Meru was a high-ranking official on the court docket of the eleventh Dynasty King Mentuhotep II, who reigned till 2004 BC and who, like Meru, was buried on the necropolis of North Asasif, the ministry stated in a press release on Thursday, February 9.

Meru’s rock-hewn tomb was restored by the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology on the University of Warsaw and Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

“This is the first site from such an early period in Western Thebes to be made accessible to visitors,” the ministry assertion quoted Fathi Yassin, General Director of Antiquities in Upper Egypt, as saying.

The tomb, which confronted the procession avenue to Mentuhotep II’s temple, incorporates a hall resulting in an providing chapel with a distinct segment for a statue of the deceased. A burial shaft descends to a burial chamber with a sarcophagus.

“This is the only decorated room of the tomb, with an unusual decoration of painting on lime plaster,” Yassin stated.

Meru’s tomb had been identified since not less than the mid-Nineteenth century, based on the Polish Egyptian archaeological mission. Italian conservators cleaned a number of the wall work in 1996.

Some of the Middle Kingdom’s most distinguished officers had been buried at North Asasif, the assertion stated.

Top: An Egyptian worker works on the 4,000-year-old tomb of Meru. Photo courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities/Handout through Reuters.