The Palace, Its Inhabitants, and Its Staff

Traveling south from the memorial temple toward Armant and Sumenu, the sloping foothills of the nobles’ cemeteries give way to the sheer rock face of the western mountains. Nearby, on a flat, sandy bay of nearly virgin soil, Amenhotep III built a new palace-city. In ancient Egyptian, the word for palace was per-aa, literally the “great house,” a phrase already in use since the time of Thutmose III to indicate the king himself, much the way the “White House” indicates the U.S. president or “Buckingham Palace” suggests the British monarch. Per-aa eventually mutated through Hebrew and Greek into the modern word pharaoh.

Amenhotep named his new per-aa “Per Hai” (‘The House of Rejoicing’). The name was no understatement, judging from the superabundant potsherd gift labels found there, many inscribed with year dates. Some were noted as coming from the east bank “Dazzling Sun Disk” palace, which obviously remained in use. Per Hai or Per Haa also applied to a temple of the god Anubis, the sleek, black, canine guardian of the cemetery, and one cannot help but wonder if our king's choice of names took some inspiration there since his palace stands at the foot of the Theban burial grounds.