the idea. And it worked pretty well. One student, Howie
Nepo, said to me, can I do my term paper
on Hatshepsut's boats? I said, sure, that'd
be great, Howard. That's a good idea. And Howie handed in his
paper, a really good paper, but with it, he
handed in a model he had carved of the boat. And it was a half model. It's about maybe two
feet, three feet. Two feet. And it's the kind
you hang on the wall. So it's only a
slice of the boat. It's a hemisection of the boat. And it goes on a wall. And the thing was beautiful. I mean, it was really gorgeous. And I was wondering-- you know,
I don't know much about boats at this point-- is it as good as I think it is? Is this model really
that incredible? So at the time I
was also teaching at a rather interesting
school, which none of you probably ever heard of. It's an unusual
school in that it has probably some of the
highest SATs in the country. The students all graduate with
very high paying salaries. I think it's one of the
most difficult schools in the country to get
into, and nobody knows it. Anybody know this school? I'll give you a clue. It won't help you. It may look vaguely
familiar because it was used as Wayne Manor
in the Batman movies. [LAUGHTER] It's the Webb Institute
for Naval Architecture. It's a school where
the students all want to be naval architects,
or something in the industry. So the kids go to
for four years, but they graduate with two
degrees, marine engineering and naval architecture. So this is the place
where I took my model that Howie Nepo had carved. And I wanted to show
it to the professors. And I said to the guys, is
this as good as I think it is? And the guys looked at it. They just said,
this is wonderful. They said, it's really fabulous. And one of the
professors said to me, could your student carve
a full model of the boat? Because then we could test it in
the tank and see what it does. You know, we could
test this little model and see what this Hatshpesut's
boat could have done. So I went back to Howie Nepo. And I said to him,
Howie, can you carve a full model of
the Hatshepsut boat? And he looked at me
like I was an idiot. And he said, what do you mean? I carved the right side with
my right hand, the left side with my left hand. I didn't know it. He was a world class model
carver, as was his father. But then he-- again, he looked
at me like I'm an idiot. And he says to me,
but it won't work, because the Hatshepsut boat
is just a relief on a wall. It doesn't really
tell us the depth. It doesn't give us the lines. It's not enough information to
carve an accurate model of what this ship looked like. So we had another possibility. In Egyptian tombs,
noblemen often put little models of boats. And these are three dimensional. So I took Howie to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art to see some of the boats. And he again looked at
me like I was an idiot. And he said, wait a second. This is folk art. It's not a model of a boat. And again, it's not accurate. He pointed out to me, look,
they're all flat on the bottom, you know, so they can
stand in the tomb. So that wouldn't work either. Then came the idea, what
about the Cheops boat? We have that boat. Could Howie carve a
model of that boat? And he said, sure,
that we can do. Not only that, there's a
wonderful book called Ships of the Pharaohs by Landstrom. And he had the lines of the
ships drawn out already. So Howie by looking at the
boat, going from Landstrom, could do a model of the boat. And we were going to
test it in the tank. And for the first
time, we're going to figure out what this
thing really could do. So Howie began carving,
with his father, Morris. This is their workshop. And he carved a seven foot
model of the boat, 1 in 20. And it was a thing of beauty. Now, this is not the boat. I wanted to show you what
the tank looks like at Webb. This is a model of a boat. All the kids for
their senior project, they usually design a
boat, build a little model, and then they test it in the
tank to see how good it is. And there's an armature at
the top, as you can see. This thing. It pulls the boat
through the tank, and automatically records
all the measurements you need on this boat, your
drag, and things like that. Let me show you one more
of this boat in the tank. And you can see this
one, it's tilted a bit. We do it with heel. We want to see when
will the boat swamp. We can do it with waves. It's a really great
testing facility. And there we are
measuring the boat. That's the seven foot model. And I think you can
see, Howie's even made a rigging, so he can
put the oars in the water and see how the drag is with
the oars, and things like that. So we're measuring it. And that's Larry Ward. Professor Ward is the
one who runs the tank. And now we're getting
it in the tank and getting ready to test it. Right? So for the first time-- for the first time, we had some
