The Fifth Dynasty, a period of the Old Kingdom that lasted from about 2450 to 2290 B.C., is a puzzling blank in Egyptology. Little of its art has survived; its pyramids were jerry-built and unprepossessing; the surviving clues to its history are so meager that few of its pharaohs can even be identified. One who can be was King Ny-user-ra, who ruled from about 2370 to 2360 B.C. Few statues of Ny-user-ra were known; one of them was in the Cairo Museum. It gave no hint of his appearance, since head and torso were missing, but it was certainly he, because...
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