Tomb of Queen Meresankh III (G 7530-7540)
Queen Meresankh III is the owner of the 4th Dynasty mastaba, one of the most beautiful and best-preserved tombs in the Eastern Cemetery of Giza, Egypt.
The Tomb of Queen Meresankh III is directly below the pyramid of Khufu, which you can see in the panoramic image. You can explore the Eastern Cemetery and other tombs at Giza here.
At the Giza Plateau, this tomb is the most richly ornamented of all. In recent years, archaeologists have used advanced technologies and laser scanners to study and make a reconstruction of the colors of paint within the tomb to offer a possible recreation of what the tomb may have looked like.
The statues carved in the living rock fo the wall are all female. Archaeologist George Reisner, who excavated the tomb in 1927, writes "In the row of ten female statues cut in the northern wall of the inner chamber on the north, Hetep-heres II is on the right while the youngest daughter of Meresankh is on the left."
They are pulling papyrus flowers to offer to the great goddess Hathor. Before them, offering bearers carry baskets on their heads of bread, fruit, and meat, while others trap birds and herd animals which will become part of the funerary feast and tomb offerings.
The chamber that the window shone light on is the main area for her funerary cult, where select priests would come to present food and drink offerings to her spirit before yet another false door, highlighting its importance as the center of her worship.
You can observe on this wall that many of the hieroglyphs aren't fully finished being painted. Archaeologist Reisner writes, "In the western inner room the walls were never finished and several stages are preserved of the technical process of preparing the reliefs." This leads some to believe that Meresankh's death was sudden or unexpected.
of the sorts of luxurious and costly items that appear painted on the walls of my chapel up above. Meresankh's mother gave her the black stone sarcophagus which she originally had made for herself and inscribed with her own name and titles. Instead, she had Meresankh's name carved on it so that it might hold the wooden coffin that Meresankh was buried in to protect her throughout the ages.
A team of Egyptian and American archaeologists from the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts expeditions excavated the Tomb of Queen Meresankh III and recognized it as one of the most unique and intensely beautfiul tombs in Egypt.