Pyramid of Amenemhat I

Pyramid of Amenemhat I
Mostly inaccesable and gone. Commemorates the foundation of the XII dynasty. Settled on the western bank of the Nile, between Saqqara and Meidum, about 50 km south of Cairo, was the ancient mansion and necropolis of the first two rules of Dynasty XII at Lisht. During the gone Middle Kingdom the capital had temporarily went away from Memphis to Thebes, until the first Rex of Dynasty XII, Amenemhat I established a new manse, 'Itjawy', near the cool village of Lisht. The town site has not yet been discovered, but is thought to have been particular to the 2 pyramids built in this area and noted in texts going out to the period. The pyramids of Senwosret I and Amenemhat I can be seen from the great road when travelling south to Cairo, though today barely different from the desert mounds. Amenemhat's pyramid from the southeastern   Northern entrance to Amenemhat's pyramid. Recent archaeological inquiry has proposed that Amenemhat I may have begun his royal tomb at Thebes, set the hill of Qurna, where a political program, formerly imputed to Mentuhotep Sankhkare was begun in the style of the earlier Temple of Mentuhotep Nebhepetre at Deir el-Bahri. For some ground the founder of Dynasty XII moved the centre of administration north to Lisht and built his pyramid complex hot. Amenemhat's pyramid is placed at the northern end of the necropolis.

Maspero first entered the pyramid of Amenemhat in 1882 and the necropolis was further researched by the "French Institute of Oriental Archaeology" through 1884-1885. In the early years of the 20th century it was hollowed by the American dispatch of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, who still stay to work there. Mudbrick building and stone case   Site of the mortuary temple on the eastern side.Earlier over 55m high the pyramid today is sadly depleted to around 20m which is due not only to ancient hooking of its stuffs but also to its poor building method. Pyramid construction had refused since the fair monuments were built at Giza, and although some stone (from earlier structures) was used, much of the pyramid was fabricated with unfired mudbricks. The core was of small rough blocks of limestone and filled with junk and mudbricks - which would have been bad and plentiful in a region particular to the Faiyum. Maspero famous on his first visit to Amenemhat's pyramid that blocks of stone from other royal repositories had been applied and the names of Khufu, Khafre, Unas and Pepy have been found there. The charm to the monument is in the northern face where a gradually gentle passage, lined with pink granite, hails from ground level to a square chamber above the pyramid's central axis vertebra and a rearing shaft to the sepulture chamber. Modern excavation of the subterranean burial chamber is hampered by the prime water which now floods the chamber. Covering the entrance was a chapel, a false door at the rear disguising the entrance to the easy passage.

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