3-052-459 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Tomb of Nofre Ma, an Egyptian of the Third Dynasty, at Meidoum, 1880. Illustration from '...a new work on Egypt called "Nile Gleanings," by Mr. Villiers Stuart...This tomb of Nofre Ma, as well as others at Meidoum, was discovered about seven or eight years ago, and they possess an interest from their great antiquity alone, for they are older than the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh...The exact date is uncertain; Lepsius makes them 3122 B.C., or about 5000 years old...Senofreou was the Pharaoh of the time, and his pyramid still stands at Meidoum unopened...Nofre Ma, or Nofre Maat, his name being thus variously rendered, the words meaning Good and Just, was a man of high rank, and filled the office of Treasurer to Senofreou. He is represented on this tomb, and the style of art is rather peculiar, for there are deep holes cut in the rock, and these were filled up with a very hard coloured cement, the colours varying in each hole like a mosaic...Close by is the tomb of Nofre Ma's wife, the Princess Atot...These recent "finds" of times so far past do not come to our European museums now; they all go to the museum at Boolak, near Cairo, hence the non-travelling portion of the public can only form a notion of them from books and drawings'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.