empirical data on this boat. Right? Now, what did we learn, right? What did we-- well,
we learned a lot. Now, there was one unfortunate
thing about this project. This is why it's
ongoing, still going. This is 1994. Stu Green, the
student on the left, did his thesis,
wrote up his results, and that was the end of it. Never published. It's often the case that
students are rushed at the end. It's the end of the term. They're graduating, and they
just leave things behind. It was never published,
nothing ever done with it. Science Magazine did
a news story about it, but not the data. And it kind of languished. We just didn't know
what to do with it. So anyway, what did we learn? Well, first of all,
Cerny's idea that it's a mythological boat, not really
used, that was dead wrong. This thing is a big boat that's
meant to be on the water. The lines were perfect
for a Nile craft. So this thing was used. There's no doubt about it. It wasn't some symbolic thing. So that's out. That's out. It's not symbolic. What about the
Abydose pilgrimage? One of the problems,
you remember it didn't have a master of sail? Well, how's it going
to get to Abydose if you can't go with the wind? Going against the current? That's a problem, but
there's a solution to it. Sometimes, in the
tomb paintings, you see two boats
going to Abydose, and they're tied together. One has a sail up, the
others being towed. So it's still in the running. There's this
possibility in Abydose. Let me show you another
one, though-- another slide. It's a badly damaged
tomb, but it's worth looking at carefully,
you can see the oars-- what we now call
quarter rudders. They're in the water, and
they're helping to steer. The sales are down. All right? So it's possible. But I think there's another
reason why I don't think it's an Abydose boat, though. This is our Cheops boat. Look at the cabin. It's got a door. But aside from the door,
it's entirely enclosed. No windows. I don't see a pharaoh
going in an enclosed cabin to Abydose I just don't
think it would work. I'll show you another one. There. That's with the door open. So I think it's out as
an Abydose boat, too. I think. Now, that's a little
baldachin, it's called. That's where the captain
stands out of the sun. So how was this thing used? This is Hatshepsut's right? It couldn't have been
used on the Red Sea. I'll tell you why. One of the things we
learned on the tests is when that boat, the Cheops
boat, was at 11 degrees hill-- and that's not much of a hill. That's a slight angle. It's swamped. We did a computer simulation. At nine degrees it's swamped. So the thing did not-- it did not go on open water. Waves would just
swamp it in a minute. So forget the Red Sea, the
Mediterranean, any of that. It was a river craft. But how was it used? Well, I'll give
you a clue we had. There is a papyrus called
the Great Harris Papyrus. It's called the Great-- well, first, it's called
Harris, because Harris owned it, Papyri, named after
the people who owned them. It's called the
Great Harris papyrus because it's the longest
papyrus yet discovered. It's 120 feet long and
it deals with the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses
III, details everything. And at the end, it talks
about one of the things that Ramesses III was proud of. He buried his father,
Setnakht, properly. Properly. And what he says
is, he was rowed in his King's Barge on the river
and rested in his eternal house west of Thebes. So the real possibility is this
was a funeral hearse, right? It was a barge, that
the pharaoh's body was taken from the
east bank of the Nile where they lived,
to the west bank, where they buried their dead. So that's the bed for this boat. Now, we have scenes
on tomb walls of hearse boats, boats that were
used to bring the dead across. Now, these young ladies here
are not members of the family. They are mourners, but
they are paid mourners. They are professionals
who are paid to weep and wail at funerals. And they are on a boat
that's being towed. So this may be the kind
of thing that this Cheops boat was used to go from the
east bank to the west bank. Show you another one. Here's another one. And they have the two boats-- both boats, mourners here, here. I'll show you a really
romantic 19th century depiction of this sort of thing. There. That's a Bridgeman painting. It's a beautiful thing. And you got your boat
with the sail up, and the barge being towed. Right? So the Cheops boat would be the
equivalent of the second boat. And that makes some sense. Let me go one more. Another drawing of it. So now that we have data,
reasonable data on this boat, I think it is reasonable
to say we finally know what this boat could
do, what it couldn't do, not going on the Red Sea. It's not going in
the Mediterranean. It's a funeral boat. And I think that makes
