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Diary Transcription:

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Wednesday, February 25, 1925 (continued)

(3) G 7000 X (continued)
cemented rectangular blocks of limestone. This course was in time removed and a section only was made through the next. In all about nine courses were then removed on the western half of the pit. A section was drawn through the whole of these down to some 420 cm below the rock surface above and a photograph of most of them taken towards the northeast. This work extended through the rest of the day. Each block as it was pried away from the enveloping cement [= plaster // GAR] and the blocks adjoining was slung up by ropes to the mouth of the pit, the smaller blocks and loose cement [= plaster // GAR] being cleared along the stairway to the north. Many of these were found to bear similar [see Sunday, February 22, 1925 // GAR] crude and unintelligible marks in black ink [quarry or masons' marks // GAR] to those already noted. Cement [= plaster // GAR] was from 3 to 10 cm thick.

During the afternoon when the level of the bottom of the door was reached on the west in this way it became evident that the stairway ended here on the edge of a pit which continued to descend [and which occupied the entire floor of the so called "porch"].[margin note GAR][]omit!GAR

Three notches in the west wall were found for the convenience of men climbing the pit.
Down to this level all courses were level and consisted of fine rectangular blocks edge to edge and cemented neatly. Below is a stratum of unknown depth wherein the same kind of blocks are tossed in anyhow into a mass of snow-like cement [= plaster // GAR].
During the later morning M. Lacau and M. Quibell visited the excavations and examined this tomb carefully. They also spent some time in G 7102 and in G 7510 chapels.

With reference to the three pyramids G I-a, G I-b, and G I-c it is to be noted that the b is said by Herodotos to have been the tomb of a daughter of Khufu. c (at the south end) belonged to another daughter [GLYPHS] [TRANSLITERATION] [Henutsen], according to a late stela from the temple nearby, published by Mariette in "Monuments Divers," plate 53, page 17. a was reopened in 1837 and the passage is filled with quite modern debris. The chamber is ruined and no sarcophagus is at present visible.

[ILLUSTRATION]

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Details

  • Classification
    Documentation-Expedition diary pages
  • Department
    Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition
  • Credit Line
    Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition
  • Display Page Dates
    02/25/1925
  • Mentioned on page
    François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette, French, 1821–1881
    Herodotus
    James Edward Quibell, British, 1867–1935
    Pierre Lucien Lacau, French, 1873–1963
    Henutsen (G I-c)
    Khufu
  • Author
    Thomas Richard Duncan Greenlees, British, 1899–

Tombs and Monuments 6

  • G 7000 X

    • Site Name Eastern Cemetery
  • G 7102

    • Site Name Eastern Cemetery
  • G 7510

    • Site Name Eastern Cemetery
  • G I-a

    • Site Name Khufu Pyramid Complex
  • G I-b

    • Site Name Khufu Pyramid Complex
  • G I-c

    • Site Name Khufu Pyramid Complex

People 7

Ancient People

  • Henutsen (G I-c)

    • Type Mentioned on page
    • Remarks Wife of Khufu.
  • Khufu

    • Type Mentioned on page
    • Remarks Second king of Dynasty 4, son of Snefru. Builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza, the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. Known two thousand years later by the Greeks as King Cheops. Horus name: [mDdw] Medjedu. Full birth-name: Khnum-Khufu.

Modern People

  • François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette

    • Type Mentioned on page
    • Nationality & Dates French, 1821–1881
    • Remarks Pasha; Egyptologist; Professor; Archaeologist of Sphinx Temple. Nationality and life dates from Who was Who in Egyptology.
  • Herodotus

    • Type Mentioned on page
    • Nationality & Dates
  • James Edward Quibell

    • Type Mentioned on page
    • Nationality & Dates British, 1867–1935
    • Remarks Egyptologist; husband of Annie Abernethie. Nationality and life dates from Who was Who in Egyptology.
  • Pierre Lucien Lacau

