The Labyrinth of Egypt was a structure, or temple, built south of Amenemhat III's pyramid at Hawara. Not much is known about its use, but it was probably a multifunctional building—with a palace, town and administrative centre. Its complex layout reminded visitors in classical times of the legendary labyrinth of Minos at Knossos in Crete. The site has garnered interest throughout history, and contemporary excavations have unearthed artifacts from both Amenemhat's reign and the Roman era. More recently, the area has been subject to new studies using geophysical imaging—but a high local water table may threaten the site's conservation and impede future research.
Description
The labyrinth's construction has been most frequently attributed to Amenemhat III, who ruled c. 1800 BC as the sixth pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty and was likely buried in the Hawara pyramid. Karl Richard Lepsius also discovered cartouches bearing the name of Amenemhat's daughter, Sobekneferu, suggesting that she made additions to the complex's decorations during her reign as Egypt's first female pharaoh. The structure may have been a collection of funerary temples, like those commonly found near Egyptian pyramids, but was probably also a multifunctional building, used as a town, administrative centre, palace, and place of worship. Since the temple was destroyed in antiquity, it can only be partially reconstructed. A north-south oriented perimeter wall enclosed the entire complex which thus measured 385 m (1,263 ft) by 158 m (518 ft), and the floorplan of the labyrinth itself is estimated to have covered around 28,000 m2 (300,000 ft2). After excavating the site in 1888, Flinders Petrie argued that the northernmost portion of the labyrinth had been composed of nine shrines that collectively stood behind twenty-seven columns that ran east-to-west; in front of these stood twelve columned courts that were divided into two groups by a long hall.
Historical record
Classical accounts
The first major historian to discuss the labyrinth was the Greek author Herodotus (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC), who, in Book II of his Histories, wrote that the structure surpassed the greatness of even the Egyptian pyramids:
[The Egyptians] made a labyrinth [... which] surpasses even the pyramids. It has twelve roofed courts with doors facing each other: six face north and six south, in two continuous lines, all within one outer wall. There are also double sets of chambers, three thousand altogether, fifteen hundred above and the same number under ground. ... We learned through conversation about [the labyrinth's] underground chambers; the Egyptian caretakers would by no means show them, as they were, they said, the burial vaults of the kings who first built this labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. ... The upper we saw for ourselves, and they are creations greater than human. The exits of the chambers and the mazy passages hither and thither through the courts were an unending marvel to us ... Over all this is a roof, made of stone like the walls, and the walls are covered with cut figures, and every court is set around with pillars of white stone very precisely fitted together. Near the corner where the labyrinth ends stands a pyramid two hundred and forty feet high, on which great figures are cut. A passage to this has been made underground. Several centuries after Herodotus, the Greek geographer Strabo (c. 64 BC – c. 24 AD) described the labyrinth in his work Geographica, noting a connection between the number of courts in the structure and the nomes of ancient Egypt:
We have [near Lake Moeris] also the Labyrinth, a work equal to the Pyramids, and adjoining to it the tomb of the king who constructed the Labyrinth. [... This structure is a] large palace composed of as many palaces as there were formerly nomes. ... At the end of this building ... is the tomb, which is a quadrangular pyramid ... The name of the person buried there is Imandes. [This king] built [the labyrinth with] this number of aulae, because it was the custom for all the nomes to assemble there together according to their rank, with their own priests and priestesses, for the purpose of performing sacrifices and making offerings to the gods, and of administering justice in matters of great importance. Around the general time of Strabo, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC) also wrote about the structure, contending in his Bibliotheca historica that it was constructed by "King Mendes" and was "not so remarkable for its size as it was impossible to imitate in respect to its ingenious design; for a man who enters it cannot easily find his way out, unless he gets a guide who is thoroughly acquainted with the structure." Diodorus Siculus also furthered the claim that the Egyptian labyrinth inspired Daedalus to build the Cretan labyrinth for King Minos. Circa 44 AD, the Roman geographer Pomponius Mela discussed the labyrinth in his work Chorographia, and later that century, Pliny the Elder described the structure in his Naturalis Historia, writing:
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