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Hawara

Coordinates: 29°16′27″N 30°53′56″E / 29.27417°N 30.89889°E / 29.27417; 30.89889
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This article is about the archaeological site in Egypt. For the Palestinian town in the West Bank, see Huwara. For the town in northern Jordan, see Huwwarah. For the ancient town in southern Jordan, see Humeima. For the Berber tribe, see Hawwara.
Limestone pyramidion from the Hawara pyramid. Sir Flinders Petrie thought that this represented a model for Hawara pyramid. 12th Dynasty. From Hawara, Egypt. Petrie Museum, London
Petrie unearthed a number of vivid Fayum mummy portraits in 1911

Hawara (Arabic: هوارة المقطع, romanized: Hawāra al-Maqṭaʿ) is an archaeological site 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 oasis. It is the site of a pyramid built by Pharaoh Amenemhat III of the 12th dynasty, between the 19th and 18th centuries B.C. [1]

History

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The Pyramid of the 12th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenemhat III at Hawara, from the east.
Labyrinth, fire altar. Part of a limestone frieze, model of lamps on a stand. 12th Dynasty. From Hawara, Fayum, Egypt. Petrie Museum, London

Amenemhat III was the last powerful ruler of the 12th Dynasty, and the pyramid he built at Hawara is believed to post-date the so-called "Black Pyramid" built by the same ruler at Dahshur. This is believed to have been Amenemhat's final resting place. At Hawara there was also the intact (pyramid) tomb of Neferuptah, daughter of Amenemhat 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 the "Labyrinth" by Herodotus; this building was also 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 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 of the Twelfth Dynasty also built at the complex. Her name meant "most beautiful of Sobek", the sacred crocodile.

Tombstone inscribed in Greek Uncial script . Limestone, 4 fragments. From Hawara, Fayum, Egypt. Petrie Museum, London
This wooden mummy label was inscribed in black ink. The original cord is still in situ. Roman Period. From Hawara, Fayum, Egypt. Petrie Museum, London

Pyramid

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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).

An annotated model of the interior of Amenemhat III's pyramid.

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. 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.[2][3] When Petrie excavated the burial chamber, he found a bead of lapis lazuli for inlaying, burned bone fragments, burned wood, and charcoal, suggesting that tomb robbers had burned the wooden coffins and mummy of the pharaoh.[4]

The entrance to the pyramid is today flooded to a depth of 6 metres as a result of the waters from the Abdul Wahbi canal (an offshoot of the Bahr Yussef canal), which flows around two sides of the site and passes within 30m of the pyramid.

Excavations

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The labyrinth was first located in modern times by Karl Lepsius, in 1843.[5] William Flinders Petrie 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—famed to be among the very few surviving examples of painted portraits from classical antiquity—the "Fayum" mummy portraits of Roman Egypt. Among the discoveries made by Petrie were papyrus manuscripts, including a great papyrus scroll which contained parts of books 1 and 2 of the Iliad (the "Hawara Homer" of the Bodleian Library, Oxford).[6]

Petrie's first excavation at Hawara can be retraced in four, overlapping phases.[7] Phase 1 was the excavation of the Pyramid of Amenemhat III itself (not to be confused with the Black Pyramid). Petrie initially wanted to tunnel into the pyramid's center, but once the excavation teams realized the enormity of this task, this work was ultimately postponed until 1889.[8][9] Phase 2, a survey of the "Site of the Labyrinth," was cut short after Petrie and his team made only limited discoveries. The excavation's resources were then redirected to further exploring the pyramid and the surrounding tombs.[10]

Phase 3 began after a painted portrait was discovered in the "Scattered Tombs", north of the pyramid. Petrie was quick to realize the worth of this object: "If we can get one or two a week," Petrie noted in his journal, "we shall be well repaid."[11][12] Petrie was also interested in any potential eugenic interpretations of the artifacts, and so he wrote a letter to fellow eugenicist, Francis Galton, discussing his findings.[13] After increasing pressure from competition posed by other antiquities dealers, Petrie finally finished excavating both the pyramid and the northern cemetery.[14][15][16][17] Phase 4 entailed the excavation of the "very promising" "Crocodile Tomb-Chapels", north-east of the pyramid.[14][18]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ EB15 2007, v.1, p. 323.
  2. ^ Edwards 1986, p. 237-240.
  3. ^ Siliotti & Hawass 1997.
  4. ^ Hamilton 2018.
  5. ^ EB15 2007, v.7, p.84.
  6. ^ Petrie 1888, p. 49-67.
  7. ^ Brügger 2022, p. 8.
  8. ^ Petrie 1932, p. 91.
  9. ^ Drower 1985, p. 141.
  10. ^ Drower 1985, p. 133-135.
  11. ^ Petrie 1888, p. 30.
  12. ^ Drower 1985, p. 134-135.
  13. ^ Challis 2013, p. 110.
  14. ^ a b Petrie 1889, p. 38.
  15. ^ Petrie 1932, p. 96.
  16. ^ Drower 1985, p. 143-144.
  17. ^ Brügger 2022, p. 9.
  18. ^ Petrie, Griffith & Newberry 1890, p. 17.

Bibliography

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  • Brügger, David (29 November 2022). "Petrie at Hawara: Pioneering Debatable Standards?". Bulletin of the History of Archaeology. 32 (1). Ubiquity Press: 1–20. doi:10.5334/bha-666. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
  • Challis, Debbie (2013). The Archaeology of Race: The Eugenic Ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie. London: Bloomsbury Academic. doi:10.5040/9781472555786.
  • Drower, Margaret S. (1985). Flinders Petrie: A Life in Archaeology. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. ISBN 0-575-03667-2. OCLC 1280805871.
  • Edwards, Dr. I.E.S. (1986) [First published 1947]. The Pyramids of Egypt. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0140136347.
  • David Hoibert, ed. (2007). "The New Encyclopædia Britannica". The New Encyclopædia Britannica (15 ed.). Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-85229-663-9. OCLC 37558138.
  • Hamilton, Keith (December 2018). "The Pyramid of Hawara, A layman's guide". doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.35321.93280.
  • Petrie, Flinders; Griffith, Francis; Newberry, Percy (1890). Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. LCCN 04003648.
  • Petrie, W. M. Flinders; Wainwright, G. A.; Mackay, E. (1912). The Labyrinth Gerzeh and Mazghuneh. London, UK: School of Archaeology in Egypt, University College London. Retrieved April 21, 2023 – via Google Books.
  • Petrie, Flinders (1888). "Petrie Journal 1887 to 1888 (Medinet el-Faiyum and Hawara)". Griffith Institute Archive. Transcribed by C. Warsi. Oxford: Griffith Institute. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
  • Petrie, Flinders (1889). "Petrie Journal 1888 to 1889 (Hawara, Gurob and Kahun)". Griffith Institute Archive. Transcribed by C. Warsi. Oxford: Griffith Institute. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
  • Petrie, Flinders (1932). Seventy Years in Archaeology. New York City: Henry Holt and Company. doi:10.4324/9780203039892.
  • Siliotti, Alberto; Hawass, Zahi (1997). Guide to the Pyramids of Egypt. New York City: Barnes and Noble Books. OCLC 1149224770.
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29°16′27″N 30°53′56″E / 29.27417°N 30.89889°E / 29.27417; 30.89889

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