A number of individuals with whom I’ve shared my information on the Hoppes family have asked me about one of my other hobbies, historical research concerning Egypt’s Dynasty IV, the golden age of the Old Kingdom when the pyramids at Giza were built. Their questions have included: When and how did you become interested in this subject, and what led you to write two books about it? What did you learn during your research? Do you believe your findings will ever be accepted as valid? Denise has been kind enough to reproduce my book End of the Great Pyramid Mysteries, (Copyright LC# TXu 890-617, Effective Date of Library of Congress Registration: January 25, 1999) on the Hoppes Generations web site. This book was a condensed version of my earlier research reported in Ancient Egypt’s Dynasty IV: A New View, (Copyright LC# TXu 862-680, Effective Date of Registration: July 9, 1998.) I hope that some of you will find the following brief summary of these works interesting, and I also hope that the summary will find a life of its own on the Internet.
I’ve been in love with Ancient Egypt for more than 50 years, mostly as an admirer of a culture that survived for more than 30 centuries. As a young boy growing up in eastern Pennsylvania, I usually selected topics about Ancient Egypt for school papers and book reports, whenever appropriate. Later, in my late-twenties, I acquired a copy of Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar and began my self-taught study of Egyptian hieroglyphs. By this time, I had received my BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, my MS degree in Industrial Management from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and had completed the course requirements for my PhD degree in Business Administration at the American University in Washington, D.C.
My career in operations research/ systems analysis/ systems management provided me with ample opportunities to travel to many countries, including Egypt. In 1976 and again in 1978, for example, I visited Egypt as part of a team of experts funded by the US Agency for International Development to study ways of improving rural healthcare delivery. During the weeks we spent in Cairo working with representatives of the Ministry of Health, I visited the Giza Plateau whenever possible to explore the pyramids with the help of I.E.S. Edwards’ useful guide, The Pyramids of Egypt. Like most first-time visitors, I was amazed by the size, symmetry, and steep angle of ascent of the three principal pyramids.
Fourteen years passed before I had a chance to visit the Giza Plateau again. As a result of a course on Ancient Egypt that I took at Montgomery College, I decided to sign up for a 17-day tour of Egypt by the well-known “independent Egyptologist” John Anthony West in March 1992. The tour package included a copy of West’s book, The Traveler’s Key to Ancient Egypt, which I dove into as soon as it arrived. After skimming through three introductory chapters on background history, the development of Egyptology, and Egyptian religion, I suddenly ground to a halt in Chapter 4, Giza: Pyramids-Background and Theory. In rapid-fire succession, West proposed eight possible reasons that the largest pyramid at Giza was constructed, namely as: (1) an astronomical observatory, (2) an almanac, (3) a geographical marker, (4) a geodesic repository, (5) a center of initiation, (6) a headquarters for astronauts, (7) a tomb, and (8) a source of pyramid power. Was West serious that one can find creditable people today who support each of these theories, or was he just spoofing? Somehow, if he was jesting, I wasn’t amused. Surely, we must know more about why the pyramids were built than being left to choose from eight competing possibilities. I was completely sidetracked and in deep trouble; I never did finish reading his Chapter 4 or the others that followed.
It took me more than a month to recover from the messy problem that West had proposed (and in a sense I’m still recovering today). His question: Why were the pyramids built? My answer: To serve as burial places for Egyptian royalty, that is, as tombs. My question: How sure am I? Answer: Beyond the three sigma limit, i.e., over 99% certain. Question: OK, smart guy, then explain the purpose of the air vents and Grand Gallery in the Great Pyramid built by Khufu. Answer: Duh!
So, in a sense, West was right. If the pyramids were built only as tombs, then one has to find creditable answers to some very tough questions. Why would Khufu take the time, effort, and risk to build a magnificent Grand Gallery some 153 feet long, 28 feet high, and ascending at an angle of 23 degrees in the very heart of his pyramid? And why would he build “Air Vents” leading from the north and south walls of two of the pyramid chambers to the outer edges of the Pyramid? What was the purpose of the “Well Shaft” and the “Grotto” underneath the Grand Gallery?” How was his tomb sealed? How was it violated? When? By whom?
After puzzling over these questions (and secondary ones resulting from the answers to the primary set) for about a month, I felt confident that I could prove the hypothesis that pyramids are tombs alone. Brashly, I contacted West and proposed that we meet prior to the tour to discuss my hypotheses. He graciously invited my wife Riki and me to spend a night with him at his home near Saugerties, New York. It proved to be a bittersweet experience. The pleasurable part was the outstanding hospitality afforded by West and his wife; the painful part was West’s up-front, total rejection of my tomb-alone starting point, which precluded any in-depth discussion. In fact, he felt that my version of the tomb-alone approach was the silliest explanation he had ever heard except for the individual who wrote to him proposing that the Great Pyramid was constructed to collect bat dung. In spite of our philosophical differences, West and I got along well on his tour. He promoted mysteries; I looked for solutions. Actually, I departed from the New Age events so frequently that he dubbed me “the wandering CEO,” alluding to my non-tour life as a corporate executive.
