The Tomb of Queen Hetepheres Discovered Shortly After King Tutankhamun’s Tomb, Filled with Valuable Artifacts
Burial items inside tomb G7000X. (Photo: Boston Museum of Contemporary Art)
Since the early 20th century, the Giza Plateau has been excavated by a team of international scholars. One of the leaders of this excavation was American archaeologist George Reisner. On February 2, 1925, Reisner’s photographer, Mohammedani Ibrahim, was working near the pyramid built by Pharaoh Khufu during the mid-3rd millennium BC and noticed that his camera support was resting on a layer of white plaster, possibly the top of a hidden structure below.
Ibrahim needed to inform his boss, but Reisner was not in Egypt at the time; he was in Boston carrying out his duties as an Egyptology professor at Harvard University. The associates began digging in his absence and discovered a narrow shaft 26 meters deep filled with debris. This was evidence that they had found a tomb. However, due to grave robbers having operated in Giza for thousands of years, the chances of finding an intact tomb were very low. For the archaeological team, it was a victorious moment, but that weekend, they received a telegram from Boston ordering them to cease work in Egypt. The tomb numbered G7000X was sealed off.
Golden hawk in the tomb of Queen Hetepheres. (Photo: Scala)
Born in 1867 in Indianapolis, George Reisner was responsible for a major archaeological survey in the Nubia region (now southern Egypt and Sudan). In 1902, French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero divided the Giza Plateau among the leading archaeologists of the time to prevent grave robbing and the deterioration of the site. The central area of the massive site was assigned to Reisner. After Reisner completed his work in the U.S. and returned to Egypt, tomb G7000X was reopened in January 1926.
Upon entering the burial chamber containing the sarcophagus, Reisner observed that the gold-covered items inside had been damaged by water. The condition of the tomb was so poor that the archaeologist feared it would collapse. The process of collecting fragments of wood and inlaid items was carried out with great care. Reisner and his associates also found a canopy, a bed, armchairs, and a palanquin. The name of the tomb’s owner “Hetepetheres” was inscribed on the palanquin, confirming Reisner’s hypothesis that the tomb belonged to a woman. She was the mother of Pharaoh Khufu, the second king of the 4th Dynasty. Her tomb lay hidden in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu for over 4 millennia.
The fine plaster sarcophagus of Hetepheres was opened in March 1927 but contained no remains. Historians still debate what happened to the body. Reisner believed that initially, Hetepheres was buried near her husband Snefru at Dahshur. Later, Khufu built a new tomb at Giza, but his mother’s remains were never transferred there. Others speculate that she was buried in the small pyramid G1a at the foot of the Great Pyramid.
After the excavation, the armchair was restored and is now displayed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. After Reisner passed away in 1942, experts restored the palanquin and its gold covering. The artifact is currently housed at the Harvard Semitic Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
