Posted on 07/21/2019 1:18:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A number of stone, pottery and wooden coffins were also found, some of which had mummies which were uncovered in good condition, in addition to a number of wooden masks some of them are incomplete and a set of tools that were used in cutting and polishing.
The Middle Kingdom era is called the era of economic prosperity because of many economic projects, such as irrigation, trade, industry and agriculture.
Among the most famous kings of the Middle Kingdom were King Mentuhotep II, who restored the unity of the country and spread security after the chaos that plagued Egypt in the era of the Old Kingdom, and King Senusret III, who was one of the greatest kings of Egypt. Senusret III took care of the army to protect Egypt and led many campaigns to secure its borders.
He also ordered the digging of the Sesostris Canal to link the Red Sea and the Nile, as well as building a dam to protect the land in Fayoum from the flood.
The Sesostris Canal was the source of the idea to build the Suez Canal to connect the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, which became the most important navigational channel in the world and an important source of income for Egypt.
King Amenemhat III ruled from c. 1860 BCE to c. 1814 BCE. He was interested in agriculture and irrigation, and he ordered the building of the first pyramid at Dahshur, the so-called "Black Pyramid", near Fayoum.
Around the 15th year of his reign, the king decided to build a new pyramid at Hawara, as well as a huge temple called "Labyrinth," named so due to the large number of rooms, roads and corners inside it...
(Excerpt) Read more at egypttoday.com ...
One of *those* topics.
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The story of Joseph is one of the best known in the Bible... in order to find out whether the personality of Joseph or the patron of the early stage of his career, Potiphar, is referred to in the historical documents, we have to look into those of the Middle Kingdom. The task appears simple. According to the Book of Genesis Potiphar was "an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard." In the register of the private names to the Ancient Records of Egypt by James Breasted, we find the name Ptahwer... at the service of the Pharaoh Amenemhet III of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. According to an inscription of Ptahwer at Sarbut el-Khadem in Sinai dated in the forty-fifth year of Amenemhet III, his office was that of "master of the double cabinet, chief of the treasury." ...The inscription records the successful accomplishment of some peaceful expedition. Since there is only one Ptahwer in the historical documents, and since he lived in the time when we expect to find him, we are probably not wrong in identifying the biblical Potiphar with the historical Ptahwer. This being the conclusion concerning Potiphar, we are curious to find whether any mention of Joseph is found in historical documents, too. the fact that from the great and glorious age of the Middle Kingdom only a very few historical inscriptions are extant. Since a great famine took place in the days of Joseph, it is, of course, important to trace such a famine in the age of which we speak. In the days of Amenemhet III there occurred in Egypt a famine enduring nine long years... Thus it seems that the Pharaoh in whose days was the seven years' famine was the successor of the Pharaoh in whose days began the rise of Joseph's career (if Yatu is Joseph). Potiphar, who lived under Amenemhet III, probably lived also under his successor. The inscription which deals with Ptahwer mentions a man whose name is transliterated by Breasted as Y-t-w. Among the monuments of Amenemhet III's reign is one of the Storekeeper... The inscription that mentions Ptahwer refers to his activity in the mines of the Sinai peninsula. In this respect it is of interest to find that the Jewish traditions connect Joseph with the area of the Sinai Peninsula saying that he kept a large quantity of treasuries near Baal Zaphon, the scene of the Passage of the Sea.
The article is a lightweight tourist piece. I'm not an expert, but the two cartonnage coffins appear to be Late Kingdom in date, IOW, Hellenistic or younger. Here's an example of Middle Kingdom work:
The brilliantly painted exterior of the coffin of Khnumnakht, an individual unknown except for his name, displays the multiplicity of texts and decorative panels characteristic of coffin decoration in the late Middle Kingdom. It has at least one feature—the figure of the goddess on the head end—that is rare before the late Middle Kingdom. The figures and hieroglyphs have been drawn by the confident hand of a skilled artist and each hieroglyph has been carefully painted in the prescribed manner of the time and place in which the coffin was made.
On the left side of the coffin box there is an architectural facade with a small doorway in the center at the bottom. This is the equivalent of the Old Kingdom false door, which allowed the spirit of the deceased to move between the land of the dead and the land of the living. In this case, it is painted to resemble two wooden door leaves secured with two door bolts. Above the door are two eyes that look forth into the land of the living. The face of the mummy would have been directly behind this panel. The rest of the exterior is inscribed with invocations to, and recitations by, various primeval deities, particularly those associated with death and rebirth, such as Osiris, foremost god of the dead, and Anubis, god of embalming.
Coffin of Khnumnakht,ca. 1802–1640 B.C. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 112
Mummy!!
How I love ya
How I love ya,
My Dear Ol’ Mummy!!!
