Talk:Hetepheres I

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Oldest known reference?

Just a far stretch, nothing scientifical. Yet, I just read a digitezed version of this Dutch book which was published in 1698. It was written by a Dutch traveller who travelled to Egypt and visited the pyramids. He also went inside them with a guide and a torch and describes both the outer and inner charactarestics in great detail. However what cought my eyes most was the following snippet:

Nadat wy aldus derde half uur hadden gereden, kwamen wy aan de pyramiden, by de Arabiers Dgebel pharaon, en by de Turken Pharaon daglary, dat’s te zeggen de ‘Bergen van pharao’ geheeten. Zy vertoonen zich van verre als van kleyne steenen gebouwd, ter oorzaake dat men er altyd verder af is als men zich inbeeld, doch naderby gekomen zynde bevind men t’eenemaal het tegendeel. ’t Getal derzelver werd gemeenlyk op drie gestelt, hoewel er een vierde is, maar deze, heel kleyn zynde, werd niet gereekend. Zy staan in een zeer onvruchtbaare zandige vlakte, daar het gezicht zich zonder eenige verhindering wyd en zyd kan uitstrekken.

Which roughly translates into (translated by ChatGPT):

After having ridden for a one and a half hour in this manner, we arrived at the pyramids, called Dgebel pharaon by the Arabs and Pharaon daglary by the Turks, which means 'Mountains of Pharaoh.' They appear from afar as if built of small stones, because one is always further away than one imagines, but when approaching closer, one discovers quite the opposite. Their number is commonly considered to be three, although there is a fourth one, which is very small and is not counted. They stand in a very barren sandy plain, where the sight can extend far and wide without any hindrance.

After doing some very ungrounded research, could it be he was referring to the pyramid of Hetepheres I? If so.. the book being published in 1698, could it be the first known referance to it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.98.176.53 (talk) 19:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Forgot to login, about comment was mine. BoschA (talk) 06:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Untitled

This article was very unbalanced, referencing modern egyptologists without even mentionsint Reisner. I have added a new section on the discovery of the tomb. I based it on the chapter in Leonard Cottrell's Lost Pharoahs. I will probably come back and adjsut it based on Reisner's original monograph (available on line).

But that leaves this text which i would like to delete - "The reasons for her missing body have been hotly debated. Dr. Mark Lehner has suggested that she was originally buried at another site, but 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. 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."

First, it is not at all cleear what is "hotly debated". Both Lehner's and Hawass's suggestions paarallel Reisner's original interpretation. The only diffeernece of opinion seems to be where she was origianlly buried, with Reisner suggesting Dashur, Lehner suggesting "another site", and Hawass suggesting G 1a (at Giza),

Second, it is not clear to me what either modern scholar adds to the content of the article. I would like to remove both paragraphs, an add (to the section on the discovery): "More modern scholars agree with the basic interpretation, but differ on where thebody was originally buried. Dr. Zahi Hawass has suggested G 1a, the northernmost of the small pyramids. Dr. Mark Lehner has suggested "another site.""

I will leave this here for a while, but if nobody comes by to explain why they want to keep the rest of the text, I will change itJpg1954 (talk) 15:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the comments by Lehner and Hawass need to be provided with inline references, but are definitely worth keeping. Giving a description of the theories as they developed over the years is important. Reisner's excavations are already old in comparison and what he wrote is interesting but not really representative of the latest thoughts on this issue. Furthermore Reisner was a bit given to come up with rather dramatic interpretations which did not always have much basis in the facts. He loved to speculate. I do not like the idea of taking out information given by today's leading scholars like Lehner and then replacing it with information from Cotrell who is not an Egyptologist. --AnnekeBart (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Re "hotly debated": There have been competing theories about possible sequence of events. Why bury the goods here without a mummy? Was Hetepheres originally buried in Dashur or not? Was this cache meant to be moved to her actual burial place or was it meant to stay here. Was this a tomb or a repository? Etc Etc. So yes, there has been quite a bit of discussion on what this find could actually represent.--AnnekeBart (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, much better. Now I can understand what the modern theories are.

If it would be more appropriate, I can replace the Cottrell references with Barbara Mertz's "Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs". She tells essentially the same story and she is an Egyptologist, even if better known for her fiction. Jpg1954 (talk) 02:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Condition of furniture

What is the source/rationale for this statement about the furniture:

"They were in good condition and most of the contents were intact." ?

This does not match Resiner's description:

"The greater part of the wood was shrivelled to a sort of grey ash by fungus"

"The shrinking of the wood before it finally decayed had disjointed the frames of the furniture and laid the gold casings in heaps on the floor. The decay of the wood in the panels and the dis- turbance caused by the fall of the parts of the furniture had left much of the inlay-work in ruins."

"The platform of the bed collapsed partly on these and partly on the floor to the north, while the higher southern end of the platform sliding down was telescoped by the fall. The bed-frame itself, held together a little longer by the gold casing, collapsed last; and the gold sheets of the casing opening out deposited the wooden core on top along the edges of the mass of wood."

"Over the deposit of decayed wood from the bed lay several other pieces of decayed wood and also two copper staples like those we afterwards found in the beams of the canopy."

and so on.

Jpg1954 (talk) 15:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I did not write that, so I don't know where that came from. That should be researched and rewritten. Not to mention that it needs inline references (WP:VERIFY) --AnnekeBart (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

tomb shaft identification

Is the tomb identifier " shaft G700X " as staed here? Or " G7000X" as staed in the Giza East Field article? Jpg1954 (talk) 18:59, 14 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpg1954 (talk • contribs) 16:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

It's G7000X. There's a typo.--AnnekeBart (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

How old?

I am not finding the information I really want to know here, which is how old exactly is this stuff?

"4th Dyanasty" means nothing to me, a non-specialist. What is that,like 3000 BC?

It might be buried somewhere in the article, but I can't find it. Seems to me like it should be right there in the first paragraph. 182.247.168.150 (talk) 05:31, 26 March 2013 (UTC)