Hemiunu

"Hemon" redirects here. For the Bosnian-American writer, see Aleksandar Hemon.

Hemiunu (fl. 2570 BC) was an ancient Egyptian prince who is believed to have been the architect of the Great Pyramid of Giza.^[4][5] As vizier, succeeding his father, Nefermaat, and his uncle, Kanefer,^[6] 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.

Hemiunu
Hereditary Prince King's son of his body Vizier
Statue of Hemiunu at the Pelizaeus Museum, Hildesheim, Germany, his feet rest on columns of hieroglyphs painted in yellow, red, brown, and black
Egyptian name	Beloved royal son Hemiunu[1]
Dynasty	Fourth Dynasty of Egypt
Father	Nefermaat Vizier, keeper of the royal seal[2][3]
Mother	Itet

Biography

Hemiunu was a son of prince Nefermaat and his wife, Itet.^[7] He is a grandson of Sneferu and a nephew of Khufu, the Old Kingdom pharaoh. 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 (and now located in Hildesheim), 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).^[8]

Door frame, mastaba G 4000, Hemiunu titles;

Hereditary Prince, vizier, keeper of the royal seal, chief of the royal scribes, administrator of all royal buildings^[9][10][11]

Tomb

Hemiunu's tomb lies close to Khufu's pyramid and contains reliefs of his image. Some stones of his badly damaged mastaba ^[12] are marked with dates referring to Khufu's reign.^[13] His statue^[14] can be found at the Pelizaeus Museum, Hildesheim, Germany.^[7] His statue was found in the walled-up serdab of Hemiunu's mastaba by archaeologist Hermann Junker 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,^[15] 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 (importantly, his head being severed), 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.

Notes

1. Junker p.151
2. Petrie p.93
3. Grajetzky
4. De Camp, p. 35
5. Shaw, p. 89
6. Cambridge, p. 166
7. Arnold, p. 107
8. "Hemiunu (G 4000)". Hemiunu, owner of G 4000
9. Junker p. 146
10. Baud p. 516
11. Grajetzky
12. "G 4000".Mastaba G 4000 Western Cementery
13. Strudwick, p. 157
14. Tiradritti, p. 13
15. N.Y.), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York (1999). Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9780870999079.

References

• Hermann Junker, Gíza I. Grabungen auf dem Friedhof des Alten Reiches bei den Pyramiden von Giza, Tom. I, Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Wien 1929
• Michael Baud, Famille royale et pouvoir sous l’Ancient Epirem égyptien Tom.1, Institute Français D’Archologie Oriental, Caire 1999
• Grajetzky Wolfram, Who was Nefermaat?, University College London 2003,
• Flinders Petrie, Medum, David Nutt, London 1892
• 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, Catherine Crook De Camp, Ancient Ruins and Archaeology, Doubleday, 1964
• Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2003

See also

List of Egyptian architects

• Media related to Hemiunu at Wikimedia Commons

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