Mortuary temple of amenemhet iii. Reign of Amenemhat III. Certificates of governance
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 |
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imn m HA.t- Amenemhet - "Amon is in front" / "Amon is in charge" |
| Throne name like King |
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n(j) mAa.t ra- Ni-Maat-Ra - “In the Truth of Ra” |
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(other spelling) |
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(other spelling) |
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(other spelling) |
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| Khorovo name, like Khor |
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Hr aA bA.w- Chorus Aa-bau - "A Chorus with Great Power" |
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| Nebti-name, like Lord of the Double Crown |
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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)” |
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nb.tj iT iwa.t Hr (?)- Ichi-iuat-Khor-nebti - “Two Mistresses who took the legacy of the Chorus (?)” |
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| Golden name like Golden Choir |
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bik nbw wAH anx- Bik-nebu-uan-ankh - “Golden Falcon, transported to life” |
| Abydos List (No. 64) |
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Nimaatra |
| Saqqara List (No. 39) |
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Ni-Maat-Ra |
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Head of the Sphinx of Senusret III. State Museum of 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 activities. 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 Fayoum 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 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 Fayyum during the 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 Amenemhet 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 Fayum, 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 separate rooms, which was apparently intended for sculptures of numerous local nomic and pan-Egyptian deities, served the purposes 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 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 Harshefa in Hierakonpolis. Encircled the ancient capital, the city of Nekheb (modern El-Kab), a large brick wall, which still stands today. Trade flourished under Amenemhat. 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 the 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 wooden beams made of cedar, supporting the ceiling, and the cracks were covered in six interior rooms and corridors. 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.
Because of construction defects the first pyramid, the pharaoh ordered the second one (102 x 102 m) to be built 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 blocked from above 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, which, however, also belonged to 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 size; 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 covered 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 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 go from 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 coming to terms with the fact that several architectural details, which he dug up, is 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.
Perhaps an analogue of the Cheops power supply, at least in terms of the complexity of the device. Possibly may serve as evidence for the elevator theory in the sense that the entrance to the system of secret rooms was disguised by a massive lowered slab, turned into floor the room in which she was located. Built approximately 1853 - 1806 BC. e.
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This pharaoh built his first pyramid in Dahshur, but was buried in Hawar, in the second pyramid. (The first, so-called “dark pyramid” was abandoned, apparently due to errors in construction.) Here, in Hawar, his pyramid was built from mud brick with a facing of thin polished limestone slabs. The width of its square base was 100 m, the height was about 58 m, and the angle of inclination of the edges was 48°45".
Design features of the tomb
The entrance to the pyramid was on the south side. Instead of a sloping corridor, there was a descent of stairs leading to a vestibule carved into the rock.
A gallery leading straight from it ended in a dead end. In its roof, however, there was a sliding (horizontally?) slab weighing 20 tons, which hid the passage at a right angle (to the east). There were wooden sliding doors, covering (something) filled clay bricks to deceive robbers. Having discovered the doors, the robbers would have thought that they were hiding some kind of entrance and would have spent time removing the bricks (thus increasing the likelihood of detection of the thieves by the pyramid's guards).
Then there were two more similar turns at right angles with sliding ceiling slabs, only both to the left, and they ended in the vestibule in front of the tomb, filled with clay and stones, with a long but low niche on the right, from which there were two vertical adits, neatly filled with blocks , see their purpose below. The hole into the tomb was disguised; it was opposite the niche.
The burial chamber deserves special attention. A large room was made in the rock, into which they lowered monolithic block, a box-shaped chamber of polished quartzite weighing over 100 tons with a ceiling of three quartzite slabs. The camera itself is truly a miracle of ancient Egyptian technology. The huge tomb chamber (6.71 × 2.4 × 1.83 m) was carved out of solid block of extraordinary hard yellow quartzite and weighs over 100 tons. The thickness of the walls is 60 cm. The chamber is covered with three quartzite beams weighing 45 tons each. The quartzite drop-down cover is 1.2 m thick and weighs approximately 110 tons. The chamber is covered on top with a gable roof made of limestone blocks weighing 50 tons each. The chamber contains two sarcophagi. Judging by the inscriptions, Amenemhet himself was supposed to be buried in one, and Amenemhet’s daughter Ptahneferu, who, however, also belonged to the nearby small pyramid, was buried in the other. In front of the cell there was a vestibule with a floor at the level of the floor slabs. After the mummy was placed here, these slabs closed the passage between the vestibule and the burial chamber. In the corners of the above-mentioned vestibule, adits were dug to deceive robbers. They probably also made it possible to control the descent of the roof downwards: see the descent diagram. However, all these precautions did not help: the tomb was looted. The wooden sarcophagi were burned, leaving only quartzite canopic boxes and two quartzite sarcophagi without inscriptions. It is believed that they belonged to the king and his daughter Ptahnefer. Petrie points out that neither the 20-ton flaps slid into place nor were they closed. wooden doors. He wonders whether this was the negligence of the funeral team, or their desire to return to the tomb later: for additional burial or for robbery. (In the tomb described above there were 2 sarcophagi, and there was space for at least two more.)
