Hawara MoS 1911
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Hawara is an
archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...
of Ancient Egypt, south of the site of Crocodilopolis ('Arsinoë', also known as 'Medinet al-Faiyum') at the entrance to the depression of the
Fayyum Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop,  ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum ...
oasis. It is the site of a pyramid built by the
Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...
Amenemhat III in the 19th century BC.


History

Amenemhat III was the last powerful ruler of the
12th Dynasty The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom by Egyptologists. It often is combined with the Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth dynasties under the group title, Middle Kingdom. Some ...
, and the pyramid he built at Hawara is believed to post-date the so-called "Black Pyramid" built by the same ruler at
Dahshur DahshurAlso transliterated ''Dahshour'' (in English often called ''Dashur'' ar, دهشور ' , ''Dahchur'') is a royal necropolis located in the desert on the west bank of the Nile approximately south of Cairo. It is known chiefly for several p ...
. This is believed to have been Amenemhet's final resting place. At Hawara there was also the intact (pyramid) tomb of Neferu-Ptah, daughter of Amenemhet III. This tomb was found about 2 km south of the king's pyramid. In common with the Middle Kingdom pyramids constructed after Amenemhat II, it was built of mudbrick round a core of limestone passages and burial chambers, and faced with limestone. Most of the facing stone was later pillaged for use in other buildings— a fate common to almost all of Egypt's pyramids— and today the pyramid is little more than an eroded, vaguely pyramidal mountain of mud brick, and of the once magnificent mortuary temple precinct formerly enclosed by a wall there is little left beyond the foundation bed of compacted sand and chips and shards of limestone. The huge mortuary temple that originally stood adjacent to this pyramid is believed to have formed the basis of the complex of buildings with galleries and courtyards called a "labyrinth" by
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
(see quote at
Labyrinth In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (, ) was an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, the monster eventually killed by t ...
), and mentioned by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. (There is no historicity to the assertion of Diodorus Siculus that this was the model for the labyrinth of
Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
that Greeks imagined housed the Minotaur.) The demolition of the "labyrinth" may date in part to the reign of Ptolemy II, under whom the Pharaonic city of Shedyt (Greek ''Crocodilopolis'', the modern Medinet el-Fayum) was renamed to honour his sister-wife Arsinoë; a massive Ptolemaic building program at Arsinoë has been suggested as the ultimate destination of Middle Kingdom limestone columns and blocks removed from Hawara, and now lost. Pharaoh
Sobekneferu , image = File:Statue of Sobekneferu (Berlin Egyptian Museum 14475).jpg , image_alt = Partially defaced bust of a female , caption = Statue of Sobekneferu , reign = 3 years, 10 months, and 24 days according to the Turin Canon in the mid 18th ...
of the
Twelfth Dynasty The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom by Egyptologists. It often is combined with the Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth dynasties under the group title, Middle Kingdom. Some ...
also built at the complex. Her name meant "most beautiful of
Sobek Sobek (also called Sebek or Sobki, cop, Ⲥⲟⲩⲕ, Souk) was an ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and elastic history and nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile or the West African crocodile and is represented either in its f ...
", the sacred crocodile.


Pyramid

From the pyramid entrance a sloping passageway with steps runs down to a small room and a further short horizontal passage. In the roof of this horizontal passage there was a concealed sliding trapdoor weighing 20 tons. If this was found and opened a robber would find himself confronted by an empty passage at a right angle to the passage below, closed by wooden doors, or by a passage parallel to the passage below, carefully filled with mud and stone blocking. He would assume that the blocking concealed the entrance and waste time removing it (thereby increasing the likelihood of detection by the pyramid guardians). In fact there was a second 20-ton trapdoor in the roof of the empty passage, giving onto a second empty passage, also at a right angle to the first. This too had a 20-ton trapdoor giving onto a passage at a right angle to its predecessor (thus the interior of the pyramid was circled by these passages). However this passage ended in a large area of mud and stone blocking that presumably concealed the burial chamber. This, however, was a blind and merely filled a wide but shallow alcove. Two blind shafts in the floor, carefully filled with cut stone blocks, further wasted the robbers' time, for the real entrance to the burial chamber was even more carefully concealed and lay between the blind shafts and opposite the alcove. Despite these elaborate protective measures, Petrie found that none of the trapdoors had been slid into place and the wooden doors were open. Whether this indicated negligence on the part of the burial party, an intention to return and place further burials in the pyramid (when found there were two sarcophagi in the quartzite monolith described below and room for at least two more), or a deliberate action to facilitate robbery of the tomb, we cannot know. The burial chamber was made out of a single quartzite monolith which was lowered into a larger chamber lined with
limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
. This monolithic slab weighed an estimated 110 tons according to Petrie. A course of brick was placed on the chamber to raise the ceiling then the chamber was covered with 3 quartzite slabs (estimated weight 45 tons each). Above the burial chamber were 2 relieving chambers. This was topped with 50 ton limestone slabs forming a pointed roof. Then an enormous arch of brick 3 feet thick was built over the pointed roof to support the core of the pyramid.Siliotti, Alberto, Zahi Hawass, 1997 "Guide to the Pyramids of Egypt" The entrance to the pyramid is today flooded to a depth of 6 metres as a result of the waters from the
Bahr Yussef The Bahr Yussef ( ar, بحر يوسف; "the waterway of Joseph") is a canal which connects the Nile River with Fayyum in Egypt. In ancient times it was called Tomis () by the Greeks which was derived from its Egyptian name ''Tm.t'' "ending cana ...
(Joseph's) Canal, which flows around two sides of the site and passes within 30m of the pyramid.


Excavations

The first excavations at the site were made by Karl Lepsius, in 1843.
William Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...
excavated at Hawara, in 1888, finding papyri of the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, and, north of the pyramid, a vast necropolis where he found 146 portraits on coffins dating to the Roman period, famous as being among the very few surviving examples of painted portraits from
classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
, the "Fayum" mummy portraits from Roman Egypt. Among the discoveries made by Petrie were
papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
manuscripts, including a great papyrus scroll which contains parts of books 1 and 2 of the ''
Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
'' (the "Hawara Homer" of the Bodleian Library, Oxford).


See also

*
List of Egyptian pyramids This list presents the vital statistics of the pyramids listed in chronological order, when available. See also * Egyptian pyramids * Great Sphinx of Giza * Lepsius list of pyramids * List of Egyptian pyramidia * List of the oldest building ...
* List of megalithic sites


References


External links


Monuments and Sites of Ancient Egypt:
Hawara
The Hawara PapyriThe Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London: A Virtual Exploration of the Lost LabyrinthA 2000 PDF showing some 3D modelling of the labyrinth
{{coord, 29, 16, 27, N, 30, 53, 56, E, display=title Buildings and structures completed in the 19th century BC Amenemhat III Pyramids of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt Archaeological sites in Egypt Former populated places in Egypt