Ranefer or Ranofer was a

High Priest of Ptah The High Priest of Ptah was sometimes referred to as "the Greatest of the Directors of Craftsmanship" ('' wr-ḫrp-ḥmwt''). This title refers to Ptah as the patron god of the craftsmen.Dodson and Hilton, ''The Complete Royal Families of Ancie ...

, who lived at the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. His name means " Ra is beautiful". His main title was "greatest of the directors of craftsmen belonging to the day of festival". This is a variation of the title normally assigned to the high priest of Ptah. Ranefer served as a High Priest at the end of the Fourth and the beginning of the Fifth Dynasty. He also was a ''priest of

Seker Seker (; also spelled Sokar, and in Greek, Sokaris or Socharis) is a falcon god of the Memphite necropolis in the Ancient Egyptian religion. Name Although the meaning of his name remains uncertain, the Egyptians in the Pyramid Texts linked his ...

'', ''steward of Seker'' (''imy-r pr zkr'') and ''priest of Ptah'', and was buried in a large

mastaba A mastaba (, or ), also mastabah, mastabat or pr- djt (meaning "house of stability", " house of eternity" or "eternal house" in Ancient Egyptian), is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inwar ...

built for himself at

Saqqara Saqqara ( ar, سقارة, ), also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English , is an Egyptian village in Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. ...

. In the mastaba was also found the statue of a woman called Hekenu. His name and titles are preserved on two statues discovered in the mastaba. Auguste Edouard Mariette: ''Les Mastabas de l'Ancien Empire. Fragment du dernier ouvrage.'' Publié d'apres le manuscrit de l'auteur par

Gaston Maspero Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (23 June 1846 – 30 June 1916) was a French Egyptologist known for popularizing the term "Sea Peoples" in an 1881 paper. Maspero's son, Henri Maspero, became a notable sinologist and scholar of East Asia. ...

. F. Vieweg, Paris 1889, p. 121–123 The statues are today in the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

in Cairo.

References

Memphis High Priests of Ptah People of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt People of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt {{AncientEgypt-bio-stub