TOME BIG AS A TEMPLE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 81, 5 April 1930, Page 20

TOME BIG AS A TEMPLE

A tomb recently discovered' closo to the Sphinx by Egyptian excavators, writes a correspondent in tho "Daily Mail," appears to have belonged to a Pooh-Bah of ancient Egypt. The inscriptions roveal that it contained tho remains of Ea Over, High Priest of Nokheb, Goddess of Upper and Lower Ea Over, it is revealed, was an intimate friend of the King, Master of the Hoyal Wardrobe, Major-domo of the Palace, tho King's Barber, Keeper of the Royal Ablutionary Water, a priest of the God Mena, and filled many other posts. The tomb is remarkable for the fact that it is the largest. ever found in Egypt j so large, in fact, that it resembles a temple. It has an entrance 93 feet long, followed by. a long subterranean passage leading to three large halls, whose walls almost reach the Sphinx. The tomb consists of 80 small chambers and 30 serdabs or labyrinthine places for the erection of statues of the dead. •■ '

Forty-five such statues have been recovered, mostly in perfect condition, and two of them are of the high priest. For tho first time in the history of Egyptology, three statues have been found of one person, all cut out of one piece of stone.

GREAT EGYPTIAN FIND

Another interesting find consists of two flint razors, apparently emblems of the high priests'- tousoi-ial duties. These were still sharp enough to cut hair on the excavators' arms. One sensational discovery was that of a man 'a- dismembered hand inserted in the coffin' f a mummy : which contained a beautiful necklace in precious stone's. A further search revealed the man's skeleton, minus the hand, on tho ground near the sarcophagus. It is presumed that.he was a robber who was killed while in the act of rifling the coffin, .by. a; subsidence of the tomb's ceiling. ' ,'■ 7 .;" Ba Over lived during the reign of the third king of the fifth dynasty— Neferririka-ra, who died in 2730 B.C. The Kings of the fifth dynasty worshipped the sun as their, ancestor, and the Goddess Kekhcb was regarded as the protecting ' deity of their Upper Egypt domain. She -vas represented, either as a vulture or as a woman wearing a crown. Priestly influence was very Strong at their "courts and the chief events recorded for tho dynasty are gifts and endowments for the temples. Papyrus documents narrate .that three of the Kings of the dynasty were born of a priestess of the.Sun.