About a week after I returned from West’s tour, my mother Margaret L. (Troxell) Hoppes died of emphysema on March 30, 1992. Her condition had deteriorated rapidly while I was gone and I was shocked to learn she had been hospitalized shortly before my return. For some months thereafter, I had no time to think about Ancient Egypt. When I finally did, I followed a two-prong approach: determine the functions of the unique features of Khufu’s Pyramid, i.e., the Grand Gallery, the “Air Vents”, the “Well Shaft”, and the “Grotto”, and construct a genealogy of the royal family. Being both an engineer and a genealogist, I felt at home in these endeavors.
FINDINGS
The principal features of Khufu’s Great Pyramid are shown in the Figure 1 below.
FIGURE 1: SCHEMATIC
DIAGRAM OF KHUFU’S GREAT PYRAMID
Prior to our visit with John Anthony West in up-state New York, I had reached several preliminary conclusions about the purpose of the Grand Gallery and the vents emanating from the King’s Burial Chamber and extending upward to the outer surface of the Pyramid. I can still recall lying on my bed at home developing mind experiments (Gedenkenexperimenten) trying to visualize how the Grand Gallery could improve Pyramid security. How could this immense open area 153 feet long rising at an angle of 260 through the very heart of the Pyramid stop tomb robbers from reaching the king’s burial chamber near its top? Pause. What if the Grand Gallery were completely full of water? That certainly would slow them down, but Why wouldn’t the water evaporate or at least flow out of the Pyramid when the robbers entered the Gallery? OK, try again. Aha! What if the Grand Gallery were completely full of sand? Well, that certainly would stop any tomb robbers and the sand would not evaporate, but How could the Grand Gallery have been filled with sand after Khufu was buried? Through the “Air Vents”, of course. OK, but if the “Air Vents” were really “Sand Chutes” that allowed sand to be brought from the ramps outside the Pyramid to its center to fill the Grand Gallery, Wouldn’t some workers literally have been buried alive between Khufu’s burial chamber (where the sand arrived) and the Grand Gallery (where it was dumped)? Yes, but only a dozen or so workmen were needed. That was a relatively small number compared to the 300 retainers King Djer of Dynasty I had buried with him at the time of his death. Khufu and his architects had found a way to secure his burial chamber for all time – simply seal the entrance to it from inside the pyramid by having a handful of workers use plug stones stored in the Grand Gallery to block the “Ascending Passage” and then turn the Grand Gallery into an impenetrable mountain of sand.
But alas for Khufu, something went wrong. When Caliph Al Mamun and his band of Arabs tunneled into the Pyramid in 820 A.D. and removed the plug stones blocking the “Ascending Passage”, they crawled upward through the Grand Gallery but found the King’s Chamber bare, except for a sarcophagus that once contained Khufu’s body. His tomb must have been plundered earlier by thieves who took another route. The other route to the King’s Chamber is via the “Vertical Shaft”, which was dug between the base of the Grand Gallery and the “Well Shaft”, which had been dug into the bedrock prior to the pyramid being built on top of it. Until now, classical Egyptologists believe the 60-foot “Vertical Shaft” and the connecting 140-foot “Well Shaft” served as an entrance and exit for workmen after they had sealed the “Ascending Passage” with plug blocks. None believe that the “Vertical Shaft” was dug as a means of robbing Khufu’s burial chamber of its riches and none have suggested that this could be accomplished by allowing sand in the Grand Gallery to flow downward toward the Subterranean Chamber before being carried up the Descending Passage to the Pyramid entrance.
I believe that construction of the 60-foot Vertical Shaft was not begun until after the decision to plunder the Great Pyramid was made, a feat that could not have been accomplished successfully unless the robbers had detailed knowledge about the internal construction of the Pyramid. Moreover, such knowledge probably was available only during the lifetime of Khufu’s contemporaries and at the highest levels of his court. But inside information was not all that was required to plunder his tomb. Using the Well Shaft to tunnel into the bottom of the Grand Gallery and removing all the sand it contained were formidable tasks in themselves, but in this case the key was having government approval (and support) to remove the sand from the Pyramid. For all the sand to flow out the Grand Gallery and down the Vertical Shaft and the Well Shaft, many thousands of basketfuls had to be carried up the Descending Corridor to the northern entrance of the Pyramid and dumped outside.
Even this degree of difficulty was insufficient to accomplish the greatest robbery of all time. In addition to the other special features of the Great Pyramid that continue to confound the experts, we now must consider the function of the Grotto, a man-made cave dug to the south of the Well Shaft just before it emerges from the bedrock into the core masonry of the Pyramid (See Figure 2). When the decision was made to plunder Khufu’s Pyramid by connecting the existing Well Shaft to the base of the Grand Gallery by chiseling the Vertical Shaft out of the Pyramid masonry, a place close to the base of the Pyramid was needed for the workmen to live and store their tools. Moreover, there simply was not enough oxygen in the Well Shaft to supply individuals excavating at the upper end with an ample amount. The Grotto, in effect, served as the lungs of the operation by providing workers resting there with enough air to allow them to dig for several minutes at a time. It made the Well Shaft route to the burial chamber feasible, a possibility that the Pyramid designers may have considered to be virtually impossible at the time the Grand Gallery was built.
What evidence, if any, exists to indicate that the Grand Gallery and the upper portions of the Pyramid ever were full of sand? In 1765 the British official, Nathaniel Davison, lowered a lamp into the Vertical Shaft/Well Shaft, tied a rope around his waist, and had himself carefully lowered into its ominous darkness -- only to find the bottom blocked with sand and rubbish. Then about 1817 the Italian adventurer Captain Giovanni Battista Caviglia lowered himself down the shafts, got over 100 feet below the Grotto, and found, as Davison had before him, that the air was so scarce his candle sputtered, making it difficult for him to breathe, and that the bottom appeared to be blocked by sand and loose rocks. It appears that, after the Arabs cleared the Ascending Passage about 820 A.D., the Well Shaft became a dumping ground for remnant sand that still cluttered the upper portions of the Pyramid.
Thus, the four most controversial features of the Great Pyramid, namely the Grand Gallery, Air Vents, Well Shaft, and Grotto are highly related functionally. Khufu built the Grand Gallery and the Air Vents/Sand Chutes to be able to block the entrance to his burial chamber with an impenetrable pile of sand. The Grotto and then the final 60 feet of the Vertical Shaft were dug to unblock his burial chamber by removing the sand pile.
So who committed the robbery of the ages? The evidence is clear. The robbers knew many details about the internal construction of the Pyramid, including early data such as the availability of the (extended) Well Shaft to penetrate the soft underbelly of the Pyramid, its one Achilles heel. Tons of sand had to be removed from inside the Pyramid, making the plundering impossible to conceal because the sand within the Grand Gallery most likely exceeded the volume of the passageways leading to the outer surface of the Pyramid. The perpetrator had to be Khufu’s son and successor, Khafre, builder of the second pyramid at Giza, which was almost as large as Khufu’s. In this endeavor, Khafre most likely was assisted by his prime minister (vizier) Prince Ankh-haf, who like Khufu, was a son of Khufu’s predecessor, Seneferu. In any event, Ankh-haf led an obscure career during Khufu’s reign but rose to such a position of prominence under Khafre that he could build the largest tomb in the cemetery of nobles east of Khufu’s Pyramid and those of his three queens.
Khafre’s motive for plundering his father Khufu’s Pyramid became evident during my study of the genealogies of the royal families during Dynasty IV. My approach was to gather as much data as I could from the publications of the two leading archeologists who excavated the tombs of the Giza royalty, namely Dr. George Andrew Reisner, an American, and Dr. Hermann Junker, a German. During my research, I paid special attention to troublesome facts/clues that didn’t seem to agree with the current view of Dynasty IV. As changes to our current understandings become necessary, I tested my revised picture against still more facts/clues. By following this process, a completely different view of Dynasty IV and Great Pyramid events began to emerge, and many mysteries of the Great Pyramid seemed to vanish into thin air.
Most histories of Ancient Egypt today indicate that there were six kings who reigned during Dynasty IV: Seneferu, Khufu, Djedefre, Khafre, Menkaure, and Shepseskaf. On the surface, there are many reasons for accepting this order of succession. The list of kings chiseled onto the wall of the Temple of Seti I, father of Rameses the Great, at Abydos during Dynasty XVIX, for example, displays the cartouches of the six kings in this order. And the kings in that order from Djedefre through Shepseskaf are listed on the walls of several tombs at Giza. However, a number of ancient sources indicate that three other kings ruled during Dynasty IV, two of them being listed after Khafre and one after Shepseskaf. In 1950, a startling discovery was made in the Wadi el Hammamat east of Luxor. A rock inscription containing Dynasty IV kings was found that listed Khufu, Djedefre, Khafre, and then the names Djedefhor followed by Baufre inside cartouches indicating their kingship. Princes Djedefhor and Baufre were known to be sons of Khufu by queens other than Khafre’s mother. It also is known that at Khafre’s death his son Menkaure became king. Therefore, it appears that after the short eight-year reign of Khufu’s son, Djedefre, a struggle for the throne broke out with Khafre first battling his half brother Djedefhor and then his half brother Baufre. Archeologists have found the cores of Dynasty IV pyramids that may have been begun by both Djedefre and Baufre. The finding that both Khafre and Djedefhor ruled simultaneously is electrifying. It indicates that a civil war took place in the middle of Dynasty IV, when the kingdom was at its very height. Adding the names Djedefhor and Baufre to the other six rulers’ names is absolutely essential if one is to understand the history of Dynasty IV and why Khafre may have needed additional resources so badly that he decided to rob his father Khufu’s treasure-rich burial chamber.
The ninth king who ruled after Shepseskaf was none other than Princess Khentkaus, his mother. When Shepseskauf died after ruling for only four years, his mother became a regent king until Shepseskaf’s younger brothers Sahure and Neferirkare were old enough to rule. But unfortunately Khentkaus died only two years after she became king and was succeeded by her husband Userkaf, the first king of Dynasty IV. My conclusions about the “Khentkaus Problem” were published as a “Letter to the Editor” in KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt on pages 7 and 8 of the Volume 8, Number 4, Winter 1997-98 edition. My solution to the “Khentkaus Problem”, which relied heavily on my genealogical research concerning the Dynasty IV nobility, is reproduced in Appendix A below.
My study of Dynasty IV personalities and pyramids led me to several other revolutionary observations. For example, the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, where Khufu’s father Seneferu was buried, also was plundered based on “inside information” about its construction features. The most likely robbers where Khufu, himself, assisted by his vizier Hemiunu. The primary reason, revealed by the Greek historian Herodotus over two thousand years ago, was that Khufu had exhausted his own wealth in building the Great Pyramid. After Khufu looted his father’s tomb of its treasures, he reburied his father (and his mother) inside his own Pyramid while it was under construction. In 1986, a team of French and Japanese explorers probably located the site of the reburial of Khufu’s parents when they made three core borings into the masonry of the passage leading to the Queen’s Chamber and struck an unusual kind of sand not native to the Giza Plateau that may have been used to help preserve the bodies of Khufu’s parents.
ACCEPTANCE OF MY FINDINGS
How can a layman with an obvious interest but lack of formal training presume to be able to rewrite the history of Ancient Egypt’s Dynasty IV so substantially and in the process solve some of the most fascinating mysteries of all time? I’m convinced that other non-professionals could easily have done so because all the information required is readily available, but today’s leading Egyptologists choose to ignore it because it runs counter to their own beliefs (or at least to the well-established doctrine). Perhaps because I have no formal credentials in Egyptology, my findings will continue to be substantially ignored, as they have been in the past by archeologists currently working on the Giza Plateau, by museum experts, and by magazine officials with whom I’ve been in contact.
It is relatively easy to disagree with many currently accepted versions of what is historically true. On the other hand, because the events I’ve described in this essay occurred 4,500 years ago, it is especially difficult to demonstrate that my version of what happened during Dynasty IV is more correct than the prevailing views. Yet, there is one thing that will cause professional Egyptologists to modify their views substantially when it occurs, if my version of Dynasty IV events is correct. I believe that someday the bodies of Khufu’s parents (and their remaining treasure) will be found within Khufu’s Pyramid. Behind the caps of the three 1986 core bores near the end of the passage into the Queen’s Chamber lies a chamber full of easily removable sand, which when sucked out will allow a fiber-optics probe to reveal treasures that could rival those of Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb.
Additional details about my genealogy of the Dynasty IV nobility and the mysteries of the Great Pyramid are furnished below in Appendix B.
Questions of comments can be sent to me at: [email protected].
In the excellent, although mistakenly titled, article Two Old Kingdom Queens Named Khentkaus in the Fall 1997 issue of KMT, Miroslav Verner and Gae Callender provide a comprehensive summary of the archeological evidence and related conjectures concerning the role and family connections of two individuals named Khentkaus. The authors describe the considerable controversy surrounding Khentkaus I, especially if she ever reigned as a king at the end of Dynasty IV (“the Khentkaus Problem”), and their own impressive findings concerning a remarkably similar individual Khentkaus II from early Dynasty V days.
Like some fiendishly difficult mathematical puzzles, the Khentkaus Problem can best be solved by subdividing it into manageable pieces. And like some brainteasers, the answer once obtained appears incredibly simple -- almost like “Why didn't I think of that?” The following logical subdivision of the problem should produce the solution: Who was Khentkaus I? What was her relationship to Userkaf, the first king of Dynasty V? What was her relationship to Shepseskaf, the last king of Dynasty IV? What was Shepseskaf's relationship to Menkaure, the penultimate king of Dynasty IV? However, because the Khentkaus Problem involves the issue of her possible kingship, two additional issues must be resolved to obtain a complete solution, namely: What is the relationship of Khentkaus I to the legendary Redjedet in the Birth of the Royal Children told in Papyrus Westcar? and What is the relationship of Khentkaus I to the King Seberkheres or Djedefptah sometimes inserted into the line of succession between Shepseskaf and Userkaf?
If these questions are approached from the vantage point of Dynasty V, their solutions are extremely difficult. However, in my manuscript Inside Egypt's Fourth Dynasty: A New View, which I hope to publish if there is sufficient interest, I have attempted to provide a systematic reconstruction of the events that occurred during the reigns of each of the Dynasty IV kings. As I proceeded in chronological order, the answers to several of the Khentkaus Problem questions became evident when I answered related questions. For example, one of my key questions was: Who are the ten females depicted in the north-side chamber of queen Meresankh's mastaba-tomb offering-chapel? (See Winter 1996-97 issue of KMT). Somehow Dr. Andrew Reisner's identification of the statues as: “The figure on the right, and probably the first three, represent Hetep-heres II; the next four, Meresankh; and the last three, daughters of Meresankh.” (Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, 25, 1927, p. 68) didn't seem satisfying or logical to me. Why should four of the statues represent Meresankh and three her mother Hetep-heres II? Why shouldn't the two statues of grown females to the right of Hetep-heres II and the three statues to the right of Meresankh represent their grown daughters? Working on this premise and taking advantage of the detailed data about individual tombs published by Reisner in a History of the Giza Necroplis I (HGN),1942, one rather quickly can identify Meresankh's grown children as Khentkaus, Rekhetre, and Shepseset-kauw. In fact, the key inscription concerning Khentkaus came from the tomb of her daughter Princess Hemetre where Hemetre's daughters are listed as Khentkaus, Meresankh, and Hetep-heres, most likely her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother (HGN 1, 1942, p. 228). From tomb G 2150, it can also be seen that Shepseset-kauw's daughter was named Merytyetes (HGN 1, 1942, p. 440), her husband's grandmother.
A second key question of concern to me was: Who succeeded Menkaure? Almost all Egyptologists today believe that Menkaure was succeeded by his son Shepseskaf. A few pause to mention that some ancient sources indicate that Shepseskaf was not Menkaure's son and then proceed to speculate about the troubles that occurred during Shepseskaf's short reign. On the surface it might appear virtually certain that Shepseskaf was Menkaure's son. During the excavation of Menkaure's pyramid complex, for example, Reisner found numerous indications that Shepseskaf completed unfinished construction tasks, a strong indication that the transition between Menkaure and Shepseskaf was an amicable one. Additionally, had someone other than a son (or brother) of Menkaure become king, one would expect to see a change of dynasty.
On the other hand, upon closer examination one can find a variety of clues that lend considerable credence to the ancient indications that Shepseskaf wasn't Menkaure's son. For example, tallying the number of sons of those Dynasty IV kings whose sons succeeded their fathers produces the enlightening statistic that Seneferu, Khufu, and Khafre all had ten or more known sons. By comparison, Menkaure had three or fewer. Indeed, sons of Menkaure buried in the Giza necroplis are very difficult to find. The most certain son is Khuwnera, whose statue in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts depicts this son of Menkaure and Khamerer-nebty as a seated scribe. At Menkaure's death, he simply may not have had any surviving sons who were qualified to rule.
Another possibility is that Menkaure may have suffered from some physical disability that also could have affected the viability of his children adversely. In many of his statues, for example, he is shown with almost grotesque, bulging eyes characteristic of Graves' Disease, an autoimmune system disorder involving a hyperactive thyroid gland that can lead to early death unless treated properly. In any case, as Herodotus relates, it appears that Menkaure expected to die relatively young. Although his pyramid appears tiny when compared with those of Khufu and Khafre, it originally was designed to be much smaller than it actually turned out to be upon completion.
On balance, the
evidence that Shepseskaf was not Menkaure's son appears stronger than vice versa. The uneventful transition between the two kings
merely indicates that Shepseskaf was in favor with those in power. Similarly, the lack of a dynasty end with Menkaure
is unconvincing because it was about to end anyway.
Now the key question becomes: Could Shepseskaf have been the son of Userkaf and Khentkaus? Userkaf, the first king of Dynasty V, is believed to be the son of Neferhetepes, daughter of Djedefre. From my earlier analysis, I believe that Neferhetepes’ mother was Queen Nimaathap, a daughter of Khufu who carried the royal blood. Djedefre may have been married to Nimaathap before the time he became king. In any case, there is a severely damaged statue of Neferhetepes as a young child in the Louvre indicating she may have been 7-10 years old at the end of Djedefre's eight-year reign. Assuming she married at age 16, Userkaf could have been 15-17 years old at the end of Khafre's 24-year reign. Similarly, we know that Hetep-heres II had married Kawab prior to Khufu's death. If Meresankh was ten years old when Djedefre died and gave birth to her oldest daughter Khentkaus at age 17, then Khentkaus in turn would have been 17 years old at the end of Khafre's reign. Had Userkaf and Khentkaus been married about the time Menkaure became king, they could, indeed, have had a son Shepseskaf who was old enough to succeed Menkaure.
There is other evidence that Dynasty IV, in effect, ended with Menkaure and that a new dynasty began with Shepseskaf. In fact, the power behind the throne at the start of Dynasty V appears to be none other than Queen Hetep-heres II, Khufu's daughter. The ten females depicted in the tomb of her daughter Meresankh represent Hetep-heres' daughters, granddaughters, and great granddaughters who carried the royal blood. Whereas Menkaure's line lacked depth, Hetep-heres, through Meresankh, possessed an abundance of vitality. It appears that Khentkaus' oldest daughter became Shepseskaf's queen who carried the royal blood and that Khentkaus' younger daughter Hemetre was married to a man named Shepsesre in exchange for his family providing a second queen for Shepseskaf. Similarly, Princess Shepsesetkauw was married to Kanofer, a son of the prestigious Seshemnofer family, in exchange for one of Seshemnofer's daughters becoming Shepseskaf's third queen.
