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The Pyramid of Moeris

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

In my paper on ‘the Two Labyrinths’ (J.H.S. xxv. p. 320) I have throughout spoken of the Pyramid of Hawara, in front of which the Egyptian Labyrinth was erected, as the pyramid of Amenemhat III (Lamaris or Moeris and have described it as his tomb. Now the southern brick pyramid of Dashur, excavated by MM. de Morgan and Legrain some years ago, also belonged to Amenemhat III, and is claimed by its excavators as the tomb of the king, the old identification, adopted by Lepsius and Petrie, of the Hawara pyramid as his tomb, being considered to be erroneous. As this fact was not mentioned in my former paper I add a short postscript on the subject.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1906

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References

1 Fouilles à Dahsliour, 1894–5 (Vienna, 1903), p. 106.

2 It might be objected that the great sarcophagus in the Usertsen tomb would hardly have been dragged down to such a depth had it not been originally intended that the royal body should rest in it, and that a mere memorial tomb at Abydos would hardly have been carried out with full realistic detail, everything being there except the body itself. I do not know, however, that this is impossible, given the idea of making a secondary tomb at all. The two pyramids of Amenemhat III at Dashur and Hawara are equally elaborately built, though one of them was not the actual resting place of the king. It has occurred to me that perhaps the royal tombs of the First and Second Dynasties at Umm el-Ga'ab in the necropolis of Abydos may not be in reality the actual tombs of the early kings at all, but simply secondary tombs built as memorials in the holy land of Osiris, the actual sepulchres being elsewhere; Aha certainly had two tombs, one at Umm el-Ga'ab, the other at Naḳâda, and it may be that the latter was his real tomb. Now these early secondary (?) tombs were furnished as completely as if the kings had actually been buried in them. The mock or imitation tombs, as the pyramid of Teta-shera, were more or less care lessly made of rubble, like the mock pyramid of Mentuhetep at Deir el-Bahari. They are not secondary tombs, properly speaking.