Hemiunu ( fl. 2570 BC) was an ancient Egyptian prince who is believed to have been the

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

of the

Great Pyramid of Giza The Great Pyramid of Giza is the biggest Egyptian pyramid and the tomb of Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. Built in the early 26th century BC during a period of around 27 years, the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, ...

. As

vizier A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was a ...

, succeeding his father,

Nefermaat Nefermaat I (''fl.'' ''c.'' 2575–2551 B.C.) was an ancient Egyptian prince, a son of king Sneferu. He was a vizier possessing the titles of the king's eldest son, royal seal bearer, and prophet of Bastet. His name means "Maat is beautiful" or ...

, and his uncle,

Kanefer ::''See also article Kanefer (High Priest of Ptah).'' Kanefer ("His Ka is beautiful") is the name of an ancient Egyptian prince. He lived during the 4th or early 5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom period.Aidan Dodson, Dyan Hilton: ''The Complete Ro ...

, Hemiunu was one of the most important members of the court and responsible for all the royal works. His tomb lies close to Khufu's pyramid.

Biography

Hemiunu was a son of prince

and his wife,

Itet Itet, also known as Atet, was a royal woman who lived in ancient Egypt. She was the wife of Nefermaat, the eldest son of king Sneferu as well as a vizier and a religious leader in the royal court who officiated in the worship of Bastet. She was t ...

.Arnold, p. 107 He is a grandson of

Sneferu Sneferu ( snfr-wj "He has perfected me", from ''Ḥr-nb-mꜣꜥt-snfr-wj'' "Horus, Lord of Maat, has perfected me", also read Snefru or Snofru), well known under his Hellenized name Soris ( grc-koi, Σῶρις by Manetho), was the founding phar ...

and a relative of

Khufu Khufu or Cheops was an ancient Egyptian monarch who was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period ( 26th century BC). Khufu succeeded his father Sneferu as king. He is generally accepted as having co ...

, the

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

. Hemiunu had three sisters and many brothers. In his tomb, he is described as a hereditary prince, count, sealer of the king of Lower Egypt (''jrj-pat HAtj-a xtmw-bjtj''), and on a statue found in his

serdab A serdab ( fa, سرداب, d=Sardāb), literally meaning "cold water", which became a loanword in Arabic for 'cellar' is an ancient Egyptian tomb structure that served as a chamber for the Ka statue of a deceased individual. Used during the Old Kin ...

(and now located in

Hildesheim Hildesheim (; nds, Hilmessen, Hilmssen; la, Hildesia) is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of the Lei ...

), Hemiunu is given the titles: king's son of his body, chief justice, and vizier, greatest of the five of the House of Thoth (''sA nswt n XT=f tAjtj sAb TAtj wr djw pr-DHwtj'').

Tomb

Hemiunu's tomb lies close to Khufu's pyramid and contains

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

s of his image. Some stones of his badly damaged

mastaba A mastaba (, or ), also mastabah, mastabat or pr- djt (meaning "house of stability", " house of eternity" or "eternal house" in Ancient Egyptian), is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inwar ...

() are marked with dates referring to Khufu's reign. His statue can be found at the Pelizaeus Museum,

, Germany. This statue is scheduled to be loaned for the opening of the

Grand Egyptian Museum The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM; ''al-Matḥaf al-Maṣriyy al-Kabīr''), also known as the Giza Museum, is an archaeological museum under construction in Giza, Egypt. It will house artifacts of ancient Egypt, including the complete Tutankhamun ...

in late 2022. His statue was found in the walled-up

of Hemiunu's mastaba by archaeologist

Hermann Junker Hermann Junker (29 November 1877 in Bendorf – 9 January 1962 in Vienna) was a German archaeologist best known for his discovery of the Merimde-Benisalam site in the West Nile Delta in Lower Egypt in 1928. Early life Junker was born in 1877 in ...

in March 1912. Ancient looters had ransacked the mastaba in their quest for valuable items and the wall to the serdab had a child-sized hole cut into it. The robber forcefully gouged out the statue's precious inlaid eyes and gold castings, in the process the right arm was broken and the head severed. The head has been restored, using a relief of Hemiunu as a guide for the nose's profile. The seated statue is well-preserved, apart from the damage mentioned above, and is notable for its realism, not found in ancient Egyptian art depicting royal figures. Hemiunu's features are only lightly stylized and clearly based on his appearance. He is depicted as obese, with notable accumulation of fat in the pectoral region. This contrasts with the more idealized representation of male subjects in royal portraiture in this and most succeeding periods of

ancient Egyptian art Ancient Egyptian art refers to art produced in ancient Egypt between the 6th millennium BC and the 4th century AD, spanning from Prehistoric Egypt until the Christianization of Roman Egypt. It includes paintings, sculptu ...

Notes

References

* Dieter Arnold, ''The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture'', I.B.Tauris, 2002 * Nigel C. Strudwick, ''Texts from the Pyramid'', SBL, 2005 * ''Cambridge Ancient History'' by Cambridge University Press, 2000 * Francesco Tiradritti, ''Arte egizia'', Giunti, 2002 *

Lyon Sprague De Camp Lyon Sprague de Camp (; November 27, 1907 – November 6, 2000) was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and works of non-fiction, including biog ...

, Catherine Crook De Camp, ''Ancient Ruins and Archaeology'', Doubleday, 1964 * Ian Shaw, ''The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt'', Oxford University Press, 2003

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hemiunu 26th-century BC Egyptian people Princes of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt Viziers of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt Ancient Egyptian architects Giza Plateau 26th-century BC deaths Great Pyramid of Giza