Note 2 — Chapter III · Ancient Mariners and Explorers
Reading edition
In the Pyramid texts there are references to the reed floats used by the souls of kings when being ferried across the river to death. The gods “bind together the two floats for this King Pepi”, runs a Pyramid text. “The knots are tied, the ferry-boats are brought together”, says another, and there are allusions to the ferryman (the prehistoric Charon) standing in the stern and poling the float. Before the Egyptian sun-god was placed in a boat, he had “two floats of the sky” to carry him along the celestial Nile to the horizon.2