Hetepheres
Queen Hetepheres I was the sister and wife of the
Egyptian Pharaoh Snofru, and the mother of
Khufu, and is thought to have been the daughter of
Huni. She may have died during the reign of Khufu.
Her tomb was discovered in
1925 in one of the satellite pyramids of the
Great Pyramid of Giza. The tomb was in good condition and most of the contents seemed intact, but there were signs of robbery. Although the
sarcophagus was sealed, the body was missing, while the
canopic jars were intact. Those are the oldest examples of canopic jars known, so it has been suggested that Queen Hetepheres was the first royal Egyptian to have her organs dried out and preserved.
Dr. Lehner has suggested that she was originally buried at another site, but that because the original site was robbed and the mummy destroyed, the remaining contents were moved later to the pyramid, and the sarcophagus sealed to hide the evidence of the missing body from the surviving members of her family.
Dr. Hawass has suggested 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.
The contents of the tomb provide us with many details of the luxury and ways of life of the
Fourth dynasty of Egypt. All the contents of the tomb are displayed in the
Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston, Massachusetts and the
Egyptian Museum in
Cairo.
*Wolfram Grajetzki:
Ancient Egyptian Queens – a hieroglyphic dictionary, London 2005
*
Egyptian Fourth Dynasty Family Tree