In 1956, 2 km southeast of this pyramid, the remains of a small brick pyramid (?), a sarcophagus made of red granite were found, in which Ptahneferu’s decorations and silver vases with her name were preserved. These treasures are now in the Cairo Museum. Perhaps Ptahneferu was buried there.
During excavations of the Valley Temple of the complex of the first pyramid of Amenemhat III in Dahshur, a stone model of all interior spaces pyramids in Hawara. It was very illogical to leave for posterity, in fact, a diagram with the exact location of the so carefully hidden tomb.
One of the most striking portraits of Amenemhat III is made of copper alloy, characteristic of XII Dynasty sculpture, about 1 cm thick.
The arms of the statue, now lost, were created separately and attached to the body using long grooves present on the shoulders. A ribbon that has not survived held the royal nemes headdress on the head, also cast from using technology, in which initially all parts of the statue were made of wax.
The inlay of the eyes of the statue is made of rock crystal and wood, painted black, inserted into an electrum frame. On the lower part of the torso there are traces of silver, apparently from the loincloth of the statue, made of this metal. The uraeus was cast separately and inlaid with gold.
Amenemhet III Nimaatra (1853-1806 BC) - son of Senusret III, sixth pharaoh of the XII dynasty. The time of his reign undoubtedly became the point of the highest flowering of the Egyptian civilization of the Middle Kingdom, when the military successes of the previous kings of the dynasty allowed the pharaoh to attract the rich resources of Nubia and Syria-Palestine to strengthen the economy of Egypt. In addition, supporting the policies of his father, the king is actively developing the mines of Sinai and the mines of Nubia.
The name of Amenemhet III is traditionally associated with the creation of a unique irrigation system and numerous architectural monuments in the area of the Fayum oasis. The temples of Sebek in Kiman Fares (Shedet) and the temple of Renenutet in Medinet Maadi were erected here. From the grandiose temple of Sebek, only fallen 16 columns in the shape of papyrus stalks, which once decorated the hypostyle hall of the temple, as well as parts of the walls and ceiling, have survived to our time. To the north of Shedet, in Biahma, giant royal colossi made of quartzite were erected, which once looked over Lake Merida; today all that remains of them are fragments of huge pyramidal pedestals. Here, in Fayum, the king was revered as a deity, even centuries later, in Greco-Roman times, when the Fayum again experienced magnificent prosperity.
Under Amenemhat III, two pyramid complexes were built. Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, the king was buried in the pyramid complex at Dahshur; his second pyramid complex in Hawar, which included a grandiose mortuary temple that had no analogues in all of Egypt, became known thanks to ancient authors as the “Labyrinth” - a symbol of the power and prosperity of Egypt of the Middle Kingdom.
It is from Javara that a series of copper alloy portraits of him seem to come from, the best of which is undoubtedly the monument from the collection of George Ortiz.
Publications:
Wildung, D.: L"Age d"Or de l"Egypte. Le Moyen Empire. - Friborg, 1984, pp. 208 fig. 184, 210-211.
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Tsarist plastic art is the most important part of state ideology Ancient Egypt. The king was considered both god and man, he was born from the solar god and an earthly woman. The king was responsible for sacrifices to the gods, which were carried out in numerous temples throughout the country, and at the same time he himself was the object of worship, embodying all divine power and inaccessibility. The existence and prosperity of the country directly depended on it. Therefore, royal statues were an integral part of the temple sculpture program. A huge number of statues and their fragments are now kept in museums around the world, but these are just meager remnants of the original wealth and abundance of royal images.
A fragment of a seated statue of the 12th dynasty king Amenemhet III in the collection of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin is a recognized masterpiece of royal sculpture of the Middle Kingdom. In 1893 V.S. Golenishchev wrote an article in which he compared a completely preserved statue of Amenemhet from the Hermitage, including the name carved on it, and a portrait of this king from his own collection with the faces of sphinxes from the city of Tanis in Lower Egypt. For the first time in European Egyptology, when attributing monuments, Golenishchev used stylistic analysis, complementing the translation of hieroglyphic texts. As a result, the researcher proved that all three statues depict the same pharaoh. This work actually began the study of the royal portrait of the Middle Kingdom.
