Beneath the golden sands west of the Nile, at the ancient Egyptian sacred site of Abydos, archaeologists have made an extraordinary discovery: a whole fleet of boats that were sketched onto the interior walls of a subterranean mud-brick boat chamber in about 1840 B.C.

The structure was part of the mortuary complex of a 12th-dynasty king named Senwosret III, whose tomb lies nearby. This unique find reveals new details about how the rituals of the king’s funeral may have played out. It also suggests that an age-old royal burial tradition was still honored here, though that would soon fade as radically different funerary practices came into fashion.

The structure was first noticed during the winter of 1901-02, when British archaeologist Arthur