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

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View inside the chamber of Meketre's tomb
Photograph by the Egyptian Expedition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1920

This photograph, taken by the excavation photographer, shows what the archaeologists saw when they had dismantled a mud-brick wall that closed the entrance to the hidden chamber. Although the contents were slightly jumbled due to a partial ceiling collapse, no one had entered the chamber since it had been sealed almost four thousand years earlier. Packed tightly into the space were twenty-four painted wooden models of boats, offering bearers, and buildings containing craftsmen and preparers of food. A model of a walled garden is visible on the upper right, and in the back of the room on the left is a large wooden figure of a female offering bearer.

These models are highly valued because of the quality of the carving and painting and because they are remarkably well preserved. The colors, the linen garments on some of the figures, and most of the twine rigging on the boats are original. They tell us in great detail about the raising and slaughtering of livestock, storage of grain, making of bread and beer, and design of boats in Middle Kingdom Egypt. On another level of meaning, they tell us about the Egyptian belief that images could magically provide safe passage to the afterlife and eternal sustenance once there.

Notice: contents of the chamber

Discuss: why the models were in the tomb, why they are so well preserved (the dry climate)

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