Amenemhet III- Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, who reigned approximately 1853 - 1806 BC. e., from the XII dynasty (Middle Kingdom). Son of Senusret III. His throne name was Ni-Maat-Ra ("In Truth Ra").

During the reign of Amenemhet royal power reached its apogee during the Middle Kingdom. It is important to note that with the accession of Amenemhat III, the chain of tombs of the nomarchs, hitherto continuous, was suddenly stopped. Apparently, Amenemhet, using drastic measures and relying on the humble service people who made up the backbone of the army, managed to significantly limit the power of the nomarchs. The borders of the kingdom were largely measured by his predecessors, so military campaigns under Amenemhat were insignificant and they were undertaken quite rarely. Only occasionally in the inscriptions there are references to the “defeat of Nubia and the discovery of the countries of Asia.”

Amenemhet's reign was accompanied by intense construction activity. He improved the structure of the colonies on the Sinai Peninsula, providing them with water and constant security, which allowed him to more widely work on the local copper mines and turquoise deposits. More than 50 inscriptions about long expeditions between the 2nd and 45th years of the reign of Amenemhat III were discovered on the stones here. An inscription from the second year of the reign speaks of the delivery of turquoise and copper to Egypt. It is a rather unusual fact that, despite his long reign, very few inscriptions from Amenemhat III survive. They nevertheless give high praise to his rule and contain long lists of officials, treasurers, artists, master stonemasons and workers whom the pharaoh sent to the mines. All these people left inscriptions on stones in memory of their stay. They named their name and position, called for help from local gods, mainly the goddess Hathor, “the mistress of the land of Mafkat” (turquoise), as well as the god Supt-Horus, “the lord of the east” and the deified king Snefru (IV dynasty), who was considered the patron saint of Sinai peninsula.

Under him, large irrigation works in the Fayum oasis, begun by his predecessors, were completed. Amenemhet built a huge embankment (43.5 km long), thanks to which a huge area of ​​the Fayyum oasis, suitable for crops, was drained. Greek writers report that the Egyptians built locks and dams, with the help of which the excess water of the Nile flood was directed to the Fayyum reservoir (Greek: Lake Merida). IN different times the lake was called: She - “lake”, She-ur - “great lake”, Mi-ur - “great sea”. The name of the lake “She” was used to call the entire region - Ta-She - “Land of the Lake”, from which the Arabic Fayum originated. The place where the Nile canal emerges to go deeper into the Fayum basin was called Ape-Tash, that is, “gorge of the land of the lake.” Here was the Ra-hunt, or La-hunt, that is, the “water drainage hole” - the canal locks. Probably both the Arabic name of the area El Lahun and the name “Labyrinth” given by the Greeks (a distorted Egyptian word Lapero-hunt - “sanctuary at the canal locks”) came from La-hunt. Modern calculations show that enough water could be stored in this way to double the amount of water in the river downstream of the Fayum during 100 days of low standing of the Nile.

On the drained territory of the Fayum oasis, a new flourishing city of Crocodilopolis was built with a temple in honor of the crocodile god Sebek. At the northern point of these lands, two massive pedestals were installed in the form of truncated pyramids, more than 6 m high. Colossal monolithic statues of Amenemhat III were placed on them. They were carved from yellow quartzite. Their height was 11.7 m. During the flood, the pedestals were partially covered with water, and then the statues seemed to be sitting in the middle of the lake.

In Faiyum, Amenemhet erected a majestic stone building, which was admired by the Greeks, who called this huge structure, with countless halls and passages, the Labyrinth. The labyrinth measured 244 x 305 m and consisted of 3,000 rooms (of which 1,500 were underground and 1,500 above-ground). Strabo says that the ceiling of each room of this building consisted of a single stone, and also that the passages are covered, likewise, with solid slabs of extraordinary dimensions; Moreover, neither wood nor other materials were used during construction. The Labyrinth was probably the mortuary temple of Amenemhet. It is also possible that the construction of this temple, each of the separate rooms, which were apparently intended for the sculptures of numerous local nomic and pan-Egyptian deities, served the goals of a more durable unification of the country under the leadership of ruling dynasty. Nowadays, only a few fragments of fluted columns and fragments of reliefs that once decorated the walls remain from the temple.

Under Amenemhat, stone mining continued in the Hammamat Valley. One of the inscriptions on the rocks says that in the 9th year of his reign, Amenemhat III personally went to the rocky valley of Rohan to give orders for the breaking of stone for the construction of monuments in Pi-Sebek (Fayum) and for a statue of the pharaoh five cubits high.

In addition to Fayyum, Amenemhet also carried out extensive construction in other places in Egypt. He renovated the temple in Apollonopolis Magna (modern Edfu), built a new temple of Osiris in Abydos, and expanded the temple of Harshef in Hierakonpolis. He surrounded the ancient capital, the city of Nekheb (modern El-Kab), with a large brick wall, which still stands today. Trade flourished under Amenemhet. Amenemhet introduced the basic copper weight unit deben, equal to 91 grams. Attempts were made to establish trade links with remote, little-known areas. Thus, in the 45th year of the reign of Amenemhet (c. 1798), an Egyptian expedition led by Ptaur penetrated deep into Syria - “into mysterious valleys, in very remote areas, about which no one had heard anything before.”

