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Friday Photo: Overseer of the Great Pyramid

It’s been a while since I posted a photo of the week so I am starting up the regular weekly photos again beginning with a photo of Hemiunu, who was the overseer of the building of the Great pyramid.

Hemiunu, architect of Khufu's pyramid. Photo by kairoinfo4u

As you can see Hemiunu is a unique looking character, with unusual facial features and large breasts. The face has been reconstructed after theives smashed it to remove the eyes, which were probably fashioned using coloured stones. Hemiunu is thought to have been the son of Nefermaat, who was buried at Meidum, and grandson of Sneferu.

Statue of Hemiunu - Photo by Einsamer Schütze
He is regarded as one of the most important people of the Fourth Dynasty as he was the Vizier to Khufu and the overseeer of the building of his pyramid, the Great Pyramid as well as other works at Giza.

Hemiunu’s statue was discovered in 1912 by the German/Austrian Expedition, inside the serdab of the mastaba known as G 4000, in the western cemetery. The piece stands at 1.55m high, and is in the typical Old Kingdom style for a seated statue – right hand clenched with his left hand resting on his knee, as described in the post about the recent discovery of the Old Kingdom statue in front of Menkaure’s pyramid.

The statue currently resides in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany and may be loaned back to Egypt to take part in the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in at Giza 2011.

More information can be found at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts & Harvard University’s Giza Archives.

Photograph of the face of Hemiuni by kairoinfo4u under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Photograph of the statue of Hemiuni by Einsamer Schütze under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Friday Photo: Overseer of the Great Pyramid”

  1. Hi Vincent,

    Hem-Iunu was not the Architect of the Great Pyramid – he was the highest ranking man in the state behind the king. He was vizier and holds next to other high ranking titles the one, which might be always interpreted as “architect” – the title “overseer of all works of the king”. This title means that he was overseer of all the works at the Giza plateau, not only the pyramid building works and workmen and at last the overseer of the architects that planned Khufus pyramid.
    So he was much too high ranking for being just an simple architect…We have the original titles of architects in the Old Kingdom – that are the “overseers of royal scribes (master architect of the king?” and this is still a title which Hem-Iunu doesn’t hold – because it’s not high enough for the most important man of the 4th Dynasty behind Khufu.

    Best regards
    Homer

  2. Hi Homer,

    Thank you very much for your comment. I’ve changed the post to reflect the information you have given. Seeing as you are from the Roemer und Pelizaeus Museum, I wonder if you are able to confirm that the statue will be loaned to Egypt for the opening the of Grand Egyptian Museum in at Giza 2011? Considering the recent tensions between German and Egypt over the return of items such as the bust of Nefertiti, I wondered if this will actually go ahead.

    Thanks again,
    Vincent

  3. Thanks Vincent, I did not know of this statue, it demonstrates the importance of architects in the ancient world, a favorite theme of mine.
    NB. Cracking man-boobs.

  4. htis is a cool website i tried looking up some egyptian stuff but couldnt find NOTHING!!!! so THANK YOU

  5. i THINK THAT THAT STATUE IS THE BOMB EXCEPT I STILL HAVE A FEW QUESTIOS ABOUT IT …..,do you mind helping me??!…,:)

  6. Hi Drew,

    Thanks for your comments. Sure, I can help you find what you are looking for. Here’s a tip that might help, try clicking on the credit to the photo at the bottom of the page, here it is: Cleopatra VII. There is a lot of information on the statue there.

    Vincent.

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