In summary, I believe that Khentkaus was the mother of three kings: Shepseskaf, Sahure, and Neferirkare. After Shepseskaf's brief 4-5 year reign, Khentkaus (still firmly in control) became a “regent king” for her underage sons, only to die two years later. Userkaf then assumed the throne, followed by his sons Sahure and Neferirkare. Although this scenario differs from the tale in the Westcar Papyrus that names Userkaf as the first of three triplets born to Redjedet, it does substantiate that one mother gave birth to three kings of Egypt. Additionally, it agrees with the prophesy of the magician Djedi who informs Khufu that a change of command is approaching: “first your son, then his son, then one of them.” The prophesy did not overlook Shepseskaf; he was “one of them!” And Shepseskaf's mother, Khentkaus I, proves to be identical to the legendary Redjedet. My findings also fit very nicely with the traditional translation of the hieroglyphs inscribed on the gateposts of Khentkaus’ tomb at Giza: “King of Upper and Lower Egypt; Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt; Daughter/granddaughter of the God; Every good thing that she orders is done for her.” According to my solution, Khentkaus I was indeed the missing king X3 of Reisner's analysis of the Turin Canon (Mycerinus, The Temples of the Third Pyramid at Giza, 1931, p 243). Moreover, she was the mother of the king (Shepseskaf) of Upper and Lower Egypt; at the time her gatepost inscription was carved, her two other sons had not yet become kings. And finally, she was the daughter of the god, King Khafre. Please note, however, one thing that Khentkaus was not; she never was a queen! Nor does she have the title of queen on the gatepost of her tomb at Giza.
The competing title “Mother of Two Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt” discussed by Verner and Callender and any search for two kings (or twins) should be abandoned as proven incorrect. The similar titles for Khentkaus II most likely mean that she, too, was a regent king, probably for a single son.
o The later half of Egypt's Dynasty III was marked by civil wars within the royal family. After the brothers Sanakhte and Zoser ruled as the first two kings of Dynasty III the kingship seesawed back and forth between sons and grandsons of the two brothers in a bizarre manner that virtually precluded progress. First Sekhemkhet, son of Sanakhte, became ruler only to be deposed by Zoser's son Khaba. Then Huni, Sekhemkhet's son claimed the throne and ruled simultaneously with Khaba for a number of years before ultimately smiting Khaba in battle. Eventually, Khaba's sons raised by his supporters at Menat Seneferu near Hermopolis became old enough to challenge Huni for the throne. Among these supporters may have been the sage Kagemni overseer of Khaba's tomb, who became vizier upon Seneferu's overthrow of Huni. By the end of Huni's relatively long reign his control appears to have eroded to the point where Seneferu not only could replace Huni but also could gain complete control over all of Egypt.
o Seneferu, the first king of Dynasty IV, most probably was a son of King Khaba and Queen Meresankh. After he overthrew King Huni, he buried him in Mastaba 17 at Meidum and usurped Huni's unfinished pyramid complex at Meidum. Two of King Seneferu's principal queens from Khaba's family probably were Nefertkauw, mother of Prince Ankh-haf and Princess Nefertkauw (who later was married to Khufu), and Meresankh, mother of Prince Kanofer (father of Prince Kawab and Princess Khamerernebty) and Princess Meresankh (married to Prince Wepemnofret). Upon overthrowing King Huni, Seneferu married four or more of Huni's daughters, most likely Hetepheres, mother of Khufu and Hetepheres (first married to Ankh-haf and then to King Khufu); Seydt mother of Merib; Khentkaus, mother of Prince Khentka and Princess Khentkaus (later married to Khufu); and Merytyetes, mother of Princes Hemiunu and Iunu and Princess Merytyetes.
o Khufu, the second king of Dynasty IV, had three principal queens: (1) his full sister Hetepheres, who had been married to Prince Ankh-haf until Khufu became king and who then had the following children with Khufu: Princess Hetepheres and Princes Djedefre, Djedefhor, Djedefmin, and Djedefkhufu; (2) Merytyetes, the mother of Princess Merytyetes and Princes Baufre, Baufhor, and Baufkhnum; and (3) Khentkaus, the mother of Princess Khentkaus and Princes Khafre, Khafmin, and Khafkhufu. In addition, before he became king, Khufu was married to Princess Nefertkauw, mother of Princess Netertkauw and Prince Nefermaat. Queen Hetepheres was buried in the northernmost of the three small pyramids to the east of Khufu's Great Pyramid, Queen Merytyetes in the middle of the three small pyramids, and Khentkaus in the southernmost of the three. Queen Netertkauw was buried in tomb G7050 at Giza.
o Djedefre, the third king of Dynasty IV, had three principal queens: (1) his full sister Hetepheres, who had been married to Prince Kawab until Djedefre became king; (2) Khentetenka, whose father may have been Prince Khentka; and (3) Nimaathap, mother of Neferhetepes. The three oldest sons of these three queens (in no particular order) were Setka, Baka, and Harnit.
o Khafre, the fourth king of Dynasty IV, survived a succession battle with Djedefre's brother Djedefhor to become the next recognized king of Egypt. In doing so, he was aided by Prince Ankh-haf and Khufu's daughter Hetepheres, who became Khafre's principal queen. Other queens of Khafre were Meresankh (Hetepheres' daughter by Prince Kawab), Khamerernebty (daughter of Kanofer and Merytyetes and sister of Kawab), Persenet (possibly a daughter of Khufu's daughter Hetepheres), and Hedjhekenu. (One of Khafre's queens was a daughter of Prince Ankh-haf and his wife Hetepheres, Khufu's full sister).
o Djedefhor, the sage also known as Hardedef in translations of his wisdom literature and the Westcar Papyrus, died shortly after succeeding his full brother Djedefre, possibly in his succession struggle with Khafre.
o Baufre, Djedefhor's successor and half brother, also died in his attempt to establish his reign while competing with Khafre for the throne. Baufre was the fourth son of Khufu to become king of Egypt.
o Menkaure, seventh king of Dynasty IV, likely was Khafre's son by Hetepheres, Khufu's daughter. Menkaure's queens included Khamerernebty (daughter of Khafre's queen with the same name), Rekhetre (daughter of Meresankh), and Prince Ankh-haf’s granddaughter whose mother had been a queen of Khafre.
o
Shepseskaf, eighth king of Dynasty IV, was a son of Prince Userkaf and Princess Khentkaus,
Queen Meresankh's daughter. When Menkaure
died of illness without an acceptable heir, his mother Hetepheres arranged for one of her
young grandsons to succeed him. Two of Shepseskaf’s queens were Bunefer and Henutsen,
a member of the Seshemnofer family.
o Khentkaus, ninth and last king of Dynasty IV, was the mother of Shepseskaf and was crowned king upon Shepseskaf’s premature death in an interim capacity until one of her other two sons, Sahure or Neferirkare, was old enough to rule. She was king of Egypt and mother of a king of Egypt, but never a queen of Egypt.
o Userkaf first ruler of Dynasty V, was the husband of Khentkaus and became king upon her premature death. Userkaf’s mother probably was Neferhetepes, daughter of King Djedefre and Queen Nimaathap. After Userkaf died, he was succeeded by his sons Sahure and then Neferirkare. Thus Khentkaus, like the legendary Redjedet in the “Tale of Khufu and the Magicians” told by Djedefhor according to the Westcar Papyrus, was the mother of three sons who became kings of Egypt.
o Current histories of Dynasty IV that are based on the publications of George Andrew Reisner and his colleague William Stevenson Smith contain many errors including: (1) the conclusion that Khufu and Queen Merytyetes were the parents of “Crown Prince Kawab” and Princess Khamerernebty, (2) the belief that Khufu's mother was first buried at Dahshur and then reburied in a 100-foot shaft grave east of the Great Pyramid, (3) the attribution that the third small pyramid east of the Great Pyramid belonged to Queen Henutsen (rather than to Queen Khentkaus, mother of Khafre and grandmother of King Khentkaus), and (4) mistakes related to “courtesy titles” and the meaning of the phrases “Sa nswt”, which Reisner translates as “son of the king” instead of “son or grandson of the king” and “rh nswt”, which Reisner believes designates a grandson of the king instead of a male descendant of the king, usually no closer than a great grandson.
o
The three core cemeteries (G1200, G2100, and G4000) west of Khufu's Great Pyramid resulted
from sharp divisions within Khufu's court. G1200
was occupied chiefly by descendants of Seneferu's mother Meresankh, G2100 was built for
members of the family of Khufu's mother Hetepheres, and G4000 was originally meant for
Huni's descendants other than Hetepheres’ branch such as those associated with Queen
Merytyetes. Cemetery G2100, belonging to the
immediate family of Khufu, failed to grow in size or splendor relative to the other two
core cemeteries because Khufu had so many children by his three main queens that he built
a separate royal cemetery for them east of his Great Pyramid during the latter years of
his reign.
o Contrary to prevailing opinion, Egypt's Dynasty IV like the preceding Dynasty III was rife with internal dissent, succession problems, economic crises, and even civil war. Khufu became king instead of a highly qualified prince from Seneferu's father's side of the family such as Seneferu's “oldest son” Kanofer or another “oldest son” Ankh-haf, who already was married to Khufu's full sister Hetepheres. By the middle of his reign, Khufu had diverted much of the wealth for the priesthood toward his own funerary purposes but still required additional treasures to complete his pyramid complex. In a bold series of moves, Khufu decided to improve the security of his own burial chamber by moving it higher into the center of his pyramid, to entomb his recently deceased mother close to his new crypt as well as to relocate his father's sarcophagus from the Southern (Bent) Pyramid at Dahshur to his mother's new site, and to use the wealth buried with his father to complete his own building projects.
o When his half brother and vizier Kanofer, a loyal son of Seneferu, refused to endorse the plan because it involved violating his father's sanctity and burial goods, Khufu removed Kanofer and appointed Hemiunu as his new vizier. Hemiunu then plundered Seneferu's tomb in the western burial chamber of the Bent Pyramid and reburied Seneferu and Hetepheres in a sealed enclosure near the Queen’s Chamber in the heart of the Great Pyramid. Later Hemiunu convinced Khufu that the security of his burial chamber could be greatly improved by moving it still higher up in the pyramid and by blocking it from within by a new series of measures that would protect the sanctity of his burial chamber regardless of who knew its location.
