Since the discovery and excavation of the tomb of Hetepheres on the Giza Plateau in February of 1925, people have been trying to restore its historic scenario as it was built and arguing about whether it is the true and original tomb of the queen, as many aspects of the tomb are unclear and confusing. The missing superstructure, the reverse arrangement order of furniture, the obviously hasty state of the chamber, the empty sarcophagus, and full ceremonies in the shaft are reasons why Egyptologists debate about how to interpret the tomb. Two well-known Egyptologists, George Andrew Reisner, the director of the excavation, and Mark Lehner, proposed two opposing reconstructions to explain them. While Reisner believed that the shaft, registered as G 7000 X, is a reburial tomb of the robbed one near the pyramid of Hetepheres’ husband Snefru, Lehner suggested that G 7000 X is her original tomb and her body was moved to G I a, one the three queen’s pyramids to the east of the pyramid of her Khufu, due to change of the plan for his cemetery. Looking through the pictures of the tomb and two Egyptologists’ scientific publication, Lehner’s theory seems more convincing since it has more convincing arguments that are more in accordance with ancient Egyptian funerary traditions.
No superstructure was found on the surface above G 7000 X and “there was nothing to indicate the burial place of the king’s mother” (Reisner 1927, 34). If it were not Reisner’s photographer who discovered the shaft by coincidence, the tomb of Hetepheres might have been buried deep underground forever and people would not have known the existence of Queen Hetepheres. Reisner ascribed the lack of superstructure to the secrecy of the reburial, evidenced by the “final course of masonry which closed the mouth of the shaft” and “was of irregular blocks of local limestone set very craftily to look like the surrounding surface of the rock” (Reisner 1927, 34). In Reisner's reconstruction, the original tomb was once robbed so it is reasonable to think that the reason why the reburial does not have a superstructure is to avoid a second robbery. If the shaft was not an official reburial tomb of the queen and called for secrecy, then there was no need to care about whether the closing of the shaft perfectly look alike the surrounding rocks. According to Lehner, however, Reisner’s interpretation does not follow Egyptian mortuary tradition. The superstructure is a core element of a mortuary complex in ancient Egypt and functions as a symbol of communication between the living and the deceased so as to ensure their smooth and luxurious afterlife. As secrecy purpose is personal and incomparable to the deep-rooted convention, it is hard to believe that a tomb would be purposely built without superstructure, even less a tomb of a royal queen.
Moreover, “the shaft was extraordinarily deep (over 27 m or 89 ft)” (Lehner 1997, 117) and that is nearly the height of a 9-floor building in current time. Construction of the tomb must be a big project that consumes large amount of time and labor force and it is implausible that the shaft could have been dug secretly at Giza as what Reisner purposed. Hence, Lehner believed that the tomb was not purposely built without superstructure, but was instead left unfinished. The shaft should have been covered with a pyramid but with the change of the plan for Khufu’s cemetery, the position of the pyramid changed as well. Therefore, the body and goods have to be transferred to the new one, which Lehner believed is G I a, the northernmost of the three queen pyramids. Fig. 8 (Lehner 1980, 42-43) is a scaled drawing showing how Hetepheres I’s funerary equipment might be placed in the burial chamber of G I a. It clearly proves that the dimensions of G I a were designed to let the furniture fit perfectly into the floor space of its burial chamber. This is a strong point that supports Lehner’s theory and makes it sound more reasonable than Reisner’s idea.
The furniture in the tomb was arranged in an unusual way. Everything was placed in reverse order rather than the traditional arrangement. For example, the coffin that was originally in the southwestern quarter, the inner corner of the old tomb, turns out to be located in the northeastern quarter, the position closest to the entrance of the Giza tomb (Reisner 1927, 23). Reisner explained the reverse placing as the result of transportation from the original tomb at Dahshur. “That is, those things which had been nearest the doorway of the original tomb had been taken out first and placed first in the Giza tomb” (Reisner 1927, 23). Evidence of the transportation would be the wooden boxes containing decayed clothes found in the shaft (Reisner 1927, 22). They prove that “the artifacts had been placed in boxes before being deposited in the burial chamber” (Lehner 1980, 19). Boxes function as containers in a tomb only when things call for transportation from one place to another. Nevertheless, this could not explain why the Egyptians arranged the furniture in such an abnormal order of the period. It would be more comprehensible for such a reversal to take place if the objects were moved item by item for a relatively short distance, but definitely not for such a long way from Dahshur to Giza. Therefore, as what Lehner pointed out, the order of the tomb furniture could be so exactly maintained as it was transferred from Dahshur to Giza. However, Lehner, too, did not have grounded suggestions why the placing order is reversed so this is a hole of his theory.
