Hetepheres I
Hetepheres I | |
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Queen of Egypt | |
Burial | Tomb G 7000X near the Great Pyramid of Giza |
Spouse | Sneferu |
Issue | Hetepheres Khufu |
Father | Huni |
Religion | Ancient Egyptian religion |
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Hetepheres in hieroglyphs | ||||
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Era: Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC) | ||||
Hetepheres I was a queen of Egypt during the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2600 BC) who was a wife of one king, the mother of the next king, the grandmother of two more kings, and the figure who tied together two dynasties.
Biography
Hetepheres I may have been a wife of
Tomb
Discovery
Starting in 1902, a joint expedition of
Reisner concluded that this represented a secret reburial, possibly because robbers had gotten into the original tomb. By April, he had identified the owner of the tomb as Hetepheres, wife of Sneferu and mother of Khufu.[4] In 1927, the team gathered to open the sarcophagus only to find that it was empty.[6][7]
Reisner conjectured that originally, Hetepheres had been buried near her husband's pyramid in Dahshur and that her tomb was broken into shortly after her burial. He thought the robbers had opened the sarcophagus, stolen her mummy with all of her gold trappings, but had fled before taking the rest of her treasures. Reisner speculated that in order to avoid the wrath of the king, the officials responsible for her tomb, told Khufu that her mummy was still safely inside the sarcophagus. Khufu then ordered the sarcophagus and all of his mother's funerary artifacts reburied at Giza, near his own pyramid.[4][8]
The exact sequence of her burial events remains a mystery, however.
A third possibility, outlined by I. E. S. Edwards in his review of Lehner's theory, is that G 7000X was meant to be final resting place of Hetepheres and that the mummy was robbed from that structure shortly after her burial. It may be possible that a superstructure in the form of a pyramid was planned for shaft G 7000X.[8]
Grave treasures
The sarcophagus and funerary furniture of Hetepheres were discovered in 1925 near the satellite pyramids of the Great Pyramid of Giza in shaft G 7000X of a pit tomb.[1] Although the sarcophagus was sealed and the Canopic chest was intact, the mummy of Hetepheres was missing. The chest, a large square box with four smaller square compartments inside, is one of the oldest examples known, so it has been suggested that Hetepheres may have been one of the first Egyptian royals to have her organs preserved. Of the four interior squares all contained organic matter, but two of the squares also contained liquid. Ensuing test revealed the liquid to be a three percent solution of Egyptian natron in water, which was used in the mummification process.[9]
The contents of the tomb provide us with many details of the luxury and ways of life of the royal members of the
The funeral furniture of Hetepheres from G 7000X included the following:[11]
- Bed canopy — (inscribed), gold covered, presented by Snefru, Cairo Museum Ent. 57711 (restored)
- Bed with inlaid footboard— gold covered, Cairo Museum Ent. 53261 (restored)
- Curtain box (inscribed) — gold covered, faience inlaid, presented by Snefru, with king seated on north end, and names and a winged disk on south end, Cairo Museum Ent. 72030 (restored)
- Armchair with papyrus — flower decoration, gold covered, Cairo Museum Ent. 53263 (restored)
- Armchair — with inlays of Neith-standards on both faces of back, with hawk standing on palm column on arms (wood perished), gold covered, Cairo Museum (recreated 2016)[12]
- Gold fragments — with deceased seated smelling lotus, probably from lid of small box, Cairo Museum
- Palanquins(inscribed on back) — gold covered, Cairo Museum Ent. 52372 (restored)
- Remains of tubular leather case — containing two long staves covered with gold ribbed casing and a wooden stick with inlaid Min-emblem decoration, Cairo Museum (89619 a and b)
- Chest — gold covered with inlaid lid with text and Min-emblem decoration, containing a box in a stand with eight inscribed alabaster ointment jars, a copper toilet-spoon, a gold-covered and inscribed box containing silver bracelets with a butterfly design, and a head-rest of wood that is covered with gold and silver but is not inscribed, Cairo Museum
- Sarcophagus — alabaster
- Canopic box — alabaster
See also
- Egyptian Fourth Dynasty Family Tree
References
- ^ a b c Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson (2004), p. 57.
- ^ a b Grajetzki, Ancient Egyptian Queens – a hieroglyphic dictionary, London, 2011.
- ^ Dodson, Hilton The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, London 2004
- ^ a b c Leonard Cottrell, The Lost Pharaohs, Grosset & Dunlap, New York (1961).
- ^ "Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts Special Number, Supplement to Volume XXV: The Tomb of Queen Hetep-heres" (PDF). www.gizapyramids.org. Boston. May 1927.
- ^ a b Manuelian, Peter Der. "A Race against Time in the Shadow of the Pyramids. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Giza Necropolis, 1902-1990." KMT 1, No. 4 (1990-91), pp. 10-21.
- ^ http://www.gizapyramids.org/pdf%20library/bmfa_pdfs/bmfa25_1927_54.pdf Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Volume XXV], Boston, August, 1927, Number 150]
- ^ a b Edwards, I.E.S. "Review of 'The Pyramid Tomb of Hetep-heres and the Satellite Pyramid of Khufu'." Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 75 (1989), pp. 261-265.
- ^ George Reisner, “The Empty Sarcophagus of the Mother of Cheops”, Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) Vol. 26, No. 157 (Oct., 1928), p. 81.
- ISBN 0-87846-661-4
- ^ Porter and Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings; Part III; pp. 179-182.
- ^ "Recreating the Throne of Egyptian Queen Hetepheres". hmane.harvard.edu.
External links
- Media related to Hetepheres at Wikimedia Commons
- Virtual tour of her tomb created by Harvard's Digital Giza Project