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Egypt Today
“Visitors to the Grand Egyptian Museum will see the restoration work of the second Khufu Solar Ship in action. The boat will not be assembled before the opening of the Grand Museum, as it requires a very long time to completely assemble it”, said al-Tayeb Abbas, Assistant Minister of Tourism and Antiquities for Archaeological Affairs at the Grand Egyptian Museum.
Abbas explained, “assembling and restoring the second Khufu Solar Ship will take nearly 3 years to full completion, due to the poor condition of the wood extracted from the boat pit. The work was carried out with the help of Japanese grant, where 1,700 pieces of wood were extracted”.
The discovery of the two ships of King Khufu dates to 26 May 1954, when journalist Kamal al-Malakh announced the discovery. It is considered one of the most important and unique discoveries of King Khufu’s antiquities found on the Southern side of the Great Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu).
Kamal al-Malakh and restorer Ahmed Youssef worked on discovering, restoring and reassembling the first ship, which came to light after nearly 5,000 years underground.
The second Khufu Ship restoration project is being carried out in cooperation between the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Japan’s Waseda University and Higashi Nippon International University headed by Dr. Sakuji Yoshimura with the support of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