The reign of Amenemhat III is estimated to be between 45 and 48 years. The last intravital source known to us is dated to the 46th year of Amenemhat III. He, like his father, left behind a series of remarkable sculptural portraits great job.

The son of Senusret III, Amenemhet III reigned for about 45 years and, like his father, left behind a series of remarkable sculptural portraits of fine workmanship. His reign became the apogee of the economic prosperity of the Middle Kingdom. The memory of Amenemhet III was preserved for centuries thanks not to victorious wars, but to peaceful works that brought prosperity to the country.

Under Amenemhat III, the importance of the Fayum increased, and huge palaces were erected here in honor of the local crocodile god Sebek.

The harvest in Egypt has always depended on the Nile flood, and only to a certain extent. average height flooding the earth brought a rich harvest. Too high a spill, as well as too low, could not ensure a good harvest. Thanks to complex system canals, dams and dams held water in the fields. During the time of Amenemhat III, measures were taken to know in advance the height of the rising water. Nilomer was located in the south of the country in the Semne fortress. There was probably also a system for quickly transmitting information about the rise of water in the river from Semne and Elephantine to Thebes and the locks of Lake Merida and to Memphis.

Under Amenemhet III, construction work in Fayum, which was begun by Amenemhet I, was completed. An artificial Lake Merida was created. Thanks to a grandiose system of locks, it became a huge water reservoir. On the other hand, due to the fact that the lands near the lake were drained, the country received rich arable land. When a flood came, then the canal's sluices were opened, the waters of the river rushed into the basin, and when the river's waters dropped to the lowest level, then the sluices were opened, and the basin poured its waters onto the lands closest to it.

At different times the lake was called She - “lake”, She-ur - “great lake”, Mi-ur - “great sea”. The name of the lake “She” was used to call the entire region – Ta She – “Land of the Lake”, from which the Arabic Fayum originated. The place where the Nile canal emerges to go deeper into the Fayum basin was called Ape-Tash, that is, “gorge of the land of the lake.” Here was the Ra-hunt, or La-hunt, that is, the “water drainage hole” - the canal sluices. Probably both the Arabic name of the area El-Lahun and the name “Labyrinth” given by the Greeks (a distorted Egyptian word Lapero-hunt - “sanctuary at the canal locks”) came from La-hunt.

Stone mining continued in the Hammamat Valley. One of the inscriptions on the rocks says that in the ninth year of his reign, Amenemhat III personally went to the rocky valley of Rohan to give orders for the breaking of stone for the construction of monuments at Pi-Sebek (Fayum) and for a statue of the pharaoh five cubits high.

There were rich deposits of turquoise in the Sinai, and work in the mines also continued. More than 50 inscriptions about long expeditions between the 2nd and 45th years of the reign of Amenemhat III were discovered on the stones here. An inscription from the second year of the reign speaks of the delivery of turquoise and copper to Egypt. It is a rather unusual fact that, despite his long reign, very few inscriptions from Amenemhat III survive. They nevertheless give high praise to his rule and contain long lists of officials, treasurers, artists, master stonemasons and workers whom the pharaoh sent to the mines. All these people left inscriptions on stones in memory of their stay. They named their name and position, called for help from local gods, mainly the goddess Hathor, “the mistress of the land of Mafkat” (turquoise), as well as the god Supt-Horus, “the lord of the east” and the deified king Snefru (IV dynasty), who was considered the patron saint of Sinai peninsula.

Pyramids of Amenemhet III

What was unusual was that Amenemhet built two pyramids for himself. This has not happened since the reign of Sneferu in the era Ancient kingdom.

One pyramid of Amenemhet was erected in Dahshur (104 m wide), the other in Hawar (102 m wide). The first was abandoned after the king built a tomb in Hawar.

Amenemhet gave Fayum great value, that’s why he built the pyramid in the same area.

The pyramid at Hawara was built from mud brick and faced with limestone slabs. A system of complex passages was built inside it in order to make it inaccessible to robbers. royal burial. But the robbers had guides with whom they entered the tombs, robbed the mummies and burned the wooden coffins.

The entrance to the pyramid is located unusually - on the south side. A long staircase begins from the entrance, which leads to a room with a ceiling made of movable stone slabs, through which one could get into a corridor ending in a dead end. This trap was supposed to be an obstacle for robbers. The actual passage from this chamber led to the next room with a ceiling also made of movable slabs. There were three such rooms in total. In the corridor that led from the last room to the burial chamber, a trap was set up in the form of two wells, which also ended in dead ends.

The burial chamber itself was entirely carved from yellow quartzite. Chamber length 6.71 m, width 2.4, height 1.83. The thickness of the walls is 60 cm. The weight of this block is approximately 427 kg. The burial chamber was inserted into a recess carved into the rock, and since there were no doors in it, it was possible to enter only by moving aside one of the three stone ceiling slabs. Above the chamber there was a vault made of limestone beams 2 m thick, on top of the vault there was a brick arch, above which the pyramid rose.

Two sarcophagi were found in the burial chamber - Amenemhet III and his daughter Nefru-Ptah, as well as two boxes with canopic jars.