    • Type Mentioned on page
    • Nationality & Dates French, 1873–1963
    • Remarks Egyptologist. Nationality and life dates from Who was Who in Egyptology. (1873-1963) French Egyptologist; born at Brie-Comte-Robert, 25 Nov. 1873, son of Louis Clément L., an architect, and Lucie AdéIe Belin; he at first entered the Ecole Normale intending to take up geology and studied Natural Science at the Sorbonne; he then turned to philosophy taking his degree in this sub- ject 1897, but studying oriental languages simultaneously; he learnt Hebrew and wrote an article on a text in this language in the Revue d'Assyriologie when he was only twenty-one; the influence of Maspero (q.v.) led him to study Coptic and Egyptian and he joined the lnstitut Français at his suggestion and began work for the Cairo general catalogue; he arrived in Egypt in 1899 and in 1901 published his first article on an Egyptian subject, Textes de I'Ancien Testament en copte sahidique, in the Rec Trav, his first volume for the Catalogue on the coffins in the museum in Cairo followed in1906;in this work he not only revealed his philological knowledge in transcribing the texts, but also noted most carefully all the constructional details and provided useful diagrams as illustration; this work led him to become interested in religious texts and he published a series of articles on the Coffin Texts in Rec Trav, 26-37, which was of great importance before the appearance of the comprehensive work of de Buck (q.v.); he also wrote a number of articles on Egyptian grammar at this period; in 1912 Lacau was appointed Director of the IFAO in Cairo and the following year was elected a member of the lnstitut Egyptien; on 7 Oct. 1914 he was appointed Director of the Antiquities Service but delayed his departure to Egypt for war service until sept. 1915 when he was sent back to Egypt so that he could arrange a proper administration for the Antiquities Service throughout the war period; this done he returned to France, 1916, after delegating his work to the Secretary-General G. Daressy (q.v.); he returned to Egypt in 1917 and resumed his duties; in 1919 he married Anne-Marie Bernard, daughter of the Geography Professor at the Sorbonne, and was made Director of the Institut Français; he was made a correspondant of the Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1923; in the period after the war Lacau issued directives for the partial uncovering of the funerary temples and their dependant buildings at Saqqara, and for the study of the Memphite tombs both architecturally and functionally, and for essential restoration and consolidation work to be carried out at Karnak; sondages were also to be made with a view to making possible the publication of all the completed parts; at the time of the discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun Lacau insisted on all the finds being retained in Egypt and secured the entire collection for Cairo Museum; he returned to France in 1936, and succeeded Moret (q.v.) in his chair in Paris 1938; in 1939 he became a Member of the Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres; after the war he paid three further visits to Egypt, 1950-4, and died in Paris, 27 March 1963; his principal works were, Sarcophages antérieurs au Nouvel Empire, 2 vols. 1904- 6; Fragments d'apocryphes coptes, 1904; Textes coptes en dialectes akhmimique et sahidique, 1908; Textes religieux égyptiens, I pt. 1910; Stéles du Nauvel Empire, 2 vols. 1909,1926, for Cairo Cat.; Une stéle juridique de Karnak, 1949-, Sur le systéme hiéroglyphique, 1954; Une chapelle, de Sésostris ler à Karnak, with H. Chevrier, 1956; La Pyramide ? degrés, tom. 4. Inscriptions gravées sur les vases, with J. P. Lauer, 2 pts., 1959, 1961; Une chapelle d'Hatshebsout à Kamak, with H. Chevrier, 2nds, 1977, 1979. ASAE 59 (1966), 33-52 (portr.) (J. P. Lauer); Annuaire du Collége de France 63 (1963), 39- 41 (M. Bataillon); AfO 21 (1966), 272-3 (J. Leclant); BIFA062 (1964), 231-5 (F. Daumas); Chron. D' Eg. 38 (1966), 244-6 (B. van de Walle); CRAIBL1963, 1964, 105-11 (P. Montet); Rev. Arch. 1963, ii, 55-8 (Ch. Picard); Rev. d'Eg. 15 (1963), 7-10 (portr.) (J. Sainte Fare Garnot); Rev. del'Histoire des Religions, cxliv, no. 444 (1963),128-31 (J. Sainte Fare Garnot).
  • Thomas Richard Duncan Greenlees

    • Type Author
    • Nationality & Dates British, 1899–
    • Remarks Thomas Richard Duncan Greenlees, born South Africa, Sivaratri, March 10, 1899. British subject with a Scottish father and an English mother. For a brief period during 1925 he was a staff member of Harvard University--Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition, who later joined the Theosophist movement in India. Greenlees received his MA degree in 1922 from Oxford, where he studied Egyptian, Coptic and Arabic. April 2,1925, Greenlees appointed Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art at MFA.