Egyptologist unearths old boat grave

University Egyptologist David O'Connor thought he might be on to something in 1988 when he noticed a "curious mudbrick feature" protruding from the desert sand in southern Egypt. What O'Connor did not know then was that three years later he would make one of his greatest discoveries -- a dozen ancient boats sitting side-by-side in the ground to guide a dead pharaoh in the afterlife. After finally returning to the site at Abydos last fall, O'Connor and his team of archaeologists discovered the wooden boats -- each upwards of 40 feet long and up to 5000 years old -- lying under the sand in individual mudbrick "boat graves." O'Connor, curator of the University Museum's Egyptian section, said the discovery marked the first time so many large boats from early dynastic Egypt had been found together, and indicated that a pharaoh intended on riding them to the next world. He said that although archaeologists have discovered boat graves in the past, most of the previous finds yielded just one small boat that was probably used by a nobleman. But despite the unprecedented nature of his discovery, O'Connor, who is also an Oriental Studies professor at the University, said the boat graves are historically significant because they form a part of the history of the ancient Egyptian pyramids. He said the boat graves lie just outside a series of walled funerary cult enclosure built for the worship of dead pharaohs. He said this strengthens the theory that the boats were meant to guide a pharoah and explains why they are sitting about eight miles from the Nile River. Inside one of these walled enclosures, archaeologists have excavated "traces of a mound-like proto-pyramid" that O'Connor said might be a precursor to later pyramids, including the classic step pyramid in the northern region of Saqqara. He said the boat graves themselves might be prototypes of similar boat graves found near the famous pyramids of Giza, which were built beginning around 2600 B.C., providing another link between the Abydos site and the pyramids. O'Connor, who has been co-director of the expedition with William Kelly Simpson of Yale University, for several years, said his team will need another season of excavations to fully remove one or two of the boats from the sand. He said his team will also further excavate the surrounding area to check for other boat graves and to see whether any other funerary cults are located nearby. The expeditions are being carried out under a permit from the Egyptian government, O'Connor said, adding that the artifacts will remain in Egypt.