Near the eastern side of the pyramid was a mortuary temple known as the Labyrinth, which was described by many classical writers, including Herodotus and Strabo.

Herodotus wrote: “If we put together all the Hellenic fortifications and other structures, it would turn out that they cost less labor and money than the Labyrinth. True, there were pyramids that surpassed description, each of them was worth many, even huge, structures of the Hellenes, but the Labyrinth surpasses the pyramids themselves. These are twelve covered halls, with their portals located one against the other and connected to each other into one room, six halls facing north, and six facing south. Outside they are surrounded by a common wall. The chambers in the Labyrinth are of two kinds: some underground, others on the surface of the earth above the first. There are three thousand of all chambers, one and a half thousand in each half. The Egyptian watchmen never wanted to show us the underground chambers, because, they said, there were tombs of the kings who built the Labyrinth, and the sacred crocodiles.”

Five centuries later, Strabo writes: “There is also a building of the Labyrinth, similar to a pyramid, and next to it is the tomb of the king who built the Labyrinth. Near the right entrance to the canal, precisely at a distance of thirty or forty stadia upward, there is a square in the shape of a table: on it are placed trees and a large palace, consisting of as many royal rooms as there were former districts. That's exactly how many halls there are, surrounded by columns and connecting to one another. All of them are placed in one row against one wall, in front of which all the palace halls go as one long wall, and the paths leading to the halls come from the opposite side. At the entrances to the halls there are a large number of long covered passages, connected to each other by winding paths, so that neither entering nor exiting any hall is possible for an outsider without a guide. ... They say that such a number of halls were made in the Labyrinth because, as required by custom, all the districts, represented by their most noble representatives, came here with their priests and priestesses to perform sacrifices and present gifts to the gods, as well as to resolve important matters.”

Excavations showed that the Labyrinth occupied an area of ​​72 thousand square meters. m. In plan, it was a building surrounded by a colonnade; in the middle, directly from the entrance, there was a passage to a second similar hall in the depths of the building. On both sides of the first hall there were six chapels with colonnades. At the back of the second hall there was a colonnade, behind which there are nine chapels smaller than the first twelve. This plan for the reconstruction of the Labyrinth was proposed by Flinders Petrie.

When Petrie excavated the famous Labyrinth in 1888-89, he had great difficulty reconciling himself with the fact that the few architectural details he dug up were the grandiose structure that Strabo wrote about, so great was the destruction. All that remains of the temple are a few fragments of fluted columns and fragments of reliefs that once decorated the walls. Petrie discovered numerous fragments of statues of Sobek, the main deity of the Fayum. Sebek was presented in various guises.

Not far from the Labyrinth there is another wonderful monument of Amenemhet III - the famous colossi of Memnon, as the Greeks called them. They were built on land obtained as a result of irrigation works carried out by Amenemhet. At the northern point of these lands, two massive pedestals were installed in the form of truncated pyramids, more than 6 m high. Colossal monolithic statues of Amenemhat III were placed on them. They are carved from yellow quartzite. Height - 11.7 m. During the flood, the pedestals were partially covered with water, and then the statues seemed to be sitting in the middle of the lake.

End of a dynasty

Amenemhet III was the last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom; this is how all the inscriptions on monuments from Syria to the third cataract on the Nile characterize him. Not much is known about his co-ruler Amenemhat IV. It is possible that he did not rule independently, but only as a co-ruler of his old father. It is assumed that he died prematurely, and that Queen Sebekneferu took over the reign, which, however, did not last long.

Neither Amenemhet IV nor Queen Sebekneferu left too many inscriptions. No pyramids have been found that can be attributed without hesitation to these rulers. Although, two pyramids located five kilometers south of Dahshur, in Mazgun, may belong to them, but no inscriptions confirming this have been found.

The names of Amenemhet IV and Sebekneferu conclude the list of kings of the XII dynasty. Just as the sixth dynasty ends with Queen Nitocris, just as Queen Nefertari was later the last of the seventeenth dynasty, so Princess Sebekneferu was the last of the twelfth dynasty. She transferred her rights to the throne by marriage into the new royal family. Its name is characteristic, it refers to the god who was worshiped in the Fayum, and to the area that occupied the minds of the pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty and had such an important influence on the welfare of Egypt.

Literature:
Brugsch G. All about Egypt. M., 2000
Mathieu M. The Art of the Middle Kingdom. L., 1941
P.F. Clayton. "Chronicle Of The Pharaohs", London, 1994

Amenemhet III (or Amenemhet Nimaatra) is the sixth pharaoh of the XIIth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom, rightfully considered one of the greatest rulers of that period. He reigned around 1853/52 - 1807/1796. BC

This pharaoh is mentioned under the name Nimaatra in the Abydos and Saqqara royal lists. According to the Turin papyrus, he reigned for more than 40 years. Julius Africanus, a follower of the teachings of Manetho, calls him Amenes, and Eusebius of Caesarea calls him Lamaris or Lampares. Ancient historians note that this king built a huge temple “Labyrinth” and his own tomb in the nome of Arsinoe and ruled for 8 years. Today it is generally accepted that Amenemhet III reigned for about 45 years, since the latest entry with his name was discovered in the Lahun papyrus and indicates " 46th year 3rd month of the season of Akhet " reign of the pharaoh.

