Hawara pyramid
Posted on 07/13/2013 9:59:56 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
I had the pleasure of joining an NBC expedition to Hawara on the edge of the Faiyum Oasis, Egypt. Researching a documentary about 2012, they wanted my comments on the fabled labyrinth located there...
Herodotus (fifth century B.C.) and other Greek and Roman writers described a magnificent labyrinth in Egypt, containing three thousand rooms on two levels. Pliny the Elder (first century A.D.) related that the Egyptian labyrinth was already 3600 years old in his time.
Since the nineteenth century, the Egyptian labyrinth has been identified with an area on the southern side of the Middle Kingdom pyramid of Amenemhet III (circa 1845 B.C.) at Hawara. It was here that I traveled with the NBC crew in March 2009. In the photos you can see the Hawara pyramid. From a distance it looks rather like a pile of mud, because indeed it is composed primarily of sun-dried mud bricks. Originally it was sheathed in limestone, but the stone was stripped off in ancient times (probably Greco-Roman times) and used for building elsewhere...
recent geophysical studies by the Egyptian National Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics give tantalizing evidence that there are structures remaining to be discovered under the sands of Hawara.
To my dismay, there is now a canal running near the Hawara pyramid and right through the area of the labyrinth. I attempted to enter the pyramid, but before I could get very deep, the passage was entirely blocked by mud and water (as can be seen in the accompanying photo of the limestone lined entrance to the pyramid). Surely whatever remains of the labyrinth, buried deep below the surface, is now also flooded by the elevated water table.
(Excerpt) Read more at robertschoch.com ...
Hawara pyramid
It’s a shame that the labyrinth got flooded and is now inaccessible by the usual dry-as-dust archeological means.
Perhaps some dam- or canal-building engineers could lend a hand with excavating the flooded parts so that the writings that are purportedly inside the structure can be accessed.
Dr. Schoch must be frustrated as heck!
Many, if not most, ancient measurements need to be divided by ten to get close to the actual size or scope. But even applying that rule of thumb, these are still interesting numbers.
I heard from somebody (David Rohl?) that the Labyrinth was probably an enormous administrative center, the bronze age equivalent of a cubicle farm, that Joseph built to handle the collection and distribution of grain during the seven good years and the seven years of famine. This was the main one, but two more were built at Thebes and in the eastern Nile delta; the city of Avaris (Rowarty) got its name from the latter one.
Don’t think of it as flooded—think of it as preserved for the Achrologists of the future
Thanks Berosus.
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