英語聽力：自然百科 吉薩金字塔中的地下船

Visitors at Egypt's Giza Pyramids on Saturday got a rare opportunity. They were able to catch a glimpse inside an underground chamber, just south of the Great Pyramid containing the pieces of an ancient funerary boat which many believed was intended to ferry the Pharaoh Khufu into the afterlife.

A video camera was inserted into the unexcavated pit. Visitors watched images of the disassembled wooden sailing ship on a large monitor inside the nearby Solar Boat Museum.

“Now, through a camera we transfer the photograph directly from the pits directly to this, this screen that you will see wood, see that wood, small and big ones, and you'll see mats, and also you will see, ur, ropes, and you can see for about 20 meters. All this material has been laid like this for more than 4,500 years ago.”

In 1987, a team from the National Geographic Society drilled a hole through one of thelimestone blocks sealing the chamber from above, and inserted a video camera. Inside, they found stacks of wood for a boat similar to one excavated from a nearby pit in 1958. It's beendecided that the boat would remain in its tomb for preservation. Dating back 4,600 years, they are the most spectacular vessels discovered to date.