They made a hole in one of the blocks, looked into the tomb, and discovered parts of a boat : rudder, oars, heavy planks, posts, columns, beams, doors. The year was 1952, the piace was Giza near Cairo, and what had been found was the gigantic building kit of an ancient Egyptian ship, Iying intact for over 4,600 years in a grave on the south side of the Cheops pyramid. Built of cedar of Lebanon, Pharaoh Cheops' great Royal Ship now stands almost ready restored dose to the pyramid while waiting for a museum of her own. Bjorn Landstrom has long been fascinated by Cheops' ship, and by the hundreds of models, paintings, and reliefs of vessels found in Egyptian tombs. He has seen it as something of a challenge to attempt to answer the many technical questions raised by these finds and by this strange pictorial world; he has been reading, drawing, photographing, writing, discussing with egyptologists, studying in museums and libraries all over the world, and he has made five long visits to Egypt. The outcome of his efforts is this unprecedented pioneer work on 4,000 years of shipbuilding in Egypt, on slender papyrus boats, lumbering river barges, warships, light fishing craft, ceremonial sun-boats, and magnificently decorated ships of state. Bjorn Landstrom describes them all in his matter-of-fact, detailed text which links the dilferent epochs together, thus allowing us to make out lines of development, and in his precise, and at the same time marvellously beautifuI reconstructions, constructional plans, and photographs.