Hetepheres I
Encyclopedia
Queen Hetepheres I was a Queen
of Egypt
during the 4th dynasty.
Huni
. Her title God's Daughter suggests she was the daughter of a king and the most likely candidate is Huni, the predecessor of Sneferu. Her titles include: King’s Mother (mwt-niswt), Mother of the Dual King (mwt-niswt-biti), Attendant of Horus (kht-hrw), God’s Daughter of his body (s3t-ntr-nt-kht.f).
Hetepheres was the wife of the king Sneferu
and the mother of King Khufu
. It is possible that Hetepheres was only a minor wife of Sneferu
and only rose in prominence after her son ascended the throne. She was the grandmother of Kings Djedefre and Khafra
and Queen Hetepheres II
.
Hetepheres died during the reign of her son Khufu.
and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
took over the excavation of Giza. For 23 years they methodically cleared and documented the area. On the February 9th, 1925, while the leader of the expedition, George Reisner, was back in the US, the staff photographer noticed a patch of plaster where he was expecting limestone. Under the direction of Ahmed Said, Reisner's head rais, they cleared the area and removed the plaster, revealing a deep shaft. They dug down 85 feet before reaching a masonry wall which, when penetrated revealed a jumble of grave goods including a white alabaster sarcophagus, gold encased rods used to frame a canopy or tent, gold, wood furniture, and more. Using binoculars and mirrors, Battiscombe Gunn
identified an inscription identifying Sneferu. But this, contrary to newspaper reports at the time, only meant that the owner of the tomb had lived during the reign of Sneferu.
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. In 1927 they gathered to open the sarcophagus only to find that it was empty.
Reisner conjectured that Hetepheres had been originally buried near her husband's pyramid in Dahshur
, but the tomb was broken into shortly after her burial. He thought the robbers had opened the sarcophagus, stolen the mummy with all its gold trappings, but had fled before taking the rest of the treasures. Reisner proposed that the officials responsible for the tomb, in order to avoid his wrath, told Khufu that the mummy was still safely inside the sarcophagus. He then ordered the sarcophagus and all the funerary equipment reburied at Giza, near his own pyramid.
The exact sequence of events is still a mystery however. Dr. Mark Lehner
has suggested that G7000X was Hetepheres' original tomb and that her second tomb was the pyramid G1-a. He conjectured that the mummy of the queen was removed from G7000X when the pyramid was completed and that some of the grave goods were left behind when the queen was reburied. A third possibility, outlined by I.E.S. Edwards in his review of Lehner's theory, is that G7000X was meant to be Hetepheres' final resting place 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 G7000X.
Dr. Zahi Hawass has suggested that Hetepheres was originally buried at G 1a, the northernmost of the small pyramids, and that after the robbery a new shaft was excavated for a new tomb. This would explain the evidence of tampering on the tomb objects.
Hetepheres' sarcophagus and funerary furniture were discovered in 1925 near the satellite pyramids of the Great Pyramid of Giza
in shaft G7000X of a pit tomb. Although the sarcophagus
was sealed and the canopic jars were intact, Hetepheres' mummy was missing. The canopic jars are the oldest examples known, so it has been suggested that Hetepheres was the first royal Egyptian to have her organs dried out and preserved.
The contents of the tomb provide us with many details of the luxury and ways of life of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt
. The items found in the tomb are on display the Egyptian Museum
in Cairo
, with replicas of the main funerary furnishings in the Museum of Fine Arts
in Boston, Massachusetts.
The funerary furniture in G 7000X included the following items:
Queen consort
A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Historically, queens consort do not share the king regnant's political and military powers. Most queens in history were queens consort...
of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
during the 4th dynasty.
Biography
Hetepheres I may have been a daughter of pharaohPharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
Huni
Huni
Huni was the last Pharaoh of Egypt of the Third dynasty. He was the successor to Khaba.-Family:Huni was the father of Hetepheres I, the wife of Sneferu who was the first king of the Fourth Dynasty...
. Her title God's Daughter suggests she was the daughter of a king and the most likely candidate is Huni, the predecessor of Sneferu. Her titles include: King’s Mother (mwt-niswt), Mother of the Dual King (mwt-niswt-biti), Attendant of Horus (kht-hrw), God’s Daughter of his body (s3t-ntr-nt-kht.f).
Hetepheres was the wife of the king Sneferu
Sneferu
Sneferu, also spelled as Snephru, Snefru or Snofru , was the founder of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt. Estimates of his reign vary, with for instance The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt suggesting a reign from around 2613 BC to 2589 BC, a reign of 24 years, while Rolf Krauss suggests a 30-year reign...
and the mother of King Khufu
Khufu
Khufu , also known as Cheops or, in Manetho, Suphis , was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He reigned from around 2589 to 2566 BC. Khufu was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. He is generally accepted as being the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of...
. It is possible that Hetepheres was only a minor wife of Sneferu
Sneferu
Sneferu, also spelled as Snephru, Snefru or Snofru , was the founder of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt. Estimates of his reign vary, with for instance The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt suggesting a reign from around 2613 BC to 2589 BC, a reign of 24 years, while Rolf Krauss suggests a 30-year reign...
and only rose in prominence after her son ascended the throne. She was the grandmother of Kings Djedefre and Khafra
Khafra
Khafra — also Khafre — was an Egyptian pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty, who had his capital at Memphis. According to some authors he was the son and successor of Khufu, but it is more commonly accepted that Djedefre was Khufu's successor and Khafra was Djedefre's...
and Queen Hetepheres II
Hetepheres II
- Birth and family :Queen Hetepheres II may have been one of the longest-lived members of the royal family of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt, which lasted from ca. 2723 to 2563 BC. She was a daughter of Khufu and was either born during the reign of her grandfather Sneferu or during the early years of...
