This article outlines a theory of the ancient Egyptian tomb as a material vessel of the pharao’s afterlife. With closed cavities, openings, and deliberately chosen contents, the tombs were highly ingenious, multi-layered models intended to explore the unknown: what happens after death. A close look at eleven types of steering oars discovered in the burial chamber of Tut.Ankh.Amen’s tomb identifies them as intermediate objects that connect the funerary texts inscribed on the pharaoh’s golden shrines and the realm of material things, illuminating ancient Egyptian expectations of the afterlife.