Probing The Chambers of Cheops

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Since there are no immediate plans to excavate the ship, the scientists resealed the entrance hole after meticulously filming every inch of the chamber for later study and mapping. Using a special zoom lens, they filmed everything from the markings on the walls to the lengths of the boat's cedar planks. From the film, archaeologists hope to determine the size of the ship -- and perhaps even discover clues to its purpose. Some scholars believe the vessels were intended to carry the spirits of the dead on their eternal journey around the earth with the sun-god Ra. They disagree, though, about whether they are so-called solar boats built for the day-time sojourn across the sky or ships intended for the nighttime voyage through the underworld. Still others speculate that they were simply funerary boats used to ferry Cheops' body down the Nile for burial. Whatever the purpose, Egyptian officials must now decide how to display their new, but still untouched, vessel.