Pharoah'S Gateway To Eternity

Eric P. Uphill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136176692
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

First published in 2000. The present position of studies relating to the complex of buildings called by Herodotus the Egyptian Labyrinth is far from satisfactory, as also are those that concern the Hawara funerary complex of King Amenemhat III that is generally identified with it. The purpose of this book is therefore to take a new look at the actual site itself and its recorded remains with the aim of using only this evidence and, where necessary, associating it with analogous material from other Old and Middle Kingdom pyramid complexes, in order to arrive at a solution as to what once constituted the Hawara necropolis.

Part I

Methodology Used for the Reconstruction

The means adopted for the examination of the site and material at Hawara is that evolved by the present author in the study The Temples of Per Ramesses (1984, pp. 4-7) and defined therein as Non-Visual Anastylosis. A full description of this process can be found in that reconstruction of the Delta Residence, here a brief summary is given of the method employed on the Hawara evidence.

This involves the examination of all the literary and documentary evidence; that is, primary sources in the form of contemporary Egyptian texts, followed by secondary material or the accounts of the classical writers. In addition, material provided by excavation, archaeological mapping and planning is included. Finally, by the use of comparative material derived only from sites that are contemporary with Hawara, such as the Twelfth Dynasty pyramid complexes, will answers be attempted in solving the form of the buildings in the original layout of the whole necropolis.

In one instance, the reuse of old material in the form of masonry and columns at another site will be discussed with a view to establishing provenance.

To do this, an inventory of all published architectural elements and sculpture has been made, which details basic information such as materials, size and any inscriptions, and also lists references to previous publications. It is stressed that this does not cover minor pieces in collections that remain unpublished, such as the 94 limestone fragments from the Labyrinth that were excavated by Petrie and given to the Rijksmuseum in Leiden by von Bissing in 1934. These, it is understood from Ingrid Blom, are small and none fit together. Therefore this material and other similar fragments that may remain elsewhere must await publication as this study only aims at presenting an account of the main features of the Hawara complex.

These data are used in the critical commentary or analysis that follows, in order to define the nature of the monuments from which these pieces derive, together with their original location where possible to determine, in order to make the reconstruction. Only when this has been effected will the basic discussion and restoration of what the classical visitors saw be undertaken. In view of the specific comparisons made by Herodotus it is necessary to try to assess the nature and size of the constructions that he may have envisaged as constituting the Labyrinth. To do this it will be important to establish the scale of various structures unique to the site, involving the use of many figures and tables at times in the discussion. However tedious this may be, it will be evident that it is the only way to try to elucidate what actually stood in the funerary complex, and the manner in which Herodotus may subsequently have arrived at his colossal estimate of its scale through misapprehension of certain facts.

The Site: Archaeological Description and Excavators’ Reports

To understand the nature of the ground on which the pyramid and labyrinth stood at Hawara, it is important to keep certain distinctive factors in mind. In the first place, the terrain is not that usually selected for a monument of the scale of a royal pyramid complex, where it was customary to build on high ground to the west of the river valley, the chosen site, as a result, needing some levelling and building up where the causeway approached it from the valley temple, but not an undue amount of subconstructions as a rule. Here the site lay in a relatively low area, apparently on nearly level ground, but which in reality in its primeval state sloped gently down from a knoll of rock at the north-east end to the Fayum lake depression on the south-west. This latter zone was then liable to inundation and consequently would require considerable raising up if the buildings adjacent to the pyramid were to be safe from flooding or water seepage into underground galleries. In fact, many of the tombs on the site, and even the king’s own burial chamber, were later flooded, the danger having become a fact due to the rise in the level of the water in the Nile over the period after Amenemhat III.

The survey conducted by Lepsius was both more thorough than that of Petrie, due to its being undertaken by a team, and also able to record more things that subsequently disappeared in the forty years between the two expeditions. Hence it is as well to begin with an account of all that may bear on the locality in both the plates and text volumes of the Prussian account. The area of the whole pyramid enclosure site is shown in Lepsius’ plans¹ under the general term of labyrinth in so far as it lay to the south of the pyramid. From these it is clear that for Lepsius the term meant a huge area measuring approximately 350m from east to west by 260-270m north to south, see diagram pl. 2. A curious but important feature which will be explained shortly is that the area so marked stretches slightly further to the west than to the east of the pyramid temple axis, consequently, if correct, this would mean that, while the temple in the middle of the site was symmetrically balanced, the large area of houses at the side of it was not. The two plans given suggest then that the labyrinth area extended to about 185m west of the axis and only 165m east of it, a difference of 20m.

This computation was probably not just based on the housing area on the surface of the existing mounds but also on the layer of sand that is shown stretching right across the site under all the buildings, and even substructures in places, as recorded in Erbkam’s sections. This stratum is much thicker than the sand bed normally placed beneath a building in the ancient Near East, being 3.50m deep on average, but that it was not just a natural feature seems clear from the fact that while it goes far to the west of the axis to the edge of the mounds, it dramatically ends at a point less far from it on the east side. This phenomenon is also observed in the area under the pyramid and particularly to the immediate south of it where the funerary temple would normally stand.

Here the sand bed was particularly deep. All this suggests that some form of huge substructure was intended for the buildings erected above.

It is therefore vital to check what Lepsius shows of the levels across the area, and it should be noted that, while his fixed datum point for the stratigraphy is, as might be expected, the level at the surface of the water in the modern canal crossing the site, the heights recorded are measured from a line imagined as stretching out at 15m above zero, hence the figures in metres are below it and not counted up from the canal, see pl. 7. In the section across the whole ruin field² at the point marked a on the west side of the labyrinth mounds the level is thus 19.96m below the upper datum line, in other words well below the canal water level, due to its being situated well down the slope into the lake depression. Nile brick remains and limestone rubble from buildings begin at 13.26m below as the observer moves eastwards. This layer of building remains averages 3m thick over the sand bed already mentioned. The bed of the canal which is quite shallow is fixed as 16.38m, point e further east is at 11.07m, while h-i lying on the eastern parts of the site remains at a fairly uniform level of 9.41m and 9.11 m, with the layer of brick and stone rubble across it again.

Significantly there is stone walling, or more probably...