The expedition team of Reisner observed that G 7000 X was apparently messy and in a state of haste. There were two vertical fissures followed by the shaft (Resiner 1927, 31), limestone powder covered the floor of the chamber (Reisner 1927, 20), fragments of furniture lying on the debris of broken local stone (Reisner 1927, 10), and “copper tools on the floor west of the coffin and on top of the deposit immediately south of the sarcophagus” (Lehner 1985, 18). All these pieces of evidence show that G 7000 X was prepared without enough time. While Reisner explained this as being due to the hasty removal, secrecy of the reburial, and the insufficient time set by the angry king, Lehner ascribed this to the uselessness of the shaft and the sudden death of Queen Hetepheres. Still, both are problematic. If Reisner’s idea is correct, how could Khufu, the king of Egypt, leave his mother’s official tomb finished in such a messy state? If Lehner’s theory is correct, how could the officials know beforehand that the tomb would be useless? They could not have known that the plan for the cemetery would change so they must treat it as the real tomb that was supposed to be clean and organized.
The sarcophagus was empty after Reisner and his team opened it. Reisner suggested it was because the original tomb was robbed. He pointed out that the side of the alabaster sarcophagus against the wall of the burial chamber was damaged, which he thought could not have happened in G 7000 X but rather in the original tomb in Dahshur. Evidence of theft would be “the join between the upper edge of the sarcophagus” and the chipped lid “caused by a chisel to pry off the lid”, and the largely occurred chips “along the east side of the sarcophagus which is only 30 cms. from the wall” (Lehner 1985, 20). This east side must be the side from which the thieves worked to pry off the lid, and yet 30 cms. was too narrow for the work, so the robbery must have taken place in the original tomb where the east side of sarcophagus faced out (Lehner 1985, 20). Contrary to Reisner’s theory, Lehner believed that the body was moved to G I a as explained and proved above. However, both theories have holes. If, according to Reisner, there was a robbery happened in the original tomb, why did robbers not take away the valuable goods such as the silver anklets and the toilet vessels? It is also quite hard to understand why the reburial was not conducted in the same place as the original burial. On the other hand, if G 7000 X were the original burial as Lehner proposed, then why would it be in such a mess?
The shaft was full of offerings. This could only occur if “the king believed that his mother’s body was still in the sarcophagus at the time of the burial in G 7000 X” (Lehner 1980, 22). In a sealed offering niche on the west, Reisner and his team found that there “contained a crushed ox skull and 3 leg bones wrapped in a decayed reed mat, 2 wine jars, charcoal, a limestone boulder, and 2 basalt chips” (Lehner 1980, 22). The food was offered to the ka of Hetepheres in order to maintain her life force and facilitate her journey into the afterlife. As Khufu might have no idea the body of his mother was missing, he still ordered offerings and let his officials place them in the niche. However, to support his own theory, Lehner suggested that the basalt chips might be tools and purposed that the limestone boulder might have been thrown into the niche to crush the skull and therefore invalidate the offerings, as this shaft was no longer the tomb of the queen. Ox skull is exceptionally solid and was widely used by primitive men as defensive and attacking tools. Therefore, being more likely the result of a man-made sabotage than a natural or incautious accident, the crushed state of the ox skull becomes a more grounded piece of evidence of Lehner’s hypothesis than Reisner’s.
Each of the five pieces of evidence discussed above is controversial for the interpretation of G 7000 X as a queen’s tomb. Both Reisner’s and Lehner’s reconstructions have evidence supported and yet both have holes at the same time. Their similar weakness might be relying too much on the assumption of robbery or reburial. Since the context, collection, and distribution of items convinced them that what they discovered was a tomb, they explained all the observed features of G 7000 X on the basis of their preconceived categorization. Instead of taking general anomaly into consideration and reconsider the nature of the finding, they tried to fit specific anomalies with their assumptions by proposing a number of problematic explanations. Nevertheless, Lehner’s theory raise fewer questions than Reisner’s and is based on more grounded assumptions and also foundation of ancient Egypt burial customs. Therefore, his interpretation of Queen Hetepheres I’s tomb is believed to be more reasonable than Reisner’s.