The head of the statue of Amenemhat III wearing a nemes head scarf. Egyptian Museum. Berlin

Family

The wives of Amenemhet III were Aat, who apparently died at the age of 35, and Khnumneferhejet, who was no more than 25 years old. The king's other wife was Netepti, who also became the mother of the heir to the throne. Amenemhet's daughters were the princesses Neferuptah and possibly Hethorhetep and Nophrusobek.

Variations of the name Amenemhet III from various ancient Egyptian sources

Personal name like Son of Ra		imn m HA.t- Amenemhet - "Amon is in front" / "Amon is in charge"
Throne name like King		n(j) mAa.t ra- Ni-Maat-Ra - “In the Truth of Ra”
		(other spelling)
		(other spelling)
		(other spelling)
Khorovo name, like Khor		Hr aA bA.w- Chorus Aa-bau - "A Chorus with Great Power"
		(other spelling)
Nebti-name, like Lord of the Double Crown		nb.tj iT iwa.t tA.wj- Ichi-iuat-Taui-nebti - “Who took in the Two Lands (that is, in Lower and Upper Egypt) the inheritance of the Two Ladys (that is, the goddesses Nekhbet and Wajit)”
		(other spelling)
		nb.tj iT iwa.t Hr (?)- Ichi-iuat-Khor-nebti - “Two Mistresses who took the legacy of the Chorus (?)”
Golden name like Golden Chorus		bik nbw wAH anx- Bik-nebu-uan-ankh - “Golden Falcon, transported to life”
Abydos List (No. 64)		Nimaatra
Saqqara List (No. 39)		Ni-Maat-Ra

Board

Head of the Sphinx of Senusret III. State Museum Egyptian art. Munich

As recent research by Egyptologists has shown, after taking the throne, Amenemhat III ruled with his father Senusret III as co-ruler for about 20 years. While my father, in his military campaigns, intensively developed foreign policy Egypt, his son contributed with all his might to the internal prosperity of the state. Three years before his death, Amenemhet III, following established tradition, appointed his son, Amenemhet IV, as his co-ruler.

Statue of Amenemhet III in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

During the reign of Amenemhet, royal power reached its apogee during the Middle Kingdom. It is important to note that with the accession of Amenemhat III, the chain of tombs of the nomarchs, hitherto continuous, was suddenly stopped. Apparently, Amenemhet, using drastic measures and relying on the humble service people who made up the backbone of the army, managed to significantly limit the power of the nomarchs. The borders of the kingdom were largely measured by his predecessors, so military campaigns under Amenemhat were insignificant and they were undertaken quite rarely. Only occasionally in the inscriptions there are references to the “defeat of Nubia and the discovery of the countries of Asia.”

Amenemhet's reign was accompanied by intense construction activity. He improved the structure of the colonies on the Sinai Peninsula, providing them with water and constant security, which allowed him to more widely work on the local copper mines and turquoise deposits. More than 50 inscriptions about long expeditions between the 2nd and 45th years of the reign of Amenemhat III were discovered on the stones here. An inscription from the second year of the reign speaks of the delivery of turquoise and copper to Egypt. It is a rather unusual fact that, despite his long reign, very few inscriptions from Amenemhat III survive. They nevertheless give high praise to his rule and contain long lists of officials, treasurers, artists, master stonemasons and workers whom the pharaoh sent to the mines. All these people left inscriptions on stones in memory of their stay. They named their name and position, called for help from local gods, mainly the goddess Hathor, “the lady of the land of Mafkat” (turquoise), as well as the god Supt-Horus, “the lord of the east” and the deified king Snefru (IV dynasty), who was considered the patron saint of Sinai peninsula.

Under him, large irrigation works in the Fayum oasis, begun by his predecessors, were completed. Amenemhet built a huge embankment (43.5 km long), thanks to which a huge area of ​​the Fayyum oasis, suitable for crops, was drained. Greek writers report that the Egyptians built locks and dams, with the help of which the excess water of the Nile flood was directed to the Fayyum reservoir (Greek: Lake Merida). At different times the lake was called: She - “lake”, She-ur - “great lake”, Mi-ur - “great sea”. The name of the lake “She” was used to call the entire region - Ta-She - “Land of the Lake”, from which the Arabic Fayum originated. The place where the Nile canal emerges to go deeper into the Fayum basin was called Ape-Tash, that is, “gorge of the land of the lake.” Here was Ra-hunt, or La junta, that is, “water drainage hole” - canal locks. Probably both the Arabic name of the area El Lahun and the name “Labyrinth” given by the Greeks (a distorted Egyptian word Lapero-hunt - “sanctuary at the canal locks”) came from La-hunt. Modern calculations show that enough water could be stored in this way to double the amount of water in the river downstream of the Fayum during 100 days of low standing of the Nile.

On the drained territory of the Fayum oasis, a new flourishing city of Crocodilopolis was built with a temple in honor of the crocodile god Sebek. At the northern point of these lands, two massive pedestals were installed in the form of truncated pyramids, more than 6 m high. Colossal monolithic statues of Amenemhat III were placed on them. They were carved from yellow quartzite. Their height was 11.7 m. During the flood, the pedestals were partially covered with water, and then the statues seemed to be sitting in the middle of the lake.

