Thursday, May 3, 2018

Pyramid of Amenemhet I Yields More Reliefs

This article is about the rescue of two limestone blocks for the antiquities authority discovered at Amenemhet I's pyramid in 2011. The blocks had been discovered by looters one of whom called the proper authority hoping for a reward.  The result was an affair of some cunning including the skill of transporting two giant blocks of enormous weight and avoiding looters.

The first lovely block above is part of the decoration for Amenemhet's funerary monument while the second appears to be an older block reused in the monument. The pyramid has produced many Old Kingdom carved reliefs from funerary monuments of Khufu, Khafra, Unas, among others and used as fill within the construction. These blocks may have been used for magical associations between Amenemhet and his predecessors and or suggest that the monuments of the Old Kingdom were in ruin by that time. Amenemhet I founded the 12th dynasty ca. 1991 - 1962 B.C., and appears to have been assassinated according to a papyrus known as the Instructions of Amenemhet where the king's ghost speaks to his son and heir Senwosret I.

Notes:
1. Live Science
2. Tour Egypt
3. Instructions of Amenemhet I

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