Six-Decker Soul Ship

Tourists from Herodotus to Rita Hayworth have swarmed around the gigantic base of Pharaoh Cheops' pyramid, which stands in the desert on the outskirts of modern Cairo. None of them, until this week, knew what lay under their feet near the pyramid's south face.

The Egyptian government has been building a road for the convenience of tourists, and recently, the workmen demolished an ancient wall, shoveled away a layer of sand and exposed a 150-yd. row of massive limestone blocks, each 15 ft. long and tightly sealed with pink gypsum. It looked like some sort of pavement, but Kamal el Malakh, Egyptian archaeologist in charge of the pyramids, suspected that the stones might be the roof of a long underground chamber. The tomb of Pharaoh Cheops had never been found. It might just possibly, he thought, lie under the row of stones.

Last week El Malakh ordered his masons to chisel a hole into an end of one of the blocks. It proved to be nearly 6 ft. thick, but at last the chisels broke into empty space. Not much could be seen at first, except that the chamber appeared to be as clean as when its roof had been set in place nearly 5,000 years ago. Next day the chiseling continued while El Malakh and a group of colleagues waited impatiently. At last the hole was big enough for him to peek inside. In the excitement he forgot to bring a flashlight, so he used a mirror (as the ancient Egyptians probably did) to shoot sunlight into the darkness.

He saw what he thought was a wooden floor. Then he closed his eyes to increase their sensitivity. He smelled a strange perfume drifting up through the hole. It was something like incense, something like fragrant wood. When El Malakh opened his eyes, he saw planks dovetailed neatly together, coils of linen rope, and oars with spearshaped blades. Then he knew what he had found: a funeral ship to carry the soul of a Pharaoh to heaven.

Round the Earth. He followed the ship's outline up the dim chamber. The hull, a shipshaped cavity carved out of the bedrock, appeared to be about 125 ft. long and 17 ft. wide. Its six wooden decks were somewhat shrunken away from the stone, and so. El Malakh could see down and count them. The wood seemed in fine condition, as if the painters had just finished their job. There were no cobwebs, which is a sign that the chamber's gypsum seal had never been broken. If the industrious graverobbers of ancient Egypt had really missed the ship, it may prove one of the greatest finds in the history of Egyptology.

At the time of despotic Pharaoh Cheops, who reigned about 2850 B.C. (and reportedly rented out his daughter to finance his pyramid-building), the Egyptian religion taught that the souls of the dead follow the sun on its daily trips round and round the earth. For this important voyage, poor Egyptians had to make do with little clay boats, but in the case of a Pharaoh, the navigation of his soul called for elaborate equipment. Royal funerary ships were generally built in pairs, one for the daytime voyage over the sunlit land, the other to follow the sun under the earth at night.

Not much is known about such ships, for none has been found in good condition. There is a fair chance that two of Cheops' ships may be found in the long chamber under the limestone blocks. Since the Egyptians believed that the souls of possessions follow their owners into the other world, the ships may be freighted with all the things (jewelry, clothing and kitchenware) that the soul of a Pharaoh might need. There may be effigies of dancing girls to entertain the soul of Pharaoh. There may be a group of his friends for company. There may be a crew to sail the ship in procession behind the sun.

Gaudy Age. Not all U.S. archaeologists are sure that the ship or ships will prove to be loaded with all these fascinating things. Little is known, 'they say, about the Fourth Dynasty, of which Cheops was the second Pharoah. The ship may be bare soul-transportation, not richly freighted with treasure. Even so, it will tell a great deal about an ancient and gaudy age.

When Kamal el Malakh finished his peering through the hole in the limestone block, he behaved in the most approved Egyptological manner. He had the hole sealed up to protect the relics inside from air and dust. He posted armed guards to exclude unauthorized antiquarians. Then he went into a huddle with his most learned colleagues. This week he reopened the hole for an hour-and-a-half, gave eight noted Egyptologists and scholars a quick look at the treasure below by the light of an electric bulb on the end of a stick.

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