Head of the statue of Amenemhat III. Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen

In Fayyum, Amenemhet erected a majestic stone building, which was admired by the Greeks, who called this huge structure, with countless halls and passages, the Labyrinth. The labyrinth measured 244? 305 m and consisted of 3,000 rooms (of which 1,500 were underground and 1,500 above-ground). Strabo says that the ceiling of each room of this building consisted of a single stone, and also that the passages are covered, likewise, with solid slabs of extraordinary dimensions; Moreover, neither wood nor other materials were used during construction. The Labyrinth was probably the mortuary temple of Amenemhet. It is also possible that the construction of this temple, each of the separate rooms, which were apparently intended for the sculptures of numerous local nomic and general Egyptian deities, served the goals of a more durable unification of the country under the leadership of the ruling dynasty. Nowadays, only a few fragments of fluted columns and fragments of reliefs that once decorated the walls remain from the temple.

Under Amenemhat, stone mining continued in the Hammamat Valley. One of the inscriptions on the rocks says that in the 9th year of his reign, Amenemhat III personally went to the rocky valley of Rohan to give orders for the breaking of stone for the construction of monuments in Pi-Sebek (Fayum) and for a statue of the pharaoh five cubits high.

In addition to Fayyum, Amenemhet also carried out extensive construction in other places in Egypt. He renovated the temple in Apollonopolis Magna (modern Edfu), built a new temple of Osiris in Abydos, and expanded the temple of Harshef in Hierakonpolis. He surrounded the ancient capital, the city of Nekheb (modern El-Kab), with a large brick wall, which still stands today. Trade flourished under Amenemhet. Amenemhet introduced the basic copper weight unit deben, equal to 91 grams. Attempts were made to establish trade links with remote, little-known areas. Thus, in the 45th year of the reign of Amenemhet (c. 1798), an Egyptian expedition led by Ptaur penetrated deep into Syria - “into mysterious valleys, into very remote areas, about which no one had heard anything before.”

Pharaoh's entourage

Almost nothing is known about the contemporaries of Amenemhat III. Only one vizier named Kheti can be confidently attributed to the reign of the pharaoh, since his name is clearly indicated on the papyrus from el-Lahun. It is possible that the viziers Khnumhotep and Ameni also held these positions during this period. Ikernofret probably served royal family as treasurer early in the reign of Amenemhat III.

Pyramids of Amenemhet III

Amenemhet III ordered the construction of two pyramids for himself. This has not happened since the reign of Snofru in the era of the Old Kingdom. One pyramid (the so-called “Black Pyramid”) (104 x 104 m) of Amenemhet was built in Dahshur from adobe. Granite was used only to strengthen the chambers and for the pyramidion. In this pyramid, he ordered 2 entrances to be made: one, on the traditional north side, led to a labyrinth of corridors ending in a dead end. Through another, in the south-eastern corner, you can go down the same labyrinth into a burial chamber with a red sarcophagus. However, Amenemhet was not buried in this pyramid. In the area of ​​this pyramid is the tomb of King Evet-ib-Ra, probably the king of the next XIII dynasty.

"Black Pyramid" in Dahshur

Soon after construction was completed, the Black Pyramid became covered with cracks from the inside. For this reason, massive cedar wood beams were installed to support the ceiling, and cracks were sealed in the six interior rooms and hallways. The two burial chambers of the queens located here were lined with stone from the inside for reliability. These crypts were later looted, and the remains of funerary utensils found here testify to the sufficient original wealth of the burials.

Under the rubble of the "Black Pyramid" a pyramidion was found, the highest of all those found previously (1.40 x 1.85 m).

Pyramid of Amenemhat III at Havara near Crocodilopolis.

Due to construction defects of the first pyramid, the pharaoh ordered the construction of a second one (102 x 102 m) for himself in Hawara. The Khavar pyramid was the center of the newly founded royal necropolis, to which the famous “Labyrinth” may have belonged. Now all that remains of it is a flattened clay cone with a diameter of about 100 m and a height of 20 m. The entrance to the pyramid is located on the south side. The burial chamber is truly a miracle of ancient Egyptian technology. The huge tomb (6.71 x 2.4 x 1.83 m) is carved from a single block of extraordinary hard yellow quartzite and weighs over 100 tons. The thickness of the walls is 60 cm. The quartzite cover is 1.2 m thick and weighs about 45 tons. The chamber is covered on top with a gable roof made of two limestone blocks weighing 50 tons each. The chamber contains two sarcophagi. Judging by the inscriptions, Amenemhet himself was buried in one, and Amenemhet’s daughter Ptahneferu was buried in the other, who, however, also owned the nearby small pyramid, discovered by archaeologists in 1956. leaked into her groundwater The wooden parts of the tomb and interior decoration were completely destroyed.

Near the eastern side of the pyramid was a mortuary temple known as the Labyrinth, which was described by many classical writers, including Herodotus and Strabo.

The labyrinth measured 244? 305 m and consisted of 3,000 rooms (of which 1,500 were underground and 1,500 above-ground). Strabo says that the ceiling of each room of this building consisted of a single stone, and also that the passages are covered, likewise, with solid slabs of extraordinary dimensions; Moreover, neither wood nor other materials were used during construction. The Labyrinth was probably the mortuary temple of Amenemhet. It is also possible that the construction of this temple, each of the separate rooms, which were apparently intended for the sculptures of numerous local nomic and general Egyptian deities, served the goals of a more durable unification of the country under the leadership of the ruling dynasty. Nowadays, only a few fragments of fluted columns and fragments of reliefs that once decorated the walls remain from the temple.

Herodotus wrote: “If we put together all the Hellenic fortifications and other structures, it would turn out that they cost less labor and money than the Labyrinth. True, there were pyramids that surpassed description, each of them was worth many, even huge, structures of the Hellenes, but the Labyrinth surpasses the pyramids themselves. These are twelve indoor halls, with their portals located one opposite the other and connected to each other into one room, six halls facing north, and six facing south. Outside they are surrounded by a common wall. The chambers in the Labyrinth are of two kinds: some underground, others on the surface of the earth above the first. There are three thousand of all chambers, one and a half thousand in each half. The Egyptian watchmen never wanted to show us the underground chambers, because, they said, the tombs of the kings who built the Labyrinth and the sacred crocodiles were located there.”

Five centuries later, Strabo writes: “There is also a building of the Labyrinth, similar to a pyramid, and next to it is the tomb of the king who built the Labyrinth. Near the right entrance to the canal, precisely at a distance of thirty or forty stadia upward, there is a square in the shape of a table: on it are placed trees and a large palace, consisting of as many royal rooms as there were former districts. That's exactly how many halls there are, surrounded by columns and connecting to one another. All of them are placed in one row against one wall, in front of which all the palace halls go as one long wall, and the paths leading to the halls come from the opposite side. At the entrances to the halls there are large number long covered passages connected to each other by winding paths, so that neither entry into nor exit from any hall is possible for an outsider without a guide. ... They say that such a number of halls were made in the Labyrinth because, as required by custom, all the districts, represented by their most noble representatives, came here with their priests and priestesses to perform sacrifices and present gifts to the gods, as well as to resolve important matters.”

Excavations showed that the Labyrinth occupied an area of ​​72 thousand square meters. m. In plan, it was a building surrounded by a colonnade; in the middle, directly from the entrance, there was a passage to a second similar hall in the depths of the building. On both sides of the first hall there were six chapels with colonnades. At the back of the second hall there was a colonnade, behind which there are nine chapels smaller than the first twelve. This plan for the reconstruction of the Labyrinth was proposed by Flinders Petrie.

When Petrie excavated the famous Labyrinth in 1888-89, he had great difficulty reconciling himself with the fact that the few architectural details he dug up were the grandiose structure that Strabo wrote about, so great was the destruction. All that remains of the temple are a few fragments of fluted columns and fragments of reliefs that once decorated the walls. Petrie discovered numerous fragments of statues of Sobek, the chief deity of the Fayum. Sebek was presented in various guises.

End of a dynasty

Amenemhet III was the last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom; this is how all the inscriptions on monuments from Syria to the third cataract on the Nile characterize him. Not much is known about his co-ruler Amenemhat IV. It is possible that he did not rule independently, but only as a co-ruler of his old father. It is assumed that he died prematurely, and that Queen Sebekneferu took over the reign, which, however, did not last long.

Neither Amenemhet IV nor Queen Sebekneferu left too many inscriptions. No pyramids have been found that can be attributed without hesitation to these rulers. Although, two pyramids located five kilometers south of Dahshur, in Mazgun, may belong to them, but no inscriptions confirming this have been found.

The names of Amenemhet IV and Sebekneferu conclude the list of kings of the XII dynasty. Just as the sixth dynasty ends with Queen Nitocris, just as Queen Nefertari was later the last of the seventeenth dynasty, so Princess Sebekneferu was the last of the twelfth dynasty. She transferred her rights to the throne by marriage into the new royal family. Its name is characteristic, it refers to the god who was worshiped in the Fayum, and to the area that occupied the minds of the pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty and had such an important influence on the welfare of Egypt.

Probably the highest achievement of the pharaohs of this dynasty was the restoration of an extensive irrigation system by Amenemhat III (c. 1849-1801 BC). In the Fayum depression, near the royal residence of It-Tawi, a complex network of canals was created, connected to the Nile through the Bahr-Yusuf canal. Lake Merida in Faiyum was turned into a reservoir, which was replenished annually through a system of canals with Nile waters during floods, and a new capital, Hetepsenusert (modern Kahun), was founded nearby. To control the irrigation of fields during long periods of decline in the Nile level, locks were erected on the canals. The improved and more extensive irrigation system of the reign of Amenemhat III is still in operation.

The son of Senusret III, Amenemhet III reigned for about 45 years and, like his father, left behind a series of remarkable sculptural portraits of excellent workmanship. His reign became the apogee of the economic prosperity of the Middle Kingdom. The memory of Amenemhet III was preserved for centuries thanks not to victorious wars, but to peaceful works that brought prosperity to the country.

Under Amenemhat III, the importance of the Fayum increased, and huge palaces were erected here in honor of the local crocodile god Sebek.

The harvest in Egypt always depended on the flooding of the Nile, and only a certain average height of flooding of the land brought a rich harvest. Too high a spill, as well as too low, could not ensure a good harvest. Thanks to a complex system of canals, dams and dams, water was retained in the fields. During the time of Amenemhat III, measures were taken to know in advance the height of the rising water. Nilomer was located in the south of the country in the Semne fortress. There was probably also a system for quickly transmitting information about the rise of water in the river from Semne and Elephantine to Thebes and the locks of Lake Merida and to Memphis.

Under Amenemhet III, construction work in Fayum, which was begun by Amenemhet I, was completed. An artificial Lake Merida was created. Thanks to a grandiose system of locks, it became a huge water reservoir. On the other hand, due to the fact that the lands near the lake were drained, the country received rich arable land. When a flood came, then the canal's sluices were opened, the waters of the river rushed into the basin, and when the river's waters dropped to the lowest level, then the sluices were opened, and the basin poured its waters onto the lands closest to it.

At different times, the lake was called She – “lake”, She-ur – “great lake”, Mi-ur – “great sea”. After the name of lake “She” the whole region was called – Ta She – “Land of the lake”, from which and the Arab Fayum originated. The place where the Nile canal emerges to go deeper into the Fayum basin was called Ape-Tash, that is, “the gorge of the land of the lake.” Here was Ra-hunt, or La-hunt, that is, the “water drainage hole” - the canal locks. Probably both the Arabic name for the area El-Lahun, and the name “Labyrinth” given by the Greeks (a distorted Egyptian word Lapero-hunt - “sanctuary at the canal locks”), originated from La Junta.

Stone mining continued in the Hammamat Valley. One of the inscriptions on the rocks says that in the ninth year of his reign, Amenemhat III personally went to the rocky valley of Rohan to give orders for the breaking of stone for the construction of monuments at Pi-Sebek (Fayum) and for a statue of the pharaoh five cubits high.

There were rich deposits of turquoise in the Sinai, and work in the mines also continued. More than 50 inscriptions about long expeditions between the 2nd and 45th years of the reign of Amenemhat III were discovered on the stones here. An inscription from the second year of the reign speaks of the delivery of turquoise and copper to Egypt. It is a rather unusual fact that, despite his long reign, very few inscriptions from Amenemhat III survive. They nevertheless give high praise to his rule and contain long lists of officials, treasurers, artists, master stonemasons and workers whom the pharaoh sent to the mines. All these people left inscriptions on stones in memory of their stay. They named their name and position, called for help from local gods, mainly the goddess Hathor, “the lady of the land of Mafkat” (turquoise), as well as the god Supt-Horus, “the lord of the east” and the deified king Snefru (IV dynasty), who was considered the patron saint of Sinai peninsula.

Pyramids of Amenemhet III

What was unusual was that Amenemhet built two pyramids for himself. This has not happened since the reign of Sneferu in the era of the Old Kingdom.

One pyramid of Amenemhet was erected in Dahshur (104 m wide), the other in Hawar (102 m wide). The first was abandoned after the king built a tomb in Hawar.

Amenemhet attached great importance to Fayum, which is why he built the pyramid in the same area.

The pyramid at Hawara was built from mud brick and faced with limestone slabs. A system of complex passages was built inside it in order to make the royal burial inaccessible to robbers. But the robbers had guides, with the help of which they entered the tombs, robbed the mummies and burned the wooden coffins.

The entrance to the pyramid is located unusually - on the south side. A long staircase begins from the entrance, which leads to a room with a ceiling made of movable stone slabs, through which one could get into a corridor ending in a dead end. This trap was supposed to be an obstacle for robbers. The actual passage from this chamber led to the next room with a ceiling also made of movable slabs. There were three such rooms in total. In the corridor that led from the last room to the burial chamber, a trap was set up in the form of two wells, which also ended in dead ends.

The burial chamber itself was entirely carved from yellow quartzite. Chamber length 6.71 m, width 2.4, height 1.83. The thickness of the walls is 60 cm. The weight of this block is approximately 427 kg. The burial chamber was inserted into a recess carved into the rock, and since there were no doors in it, it was possible to enter only by moving aside one of the three stone ceiling slabs. Above the chamber there was a vault made of limestone beams 2 m thick, on top of the vault there was a brick arch, above which the pyramid rose.

Two sarcophagi were found in the burial chamber - Amenemhet III and his daughter Nefru-Ptah, as well as two boxes with canopic jars.

Near the eastern side of the pyramid was a mortuary temple known as the Labyrinth, which was described by many classical writers, including Herodotus and Strabo.

Herodotus wrote: “If we put together all the Hellenic fortifications and other structures, it would turn out that they cost less labor and money than the Labyrinth. True, there were pyramids that surpassed description, each of them was worth many, even huge, Hellenic structures, but the Labyrinth is superior to the pyramids themselves. These are twelve covered halls, with their portals located one against the other and connected to each other into one room, six halls facing north, and six - to the south, they are surrounded by a common wall of two kinds: some underground, others on the surface of the earth above the first. There are three thousand of all the chambers, one and a half thousand in each half. The Egyptian guards never wanted to show us the underground chambers, because, they said, the tombs of the kings who built the Labyrinth and the sacred ones were located there. crocodiles."

