Hawara
Coordinates: 29 ° 16 ′ 27 " N , 30 ° 53 ′ 56" E
Hawara ( Arabic هوارة, DMG Hawāra ) is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian necropolis located at the entrance to the Fayyum Basin, southeast of Medinet el-Fajum .
Tombs
King ( Pharaoh ) Amenemhet III. from the 12th Dynasty ( Middle Kingdom ) built his second pyramid here , see Hawara pyramid . Various ancient writers (e.g. the historian Herodotus , Strabo , Pliny the Elder ) described the complex, which became known as the labyrinth due to the huge mortuary temple . However, the temple was probably used as a quarry in Roman times, so that today it is no longer possible to get an idea of the appearance of the complex.
To the north of the pyramid is an extensive burial ground. Here are the officials of Amenemhet III. been buried. In the late period , numerous burials of crocodile mummies took place here, which already then severely destroyed the cemetery . There are other tombs from the New Kingdom and the late period, but the cemetery gained in importance again, especially in the Greco-Roman period . Many of the so-called mummy portraits come from Hawara.
The first excavations were carried out here by Karl Richard Lepsius , later Flinders Petrie dug in the same place and discovered many mummy portraits. Hawara is also the site of numerous demotic and Greek papyri.
literature
- WM Flinders Petrie: Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara. Paul Kegan et al. a .; London 1890; Online version
- Christian Hölzl: Hawara. In: Kathryn A. Bard (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 , pp. 365-66.
- Hans Bonnet : Hawara. In: Lexicon of Egyptian Religious History. Nikol, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-937872-08-6 , p. 284.
- Steve Pasek : Hawara. An Egyptian settlement in the Hellenistic period. 2 volumes (= Classical Studies / Archeology Vol. 2). Frank & Timme, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86596-092-4 Google Books .