The characteristic physiognomic features of Amenemhat III are clearly expressed: wide-set narrow eyes, a straight nose with a level bridge, protruding cheekbones and sunken cheeks, a tightly compressed mouth and a protruding chin, disproportionate big ears. Broken lines dominate, creating the impression of a fractional embossed relief and emphasizing the far from young age of the person depicted. This face is strikingly different from the calm, serene, eternally young and detached images of the kings of the Ancient Kingdom. In relation to the statues of Amenemhat III and his father Senusret III, Egyptologists even talk about the phenomenon of the royal portrait of the 12th dynasty, meaning noticeable realistic and - moreover - psychological tendencies. Fundamentally, they are not inherent in ancient Egyptian sculpture, and even more so in the images of kings, who combined human and divine beginning. After all, psychologism involves capturing the slightest shades of mood or purely individual characteristics of character, and the Egyptians strived for stability, immutability, typification, idealization - those qualities that they understood as belonging to eternity. Thus, royal portrait The 12th Dynasty is a special page in Egyptian art, and the Museum can rightfully be proud of a first-class monument from this period.
On the head of Amenemekhet III there is a nemes plate and part of a uraeus, the most ancient attributes of royal power. It is known that this king built two pyramids in Lower Egypt: one in Dahshur, which was not used due to miscalculations during construction, the other in Hawar, in the Fayum oasis. The second pyramid was part of a grandiose cult complex, from which, unfortunately, practically nothing has survived, although ancient authors marveled at this structure (for example, Herodotus, who called it the Labyrinth). All the more valuable for us is the evidence imprinted in stone on the personality of Amenemhat III, one of the most significant kings of the 12th dynasty. About 60 statues of the king and their fragments have survived to this day, which are in the famous Egyptian collections of Cairo, Berlin, Munich, Paris, Copenhagen, Rome, St. Petersburg. However, the portrait is from the collection of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin - “almost the most saturated with internal content; This more of an idea king, monstrous power... the embodiment of the fate of millions of people who depend not even on a glance - the deity does not look at anyone in particular - but on a slight movement of the eyebrows.” (O.D. Berlev).
Statue of Amenemhet III (19th century BC) Porphyry. Height 86.5 cm.The statue of Pharaoh Amenemhet III is the best example Egyptian cultural period of its heyday. Based on the identity of the facial features of this portrait with the faces of sphinxes found in northern Egypt in Tanissa, V.S. Golenishchev established that the Tanis sphinxes depict Amenemhat III, and not Ramesses II, as was previously believed according to the hieroglyphic inscriptions carved on the pedestals of the sphinxes. Pharaoh Ramesses II, usurping the sphinxes, replaced the name of Amenemhat III with his own.
The statue of Amenemhet III is the only completely preserved stone royal sculpture in the Hermitage collection and is a striking example of ancient Egyptian portrait art. Amenemhet III - king of the XII dynasty (19th century BC), is represented in a traditional pose - sitting on a cube-shaped throne, wearing a royal nemes scarf, crowned with a sacred cobra. The king's ceremonial costume is extremely simple and consists of an apron - shendit and a belt. The artist conveys the originality of the wide, high-cheekboned face of Amenemhat III. Compared to art Old Kingdom the face is modeled in a new way, its muscles are carefully worked out, the position of the eyes makes the look more lively. The naked torso of Amenemhet is interpreted conventionally, in a traditional idealizing style.
The Egyptians sought to emphasize the beauty, strength, and energy of the rulers, whose appearance personified the inviolability and power of the Egyptian state. On the front of the throne are inscriptions containing the title of the king. The Theban origin of the XII dynasty (20-18 centuries BC) brought to the forefront the main god of Thebes, Amun, whose name was included in the names of the kings. "Amenemhet" means "Amon is ahead of the gods."
Amenemhet III is one of the most active rulers of the Middle Kingdom. During his reign, unique temples were built. Complex of a grandiose mortuary temple in the Fayum oasis ( modern city Havara) - the personification of his power, his power and wealth, the Greeks called the Labyrinth. The historian Herodotus writes that "the Labyrinth was superior to the pyramids themselves."
From the site State Museum"Hermitage":
The statue of the 12th Dynasty pharaoh Amenemhat III, who ruled Egypt from 1850 to 1800 BC, is a remarkable example of ancient Egyptian royal sculptural portraiture from the Middle Kingdom era. It is distinguished by the accuracy of individual characteristics combined with the idealization of the image, monumentality, expressive modeling of form, and a sense of material. The headdress “nemes” with the image of a uraeus (sacred snake), as well as three royal names inscribed in cartouches on the throne, remind us that we are facing the ruler of all Egypt.