Five centuries later, Strabo writes: “There is also a building of the Labyrinth, similar to a pyramid, and next to it is the tomb of the king who built the Labyrinth. Near the right entrance to the canal, precisely at a distance of thirty or forty stages up, there is a square shaped like a table: on it contains trees and a large palace, consisting of as many royal rooms as there were previously there were halls, surrounded by columns and connected to one another. All of them are placed in one row near one wall, in front of which all the palace halls go as one. there is a long wall, and the paths leading to the halls come from the opposite side. At the entrances to the halls there are a large number of long covered passages, connected to each other by winding paths, so that neither entry into nor exit from any hall is possible for an outsider. a person without a guide... They say that such a number of halls were made in the Labyrinth because, as required by custom, all the districts, represented by their most noble representatives, came here with their priests and priestesses to perform sacrifices and present gifts to the gods, as well as to resolve important matters.”

Excavations showed that the Labyrinth occupied an area of ​​72 thousand square meters. m. In plan, it was a building surrounded by a colonnade; in the middle, directly from the entrance, there was a passage to a second similar hall in the depths of the building. On both sides of the first hall there were six chapels with colonnades. At the back of the second hall there was a colonnade, behind which there are nine chapels smaller than the first twelve. This plan for the reconstruction of the Labyrinth was proposed by Flinders Petrie.

When Petrie excavated the famous Labyrinth in 1888-89, he had great difficulty reconciling himself with the fact that the few architectural details he dug up were the grandiose structure that Strabo wrote about, so great was the destruction. All that remains of the temple are a few fragments of fluted columns and fragments of reliefs that once decorated the walls. Petrie discovered numerous fragments of statues of Sobek, the chief deity of the Fayum. Sebek was presented in various guises.

Not far from the Labyrinth there is another wonderful monument of Amenemhet III - the famous colossi of Memnon, as the Greeks called them. They were built on land obtained as a result of irrigation works carried out by Amenemhet. At the northern point of these lands, two massive pedestals were installed in the form of truncated pyramids, more than 6 m high. Colossal monolithic statues of Amenemhat III were placed on them. They are carved from yellow quartzite. Height - 11.7 m. During the flood, the pedestals were partially covered with water, and then the statues seemed to be sitting in the middle of the lake.

Treasures of the Hermitage.

// M.-L.: USSR Academy of Sciences and State. Hermitage. 1949. 352 p. (Popular science series.)

Statue of Pharaoh Amenemhet III. (M. Mathieu)

Black granite. Height 86 cm. 1850-1800 BC. Entered in 1905

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The statue of Amenemhet III is the best Egyptian sculpture in the Hermitage and is one of the world's masterpieces of art. ancient egypt. It dates back to the so-called time of the Middle Kingdom, one of the periods of high prosperity of Egyptian culture, which was of great importance in the history of science, literature and art of Egypt. It was then that problems such as calculating the surface of a sphere were resolved in mathematics (Museum papyrus fine arts in Moscow), and in medicine, for the first time in world history, the role of the brain in the human body was realized. During this period, Egyptian literature created works that have become classics, including the world-famous Hermitage papyri with “The Tale of the Shipwrecked Man,” “The King’s Instruction to His Son Merikara,” and “The Sage’s Prediction to Neferrekh.” The monuments of art created in these centuries were no less remarkable.

Particularly interesting in the art of the Middle Kingdom is the growth of realistic quests, a striking example of which is our statue with its clearly portrait face, marked by all the features of the new style. The pharaoh is depicted sitting on a cube-shaped throne, with his hands on his knees. He is wearing the headdress of Egyptian kings - a striped scarf with an image of a sacred snake fixed above his forehead. The pharaoh wears a short bandage on his hips. On the front, on the sides of the throne, are vertical hieroglyphic inscriptions containing

titles and names of Amenemhat III. We will not find in the person of Amenemhat any traces of the old canon of royal idealizing statues. Everything here is individual: big nose, prominent cheekbones, a large, commanding mouth with slightly downturned lip corners. The eyes no longer lie straight and flat, almost at the level of the face - they are set obliquely and sit deeply in their sockets. The whole face has been worked out, you can feel its bones. The play of chiaroscuro is extremely deep and is characteristic feature the whole style.

A new direction in the art of the Middle Kingdom arose initially not in official art, but in the work of masters who worked at the courts of the rulers of the districts of Middle Egypt. These districts gained greater independence during the period of the collapse of Egypt into separate regions before the beginning of the Middle Kingdom and retained it in the 20th century. BC Along with the growth of the cities of Middle Egypt, their importance as art centers, whose art, in full accordance with the well-known originality of their social environment, managed to find interesting solutions in its search for new ways to convey the world around us. The development of these aspirations was also facilitated by the fluctuation of tradition, which was caused by the collapse of a single ancient state into individual areas and a violation of the entire established way of life for centuries. Gradually developing new style was adopted by the official art of the Middle Kingdom in the 19th century. BC fully reflected in royal sculpture, one of the best examples of which is our statue of Amenemhat III.