.
Hetepheres died during the reign of her son Khufu.
Discovery of the tomb
Starting in 1902, a joint expedition of Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
took over the excavation of Giza. For 23 years they methodically cleared and documented the area. On the February 9th, 1925, while the leader of the expedition, George Reisner, was back in the US, the staff photographer noticed a patch of plaster where he was expecting limestone. Under the direction of Ahmed Said, Reisner's head rais, they cleared the area and removed the plaster, revealing a deep shaft. They dug down 85 feet before reaching a masonry wall which, when penetrated revealed a jumble of grave goods including a white alabaster sarcophagus, gold encased rods used to frame a canopy or tent, gold, wood furniture, and more. Using binoculars and mirrors, Battiscombe Gunn
Battiscombe Gunn
Battiscombe "Jack" George Gunn was an English Egyptologist and philologist. He published his first translation from Egyptian in 1906. He translated inscriptions for many important excavations and sites, including Fayum, Saqqara, Amarna, Giza and Luxor...
identified an inscription identifying Sneferu. But this, contrary to newspaper reports at the time, only meant that the owner of the tomb had lived during the reign of Sneferu.
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. In 1927 they gathered to open the sarcophagus only to find that it was empty.
Reisner conjectured that Hetepheres had been originally buried near her husband's pyramid in Dahshur
Dahshur
Dahshur , is a royal necropolis located in the desert on the west bank of the Nile approximately 40 kilometres south of Cairo...
, but the tomb was broken into shortly after her burial. He thought the robbers had opened the sarcophagus, stolen the mummy with all its gold trappings, but had fled before taking the rest of the treasures. Reisner proposed that the officials responsible for the tomb, in order to avoid his wrath, told Khufu that the mummy was still safely inside the sarcophagus. He then ordered the sarcophagus and all the funerary equipment reburied at Giza, near his own pyramid.
The exact sequence of events is still a mystery however. Dr. Mark Lehner
Mark Lehner
Mark Lehner PhD is an American archaeologist with more than 30 years of experience excavating in Egypt. His approach, as director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates , is to conduct interdisciplinary archaeological investigation. Every excavated object is examined by specialists to create an...
has suggested that G7000X was Hetepheres' original tomb and that her second tomb was the pyramid G1-a. He conjectured that the mummy of the queen was removed from G7000X when the pyramid was completed and that some of the grave goods were left behind when the queen was reburied. A third possibility, outlined by I.E.S. Edwards in his review of Lehner's theory, is that G7000X was meant to be Hetepheres' final resting place 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 G7000X.
Dr. Zahi Hawass has suggested that Hetepheres was originally buried at G 1a, the northernmost of the small pyramids, and that after the robbery a new shaft was excavated for a new tomb. This would explain the evidence of tampering on the tomb objects.
Grave goods
Great Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact...
in shaft G7000X of a pit tomb. Although the sarcophagus
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...
was sealed and the canopic jars were intact, Hetepheres' mummy was missing. The canopic jars are the oldest examples known, so it has been suggested that Hetepheres was the first royal Egyptian to have her organs dried out and preserved.
The contents of the tomb provide us with many details of the luxury and ways of life of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt
Fourth dynasty of Egypt
The fourth dynasty of ancient Egypt is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom. Dynasty IV lasted from ca. 2613 to 2494 BC...
. The items found in the tomb are on display the Egyptian Museum
Egyptian Museum
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian 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, the remainder in storerooms....
in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, with replicas of the main funerary furnishings in the Museum of Fine Arts
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
in Boston, Massachusetts.
The funerary furniture in G 7000X included the following items:
- Bed canopy (inscribed), gold covered, presented by Snefru, in Cairo Museum Ent. 57711 (restored).
- Bed with inlaid footboard, gold covered, in Cairo Museum Ent. 53261 (restored).
- Curtain box (inscribed), gold covered, faienceFaienceFaience or faïence is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff earthenware body, originally associated with Faenza in northern Italy. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip...
inlaid, presented by Snefru, with King seated on north end, and names and winged disk on south end, in Cairo Museum Ent. 72030 (restored). - Armchair with papyrus-flower decoration, gold covered, in 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, in Cairo Museum
- Gold fragments with deceased seated smelling lotus, probably from lid of small box, in Cairo Museum.
- Palanquins (inscribed on back), gold covered, in Cairo Museum Ent. 52372 (restored).
- Remains of tubular leather case containing two long staves covered with gold ribbed casing and wooden stick with inlaid Min-emblem decoration, in Cairo Museum. (89619 a and b).
- Chest with inlaid lid with text and Min-emblem decoration, gold covered, in Cairo Museum. The chest contained a box with eight alabaster ointment jars (inscribed) in stand, and copper toilet-spoon, a box (inscribed), gold covered, containing silver bracelets with butterfly design, and a head-rest, wood, covered with gold and silver (uninscribed).
- Sarcophagus - alabaster.
- Canopic box - alabaster.
Literature
- Wolfram Grajetzki: Ancient Egyptian Queens – a hieroglyphic dictionary, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, 2005