Egyptian Funerary Boat

What happens after you die? If you're an important Egyptian, your body crosses the Nile in style aboard a funerary boat that carries you to your tomb. Then in the afterlife, your spirit boards the boat to travel alongside the sun god Re as he heads across the heavens each day. This particular boat was found buried with five others near Giza in the pyramid complex of Senwosret III-perhaps the most powerful pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom. Of the six original funerary boats discovered, only four remain, and this example is the best preserved.

It was purchased for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and came to The Field Museum in 1900. In 1949, Professor Willard Libby of the University of Chicago used wood from this cedar boat to develop the technique of radiocarbon dating-a highly accurate method of calculating an organic object's age. He later won the Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery.