Henqu II

Henqu in hieroglyphics
Henqu Hnqw
Iy… f Jj… f

Henqu II , whose beautiful name is Iy… f , was an ancient Egyptian civil servant and probably lived in the middle of the 6th Dynasty during the early and middle reign of Pepi I. He held numerous religious and political offices at this time, the most important of which who were a prince of the 12th Upper Egyptian district and a vizier . Henqu II is the owner of the rock grave N67 in Deir el-Gebrawi .

Offices and titles

Most of the offices held by Henqu II were already held by his father Henqu I , including that of a prince of the 12th Upper Egyptian Gau. Henqu II shared this office with his brother Hemre I. The following twelve titles have been preserved in the grave of Henqu II:

Transliteration	transcription	translation	Remarks
Imi-ra-niut-mer	Jmj-rˁ-njwt-mr	Head of the pyramid city
Imi-ra-sesch (u) -a (u) -nesut	Jmj-rˁ-sš (w) -ˁ (w) -nswt	Head of the record writer
Iri-pat	Irj-pˁt	Prince Regent
Hati-a	Ḥ3tj-ˁ	Count	already occupied by his father
Heri-tep-aa	Ḥrj-tp-ˁ3 O. Ä. 12	Prince of the 12th Upper Egyptian Gau	already occupied by his father
Cheret-schendjet-nebet	Ḫrt-šnḏt-nbt	Head of all aprons	already occupied by his father
Cheri-habet	H̱rj-ḥ3bt	Reading priest	already occupied by his father
Cheri-habet-heri-tep	H̱rj-ḥ3bt-ḥrj-tp	Supreme reading priest	already occupied by his father
Sem	Sm	Sem priest	already occupied by his father
Semer-wati / Semher-wati	Smr-wˁtj correct: Smḥr-w ˁ.tj	Only friend	already occupied by his father
Semsu-senut	Smsw-snwt	Elder of the Serpent Stone Sanctuary	already occupied by his father
Tjati -sab-tjati	Ṯ3tj-s3b-ṯ3tj	Grand Vizier

family

Henqu II was the son of Henqu I and his wife Bendjet. He had four brothers named Impy, Hemre, Cheteti and Schefau and possibly two sisters named Bendjet and Hemi. Several family members of Henqu II are pictured in his grave. He was married to two women named Chentitka / Iy and Nebet and had two eldest sons named Isi and Tjemy, which certainly meant the eldest sons from one of the two marriages. Other sons were another Isi, Behesti, Henqu, another Hen [qu] and a man whose name has not survived. Daughters of Henqu II were Meretites and Nefer ... ut ... es.

Henqus II's grave in Deir el-Gebrawi

architecture

Floor plan of the tomb

Henqu II's grave is located directly to the east, next to that of his brother Hemre I. The entrance is on the south side. The tomb consists of a main room and a serdab on the north wall. The main room measures 9.14 m in east-west and 4.25 m in north-south direction. The Serdab measures 4.00 m × 2.65 m. It is on a higher level than the main room and is connected to it by a staircase. The main room has four grave shafts and nine grave niches that are distributed over all four walls. The walls of the room are very carefully carved out of the rock, but the west wall is almost completely destroyed today. Only the lower edge of a false door can be made out here. On the north wall, immediately east of the Serdab entrance, there is a niche that may have originally been planned as a statue niche.

decoration

All pictorial representations and inscriptions in the grave are exclusively painted. No decoration has been preserved on the west wall. The east wall has recently suffered significant damage and much of what was documented by Davies is now lost.

North face

The grave lord spear fish

On the north wall to the west of the Serdab is a dining table scene. Henqu and his wife Chentitka sit in a cantilever chair with a short back. Henqu wears a short apron with a decorated belt, a neck collar, bangles and a short wig. He holds his right hand to the sacrificial table and with his left he brings a drinking vessel to his mouth. Chentitka wears a tight-fitting robe with decorated shoulder straps, a neck collar, bangles and a short wig. She puts both hands on her husband's shoulders. An inscription above the couple gives their names and titles. Between Henqu and the sacrificial table there is a sacrificial formula, the sacrifices are listed above the table: "A thousand cattle, a thousand alabaster and clothes, a thousand bread, beer and cake." Above it was a list of sacrifices, which has now been completely erased . To the right of it, a larger amount of food and drinks is shown in the upper area, some of which are very detailed. Below are two gift bringers. The one in front is holding a beef thigh, the one in the back is holding a tray. Both carry small animals with them. The bottom register may have shown several other people, but only one is clearly visible.

The area east of the Serdab can be divided into two sections. The left section shows the grave lord spear fish. He is standing on a papyrus boat with a wooden deck and has impaled two fish that are still surrounded by water. More fish are shown below the entire boat representation. The fish are unusually skewered very low on the belly and not, as usual, just below the head. Henqu's clothing also deviates from the standard representation: He wears a very short apron with a decorated belt instead of the usual sports tunic. In front of Henqu, a small person is shown holding a lotus flower and a bird. It may be a son of Henqu. Between Henqu's legs there is a bundle, a headrest and a lotus plant. Behind him stands, unusually almost the same size, his eldest son Isi. He carries a staff or a spear in his left hand and a harpoon in his right. Behind him is the helmsman of the boat. The name and title of the tomb lord are noted above the boat.

