TOMB BIG AS A TEMPLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21022, 10 May 1930, Page 20

TOMB BIG AS A TEMPLE.

GREAT EGYPTIAN FIND. A tomb recently diappvered clow, to the Sphinx by Egyptian excavator*, write* * correspondent in the Daily Mail, appears to hive belonged to a Pooh-Bah of ancient Egypt The inscriptions reveal that It contained' the remains of Ba Oner, High Priest of Nekheb, Goddess of Upper and Lower. Egypt Ra Oner, it is revealed, was an intimate friend of the king, master of the ‘ royal wardrobe, major-domo of the palace, the king’s barber, keeper of the Royal Ablationary 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; so large, in fact, that: it resembles a temple. It has an entrance ’ 93ft long,. followed by a long subterranean passage leading to thijje large halls, whose walls almost reach the Sphinx. ; The tomb consists of 80 small chambers and 80 scrubs 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 the first time in the history of Egyptoldgy, three statues have been found of one person, all cast out of one piece of stone. Another interesting fipd consists of two flint razors, apparently emblems of the high priests’ tonsorial duties. These were still sharp enough to cut hair On the excavators’ arms. One sensational discovery was that of a man’s dismembered hand inserted In the coffin of a mummy which contained a beautiful necklace in precious stones. A further search revealed the man’s skeleton, minus the hand, on the 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. • Ra Ouer lived during the reign of the third king of the fifth dynasty—"Nefer-ririka-ra, who died in 2730 8.0. The kings of the fifth dynasty worshipped the sun as their ancestor, and the Goddess Kekheb was regarded as the protecting deity of their Upper Egypt domain. She was '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 the dynasty are gifts and endowments foi the temples. Papyrus documents narrate that three of the Mugs of the dynasty were born of a priestess of the Sun.