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Khnumhotep III

The hieroglyphic name
of Khnumhotep III
Khnumhotep III (sometimes just vizier Khnumhotep) was an Ancient Egyptian high keeper and vizier of the 12th Dynasty. Khnumhotep was the son of the local regulator Khnumhotep II, noted from his tomb at Beni Hasan (tomb BH3). Khnumhotep was advertised as a young man, under Senusret II to the royal court and was transmitted on some charges, one of them to the Red Sea, other one to Byblos. He got high steward and finally vizier during the rule of Senusret III.

Plan of the tomb of Khnumhotep III
The vizier Khnumhotep is noted from dedications in the tomb of his father, from a stela found at the Red Sea and primarily from his mastaba at Dahshur, within the necropolis related to the pyramid of Senusret III. The tomb was first located around 1894 by Jacques de Morgan who got several inscriptions as well as Khnumhotep's stays from which he estimated that the vizier should have following in his early sixties at the time of his death. New minings after 2000 found different further biographical dedications, accepting those mentioning an expedition to Byblos and Ullaza.

The mastaba was solid, without inner rooms, and was made of mudbricks covered with fine limestone while the outside was decorated with a palace faade and with the biographic inscription. The tomb has an region of c. 40 plain metres (430 sq ft) and is relatively small if equated to some neighboring tombs belonged to other viziers that are approximately 150 square metres (1,600 sq ft); this fact, in addition to his ranking titles described in the tomb, advises that Khnumhotep likely placed this tomb early in his career, and that he went vizier in his very late life and didn't have enough time for establishing a mastaba more capture to his newly achieved last rank.

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·        Khety II
·        Khety III
·        Altar
·        Mehy
·        Neferhotep (Priest)
·        Khian
·        Meir
·        Khnumhotep I
·        Khnumhotep II