NARRATOR: You’re standing in front of the entrance to the tomb chapel of a man called Raemkai, the son of a king. His mummy would have been buried underneath this chapel, at the bottom of a deep shaft. James Allen, a curator of Egyptian art here at The Met, will take us inside:

[MUSIC EVOKING A PROCESSIONAL TONE]

JAMES ALLEN: As you enter the tomb the walls on either side show offering bearers coming into the tomb and at the very top you can see that they are also pulling into the tomb a statue of Raemkai.

NARRATOR: Inside the room, look at the wall facing you. In the lower right corner, you can see bird catchers, using a clapnet trap. They’re hunting waterbirds in the marshes along the Nile. Now, notice the section of this wall towards the left. You’ll see a series of vertical rows. This is the false door, the focal point of all Old Kingdom tombs.

JAMES ALLEN: This was the door through which the spirit entered the world of the living every day and through which the spirit came back into the burial chamber at night.

NARRATOR: Usually false doors are covered with inscriptions—but look: the vertical section on the left is nearly blank. That’s because this tomb was actually made for someone else—an administrator, named Neferiretenes, in the royal court. Raemkai, a king’s son, died young, and suddenly, so that no tomb was ready for him. This one was taken over for his use. The carvers just had time to obliterate Neferiretenes’s name—and substitute Raemkai’s in the most important places. Otherwise, this tomb chapel was not altered in any way—which is fortunate, because the decorations are masterpieces of third millennium B.C. carving—during the period of the Old Kingdom. They depict a lively panorama of everyday life.