Wikipedia says Hemiunu is believed to be the architect of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and consistently refers to him as a man. His page even says "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." Statue in question here:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Statue-of-Hemiun.jpg
To me, the "notable accumulation of fat in the pectoral region" look like breasts. The hips on the statue look wide. The article even acknowledges the statue is out of step with other male subjects! What gives?
You can look up this statue on Harvard University's Giza Project, where there is a relatively straightforward piece of evidence:
Probable son of Nefermaat (owner of tomb at Meidum), probable grandson of Snefru. Architectural elements, including chapel entrance lintel (Hildesheim 2380) and door jamb (Hildesheim 2146), inscribed for Hemiunu, identified as [jrj-pat HAtj-a xtmw-bjtj] hereditary prince, count, sealer of the king of Lower Egypt; door jamb found in situ in G 4000. Seated statue (Hildesheim 1962) inscribed for Hemiunu, identified as [sA nswt n XT=f tAjtj sAb TAtj wr djw pr-DHwtj] king's son of his body, chief justice and vizier, greatest of the five of the House of Thoth; found in situ in G 4000 serdab behind north niche.
In "The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited" (Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 86-87), John Romer cites a longer inscription:
Hemiunu, member of the elite, high official, vizier, king's seal bearer, attendant to Nekhen, and spokesperson of every resident of Pe, priest of Bastet, priest of Shesmetet, priest of the Ram of Mendes, Keeper of the Apis Bull, Keeper of the White Bull, whom his lord Loves, elder of the palace, high priest of Thoth, whom his lord loves, coutrier, Overseer of Royal Scribes, priest of the Panther Goddess, Director of Music of the South and North, Overseer of All Construction Projects of the King, king's son of his own body, Hemiunu.
So the inscriptions in the tomb refer to Hemiunu as "hereditary prince" and "king's son of his body," which makes the gender clear. His parentage is also given; his father Nefermaat's tomb lists Hemiunu as one of his sons. For some additional insight into the meaning of "son of his body", the above source continues:
Consider for example, the apparently no-nonsense epithet 'King's son of his own body', a common-enough translation of a not infrequent appellation of males buried in King Khufu's cemeteries and a powerful message to modern Westerners, whose culture is traditionally based upon inheritance through the male line. Another inscription, however, from another cemetry made in the reign of Khufu's father, tells us that this same Hemiunu was the 'son' of Khufu's father Sneferu and, therefore, Khufu's cousin! Togethr then what these two texts really tell us is that the epithet held a different meaning from its formal English usage. In many other cultures too, of course, such terms are often used as social conventions rather than descriptions of an individual's DNA, and this, it seems, may well have been the case in Hemiunu's time as well.
In researching this, I came across the paper Gynecomastia in the Ancient Egypt limestone statue of Hemiunu, the architect of the Great Pyramid of Giza (Oranges, C.M., Wang, W.J., Tremp, M. et al. in the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation). It's paywalled, unfortunately; but it's clear that other researchers have noticed the same thing, and have thoughts.
