In 1860, Auguste Mariette’s team excavating at northern Saqqara uncovered the life-size wooden statue of the 5th Dynasty lector priest Ka’aper in his mastaba (often identified as tomb C8) west of the pyramid of Userkaf. The figure’s striking realism—especially its inlaid eyes—so impressed the local workmen that they nicknamed it “Sheikh el-Balad” (“village chief”), a name it’s still known by today. Carved from sycamore wood and about 112 cm tall, it’s now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (CG 34).