The Art of Ancient Egypt | Publications for Educators | Explore & Learn

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Tomb of Meketre, Thebes
Photograph by the Egyptian Expedition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1920

Museum archaeologists worked at Thebes for about thirty years. They made one of their most remarkable finds inside the cut-rock tomb of a Theban official named Meketre (MEH-ket-RAY), who was buried just after 2000 B.C. The entrance to his tomb was on the terrace (in shadows in this photograph) at the top of a sloping causeway.

The archaeologists knew that Meketre's tomb had been robbed in ancient times. However, while cleaning the area in order to draw an exact plan of the tomb, they discovered two places the grave robbers had missed. One was the small burial chamber of Meketre's storehouse manager Wah, whose tomb was cut into the hillside just to the right of the top of Meketre's causeway. The second was a small chamber hidden in the floor of the passageway inside Meketre's tomb.

Notice: what can be seen in the photograph

Discuss: plan of tomb

Compare: with the tomb of Perneb

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