On Friday evening, the procession for transporting the massive ship of Pharaoh Khufu to the Grand Egyptian Museum began. The transfer process will take nearly 10 hours, as the length of the route from its current location next to the Great Pyramid to the Grand Egyptian Museum is between 7 to 8 kilometers. A remote-controlled smart vehicle was brought in from Belgium to transport the ship as a single piece without dismantling it, and a protective iron structure resembling a metal container was installed around it.
The Egyptian Ministry of Interior announced on Friday morning that it was making preparations to secure the transport of Khufu's ship, which included several traffic diversions in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. The Ministry noted that the procession initially moved from within the archaeological area of the pyramids to the exit gate on the Fayoum Road on Friday from 6 PM for about an hour and a half. Then, at around 9:30 PM, the movement began from the archaeological area towards the Grand Egyptian Museum.
The Khufu ship had been housed in a museum within the archaeological area of the pyramids, but it was decided to transfer it to the Grand Egyptian Museum because the building it was in, constructed over 25 years ago, obscured the southern side of the Great Pyramid and caused a noticeable visual distortion in the archaeological area. Additionally, the old building did not have the distinctive museum display techniques or facilities accommodating people with disabilities.
The Khufu ship is the largest, oldest, and most significant organic artifact of its size in history, first discovered in 1954 inside a pit covered by approximately 41 limestone blocks on the southern side of the Khufu Pyramid. It is made of cedar wood and was found disassembled into 6,500 pieces.
