LARGEST TOMB IN EGYPT DISCOVERED

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18992, 11 February 1930, Page 1

LARGEST TOMB IN EGYPT DISCOVERED

FORTY-FIVE STATUES FOUND BY EXCAVATORS.

(United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.)

(Received February 11, 8.35 a.m.) CAIRO, February 10.

Egyptian excavators have discovered the largest tomb yet unearthed in Egypt. It belonged to Ra Ourer, a High Priest of the goddess Nekheb, who flourished in the reign of Neferririkara, the third king of the Fifth Dynasty, 2730 B.C.

The tomb consists of three large halls, eighty small chambers and thirty places for the erection of statues to the dead. Forty-five statues were recovered, mostly perfect. A man’s dismembered hand was found inserted in a coffin in which was a mummy. A skeleton lying nearby is presumed to be that of a robber who was killed by a subsidence of the tomb’s ceiling while attempting to rifle the mummy’s necklace of precious stones.

Ra Ourer is also described in the inscriptions as “Major-Domo of the Palace, Master of the Royal Wardrobe, King’s Barber, Prince of the Pot, and Master of Ceremonies.”

The tomb is in the vicinity of the Sphinx.