Note 173 — Chapter III
Walter Armstrong translation
The broken up and decayed remains of wooden boats have been found in two or three mummy pits (Mariette, Les Tombes de l'Ancien Empire, p. 17). They originally formed part, perhaps, of the boats upon which the corpse was transported across the Nile to the nearest point of the western bank to the tomb. There can be no doubt that, in placing them in the well, the survivors believed that they were serving the deceased. Both the bas-reliefs in the tomb and the Ritual contain many representations of the soul navigating the regions of Ament (see the upper section of Fig. 98). In certain Theban tombs, models of fully rigged boats have been found; there are some of them in the Louvre (Salle Civile, case K). [There are two in the British Museum, and one, a very fine one, in the museum at Liverpool.—Ed.]