A solar boat discovered in Saqqara.
The Czech archaeological mission unearthed the remains of an 18 m long solar boat. The sand and the stones of the desert preserved in an extraordinary way all the wooden materials which the boat and also preserved the cords which maintained the boards forming the body of the boat in their initial position. The mission also found, during its excavations, pottery inside this boat.
This discovery will contribute to a better understanding of boat building techniques in Egypt Ancient as well as their use and the funerary beliefs of that time. The solar boat discovered at Saqqara
the Djoser funerary complex, built during the reign of King Djoser, is located at Saqqara, in Egypt. It is, in the history of Egyptian architecture, the second work built in cut stone. It marks an important evolution of monumental architecture. Indeed, the king's tomb takes, for the first time and after many modifications, the shape of a pyramid. This innovation marks the birth of a new type of burial. The religious elements as well as the stepped enclosure the culmination of an architecture evolving since the IIe dynasty.
The earthquake of October 12, 1992 seriously affected the infrastructure of the pyramid. The vault of the great funerary shaft and the ceilings of several underground galleries threaten to collapse. In fact, it is a rescue mission commissioned by the Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities in order to carry out their restorations. At the same time, studies are constantly carried out to better understand this major monument.
The solar boat is a symbolic object of the egyptian mythology linked to the daily cycle of the sun and the demiurge associated with it, D.
For the Ancient Egyptians, the perpetual cycle of sunrise and sunset is comparable to the cycle of life and death. Thus, each morning the sun is born in the east. Grows to zenith. Then then ages to the west where it disappears into the realm of the dead. In fact, this diurnal journey, the solar god D does so aboard a boat called a mandjet. Moreover, the choice of a boat as a means of transport is easily understood in a resolutely river civilization. Where the Nile occupies the place of main axis of communication. As well as an almost exclusive source of food thanks to floods, irrigation and fishing.