o Several years before Khufu plundered his father's tomb, grave robbers looted the burial chamber of King Huni located under Mastaba 17 at Meidum. Because they tunneled from the outer surface of the mud brick structure to the burial chamber by the shortest possible route, it was clear that the tomb robbers had inside information about the burial site location, probably gathered during the construction process. Similarly, the western burial chamber of Seneferu's Bent Pyramid also was plundered based on inside information that only was available within a generation or so after the structure was built. The tunnel to the western burial chamber was expertly built in one direction only by the shortest route and angle of ascent that avoided all obstacles, was large enough to allow the removal of an entire sarcophagus, and had a rounded corner where it intersected with the passage leading to the burial chamber indicating that a sarcophagus-sized object had been removed from the western burial site.
o In addition to Mastaba 17 at Meidum and the Bent Pyramid at Dashhur, Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza also was plundered shortly after his burial on the basis of inside information. An important key to this discovery is identifying the purpose of the Grand Gallery, an immense opening 153 feet long, 28 feet high, and seven feet wide at its base rising at an angle of 26� in the heart of Khufu's Pyramid. The Grand Gallery had two major purposes: (1) to hold a long string of plug blocks that would be lowered from within the Pyramid to seal the ascending passage leading to the Grand Gallery after Khufu had been buried in the chamber at the top of the Grand Gallery, and (2) to hold a veritable mountain of sand poured into the Pyramid from its outer surfaces via the “air vents” and then deposited into the open area of the Grand Gallery to foil anyone who succeeded in removing the plug blocks. The open area of the Grand Gallery when filled with sand became a barrier that no ordinary grave robbers could ever breach, even if they were successful in tunneling to its base. Sealing the pyramid from within overcame the inherent vulnerability pyramids possess because passages leading to the burial chamber are required if the king dies after the inside construction of the pyramid has been finished. Only a handful of workers were required to seal Khufu's pyramid from within, especially if compared to the 300 retainers King Djer of Dynasty I had executed and buried with him.
o Khufu's Pyramid was plundered by his son Khafe after he became king, assisted by Khafre's first vizier Prince Ankh-haf who probably was privy to the inside information required to exploit its one security flaw. Before building the Great Pyramid atop the firm bedrock of the Giza Plateau, workers sank a 140-foot shaft into the bedrock; this shaft intersected a descending passage that lead to the subterranean chamber intended as the original burial site. Prior to building the Pyramid over this shaft, ten courses of limestone blocks were built around the shaft just before it emerged from the bedrock. The inside information that was required to violate Khufu's Pyramid was the existence of this 140-foot shaft and the knowledge that 60 feet straight up from its stone-dressed top lay the bottom of the Grand Gallery. However to tunnel the last 60 feet upward so that all the sand could be spilled out of the Grand Gallery would also require that a large grotto/cave capable of holding enough air for workmen to breathe while chiseling upward had to be built near the top of the 140-foot shaft.
o Thus, the four most controversial features of the Great Pyramid, namely the Grand Gallery, air vents, 200-foot shafts, and the grotto, all are functionally related to Pyramid security. Khufu had the Grand Gallery and the air vents (sand chutes) built to block the entrance to his burial chamber with an impenetrable pile of sand. The grotto and then the final 60 feet of the well shaft were dug to unblock his burial chamber by allowing the sand to flow out of the Grand Gallery, down the 200-foot shaft, and then to be carried in baskets up the ascending passage and dumped outside. The grotto dug near the top of the original 140-foot shaft, in effect, served as the lungs of the plundering operation by providing workers resting there with enough air to allow them to dig for several minutes at a time. It made the well-shaft route to the burial chamber feasible, a possibility that the original Pyramid designers may have considered virtually impossible.
o On three separate occasions within about two dozen years during Dynasty IV grave robbers were successful in plundering three magnificent tombs. The beneficiaries were: (1) families of some of the workers who built Mastaba 17 at Meidum, (2) Khufu, and (3) Khafre and Ankh-haf. Those who were desecrated were three successive kings: Huni, Senereru, and Khufu, himself Each of these robberies was based on the availability of detailed information about the internal configuration of the royal tomb, which could only have existed within the memories of the builders.
o In 1986, a team of French and Japanese scientists came close to discovering the location of Khufu's reburial of his parents near the Queen's Chamber of his Great Pyramid. The unusual sand their core bores revealed may have been used to help prevent the decay of the bodies of Seneferu and Hetepheres. It certainly was not remnant sand blown there during a sandstorm as one noted Egyptologist suggests.
o Recent theories about the pyramids of Egypt being built at locations that replicate the positions of stars in the constellation Orion are sheer bunk. They are completely out of tune with the political, social, and religious realities of the times. Similarly, theories that postulate that the “air vents” in Khufu's Pyramid were passages that allowed his soul to ascend to the stars are totally wrong. The “air vents” were, in reality, “sand chutes” that allowed sand (for burial and security purposes) to be deposited in Khufu's Pyramid after his death. The large quantities of sand discovered at the bottom of the well shaft by early western explorers help prove that the sand chutes actually were used for this purpose during Khufu's burial.
o Pyramids were built to serve as the tombs of Egyptian kings. Ascribing other rationales for their construction requires new and better evidence.