A second boat follows Henqu's. In it sits a person who is unclear who it is. Davies assumed it was Chentitka. What is unusual, however, is that the person is painted red-brown, while Chentitka appears in other parts of the grave with yellow skin. Kanawati therefore suggested that it was Henqu's second wife, Nebet, who is also shown elsewhere in reddish-brown skin. Another possibility would be that it is a man, because due to the poor state of preservation of the scene, the gender cannot be clearly determined.

In front of Henqu's boat there is another small boat with at least three people carrying birds and flowers or fruit. To the right of this boat stands a single person who is his eldest son, Isi. He is holding a staff and a scepter. The wall above the boat and the son is decorated with depictions of food and drinks. A bed-preparation scene is shown above the boat on the left. The entire lower register consists of slaughter and perhaps kitchen scenes.

The second wall section east of the Serdab consists of four registers that show different, only partially interrelated scenes. In the upper register there are six seated scribes who record various items of jewelry. Their production is shown in the second register: on the far left, men are sitting washing a collar in a large bowl. Of the rest of the register, only the representation of two women is partially preserved, but their occupation can no longer be determined. The third tab shows fishing with a trawl. The net is pulled by four men on each side, with an overseer in the middle. The scene continues in the lowest register: Here a seated man is shown gutting fish. This scene is relatively rare in Upper Egyptian tombs. Another very rare depiction is a punishment scene that makes up the rest of the lower register. A total of three defendants are shown. The one on the left is bent over and an officer pushes his head down. The middle one is tied to a stake and is struck by a man with a thick stick. The third defendant is naked. He is led by two men, wears a kind of yoke around his neck and his hands are tied to a heavy object, perhaps a tree trunk, which is dragging across the ground. This representation is completely unique in the Egyptian tomb decoration. Also for the baton scene there are very few parallels and in none of them the stick lands directly on the body of the punished person. What is unusual about the entire scene is the lack of a clerk to oversee the punishments. Kanawati suspects that this function should be taken over by a statue of the tomb owner that was never completed, for which the niche east of the Serdab was intended.

East wall

Autobiographical inscription

Autobiographical inscription (continued)

The entire length of the east wall is divided into three registers. In the upper room six men bring five cattle and a calf. The lower register shows plowing and sowing grain. At least two groups of workers are shown. In each one a man leads an ox, a second man steers the plow. Behind them are several sowers who hold a bag of grain in one hand and spread it on the field with the other, raised hand.

The central register, which is dominated by a long inscription, takes up most of the wall. This is limited on both sides by pictorial representations. The seated grave master is shown on the far right. His son Tjemy stands in front of him. He holds three geese in one hand and hands his father a vessel of perfume with the other hand. A third, much smaller person is shown between the two. Since she is carrying a staff, it could be another son.

To the left of the inscription is another person who holds a scepter in his right hand and leads the left to the text. Only one title of the person is fully preserved. Since she wears a scepter, it is probably Henqu. The inscription itself represents an autobiography of Henqu.

South wall

The south wall is smoothed and coated with plaster, but remained undecorated except for a small part. This includes a separate dining table scene for Henqu's wife Nebet. Nebet is sitting on an ivory chair and leads one hand to the offering table. Vessels and pieces of meat are shown under and next to the table. A sacrificial formula is placed above the table. A special feature is the exact indication of their burial date. A woman named Meritites / Teti is pictured opposite, who may be a daughter. Behind her are six gift bringers, four men and two women.

literature

• Norman de Garis Davies : The Rock Tombs of Deir el Gebrâwi. Part II: Tombs of Zau and Tombs of the Northern Group (= Archaeological Survey of Egypt. Twelfth Memoir ). London 1902 ( PDF; 5.1 MB ).
• Naguib Kanawati : Deir el-Gebrawi. Volume I: The Northern Cliff (= The Australian Center for Egyptology, Reports. Vol. 23). Oxford 2005.
• Bertha Porter , Rosalind LB Moss : Topographical bibliography of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, reliefs, and paintings. Vol. IV: Lower and Middle Egypt. Oxford 1934, p. 242 ( PDF; 14.3 MB ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, p. 63.
2. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, p. 60.
3. ^ Joachim Friedrich Quack: On the sound value of Gardiner Sign List U 23. In: Lingua Aegyptia. No. 11, 2003, pp. 113-116.
4. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, pp. 61-63.
5. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, pp. 64-66.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, p. 67.
7. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, p. 68.
8. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, pp. 68-69.
9. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, p. 69.
10. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, pp. 69-70.
11. ↑ ^{a b c} Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, p. 71.
12. ↑ Davies: The Rock Tombs of Deir el Gebrâwi. Part II, pp. 29-30.
13. ↑ Kanawati: Deir el-Gebrawi. Vol. I, pp. 73-75.