sense of the enclosed cabin. Right? So for the first time, we
have a pretty good idea of what the thing really
probably was used for. But the project
doesn't end there. That's why it's
called a project. We're still working on. The fantasy right
now at this point is that-- we can
still learn more. There's a lot more to
learn about this boat. And we could learn it
if we built a full scale model, if we built 144 foot
boat and put it on the Nile, and see what it could do. Now, my hope-- I mean, at Webb, we have
the people who can do this. The alumni of-- Webb's been
around for more than 125 years. So we have-- students who have
graduated now own shipyards. They're makers and
shakers in the industry. We have the expertise
and probably the funds even maybe
to do this project. It's just a question of,
are we going to do it? And how do we do it? I'll tell you a funny story. You know, it's a hard
project I'll show you why. Let me show you why. What we're trying
to do now first is put out our data,
show everybody what we've learned by the test. We rewrote it. And what happened, it's a
wonderful thing, about a year ago I got a letter-- an email-- from a
graduate of Webb, Mike Morabito, who graduated
something like probably 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And he's now a professor
of Naval history at Annapolis, at the
Naval Academy, Annapolis. And he wrote to me. He said, Doctor Brier,
is there any project you're working on that
I could be part of? So I thought of Stu
Greene's dissertation, which was languishing. And I said, Mike, if we
could write up this thing, we could get it out. We might really
learn about the boat and figure it out,
and then build it. So Mike helped. And he did the
computer simulations. He got it together. And now we're publishing these
things so people can, you know, see what-- this is in the
Journal of Ship Production and Design. So we want all the shipping
people to see this, that this thing's available. Does it make sense
what we're saying? So we're getting the data out. And if we build it, we do
have some things to go by. For example, very often
in tombs the Egyptians put pictures of
ships being built. And here you've got
guys building a ship. I'll show you know one. Now, the real desire is-- if
you're really going to learn-- I mean, as Peter said
in the introduction, I guess it was 1994, I
mummified a human cadaver in the Egyptian way. And the reason I did
it was to figure out how the Egyptians did it. So I used ancient tools. I used obsidian flakes
to make my incisions. I used copper tools
for various things. I dug my Natron, the dehydrating
salts from the valleys where the ancient
Egyptians went. And I learned a lot. For the first time,
we really figured out how they did a lot of this. You know? How do you take a brain
out through the nose? It's not easy. [LAUGHTER] So I'm very sort of positive
about experimental archeology. I think you really
learn most by doing. So the hope is we'll
actually build this boat. Now, there are crafts
people who are around, who are also Egyptologists, who
can do the ancient techniques. For example, Geoffrey Killen. He's an Egyptologist
whose specialty is carpentry in ancient Egypt. And what you see him working
on now is a bow drill. That's how the
Egyptians drilled holes. This is the shaft. The bit is here. And this is very much like
a bow from a bow and arrow. And in his hand here, he's
holding sort of a hemisphere. And the bow, when he
runs it back and forth, turns the shaft and
drills the hole. And it turns around inside
the little hemisphere. So he's been doing
these things for years. And he knows how the
craft things work. The problem is, you know, when
I talked to him about the boat project, he was all gung ho. You know, this will be great. He said, but let me tell
you about the man hours that it takes. He said, to drill
one hole, like you have hundreds of
in the Cheops boat, it takes about five hours. But you know, my
response is, that's why God made graduate students. [LAUGHTER] But we do have crafts people,
but it's not going to be easy. It's not going to be easy. Another problem, just
to be realistic-- another problem is getting
the cedar of Lebanon. There are no trees big
enough in Lebanon now to build the Cheops boat. As I said before, the largest
plank in it is 74 feet long. That means you
need 100 foot tree. Not easy to get the cedar. And we've really got
to do it out of cedar. There is a hope. I mean, there are ways of
overcoming these things. In England, cedars of Lebanon
were transplanted in 1838. And some of them are owned
by commercial paper mills. So there's a chance we can
get cedars of Lebanon even. So it won't be
easy, but the hope is that one day in the
not too distant future, we will see the Cheops boat
sailing on the Nile once again. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