Some of the designs and colors are pretty intense. Truly works of art in any era.
"Still, there might be gold and jewels inside, so, get an axe, and a torch to light the mummy on fire." -- Egyptian tomb raider of pretty much any era
*sigh*
I read, “Amenemhat II,” as, “Amendment II,” and almost put, “Banglist,” in the keywords.
The Canal Of Joseph 11/10/1888
How many of the engineering works of the nineteenth century will there be in existence in the year 6000? Very few, we fear, and still fewer those that will continue in that far off age to serve a useful purpose. Yet there is at least one great undertaking, conceived and executed by an engineer, which during the space of 4000 years has never ceased its office, and on which the life of a fertile province absolutely depends to-day. We refer to the Bahr Joussuf, the canal of Joseph, built, according to tradition, by the son of Jacob, and not the least of the many blessings he conferred on Egypt during the years of his prosperous rule. This canal took its rise from the Nile at Asiut, and ran nearly parallel with it for nearly 250 miles, creeping along under the western cliffs of the Nile valley with many a bend and winding, until at length it gained an eminence, as compared with the river bed, which enabled it to turn westward through a narrow pass and enter a district which was otherwise shut off from the festilising floods on which all vegetation in Egypt depends. Just as the modern miller diverts a part of the water of a river, and leads it in a gently flowing stream along an almost level course, until he can deliver it on to the top of a high wheel whose lower edge revolves above the rivei’s brink, so Joseph prepared a smoothly-flowing channel, of which the northern end stood seventeen feet above low Nile, while at the southern end it was at an equal elevation with the river. Through this cut there ran a perennial stream which watered a province named the Fayoum, endowing it with fertility and supporting a large population. In the time of the annual flood a great part of the canal was under water, and then the river's current would rush in a more direct course into the pass, carrying with it the rich silt which takes the place of manure, and keeps the soil in a state of constant productiveness.
All this, with the exception of the tradition that Joseph built the canal, can be verified today, and is not mere supposition or rumor. Until eight years ago it was firmly believed that the design had always been limited to an irrigation scheme, larger no doubt than that now in operation, as shown by the traces of abandoned canals and by the slow aggregation ol waste water which had accumulated in the Birket el Querun but still essentially the same in character. It is true that there were Mohammedan traditions, which related that the part performed by the canal in irrigation was merely a subsidiary portion of its functions, and that it served a much grander purpose, one that ranked among the greatest, if it were not the greatest, of the many marvels of Egypt. But the western mind is apt to despise the tales of the Orient, finding the modicum of truth they contain overlaid with such an intolerable amount of exaggeration and poetical hyperbole that it does not usually repay the laborious process of winnowing, which is necessary to separate from the fiction with which it is associated. Other accounts there were, written by Greek and Roman historians, such as Herodotus, Strabo, Mutianus and Pliny, and repeated in monkish legends or portrayed in the maps of the middle ages, which agreed with the folk-lore of the district. These tales explained that the canal dug by the ancient Israelite served to carry the surplus waters of the Nile into an extensive lake lying south of the Fayoum, and so large that it not only modified the climate, tempering the arid winds of the desert, and converting them into balmy airs which nourished the vines and the olives into a fullness and a fragrance unknown in any part of the country, but also added to the good supply of the land such immense quantities of fish that the royal prerogative of the right of piscary at the great weir was valued at ,£50,000 annually. This lake was said to be 450 miles round, and to be navigated by a fleet of vessels, while the whole circumference was the scene of industry and prosperity.— Engineering.
Kaboom! ;^)
Ruby ruby roo!
And if you're wondering where Fay Rowe is today...cf. here.
OK, I’ll be Sirius. “Rogue Egyptologist” David Rohl is convinced Amenemhat III is the Pharaoh of Joseph, meaning Joseph was his vizier, perhaps the one named Kheti who shows up fairly late in AIII’s reign.
You write: “...the two cartonnage coffins appear to be Late Kingdom in date, IOW, Hellenistic or younger.” Precisely the impression I had.
The set of cutting and polishing tools interests me more than the mummys tombs.
As far as I know, precious few tools from ancient Egypt have been found. Cutting and polishing all those blcks of diurite are the most mysterious part of the culture of Ancient times. I suspect many were handed down from father to son until they wore out, but the huge sarcogaphies of the Serapheum would require some really special tools.
The lack of captions and credits doesn't help us. :^)
Broken tools wouldn't attract much notice during a dig, plus, they'd likely be dropped wherever they became useless, IOW, rubbish heap, not tombs. :^)
Rohl (in "Pharaohs and Kings") follows Kenneth Kitchen that Zaphnath-paaneah translates as "he who is called Pa'aneah", and that Pa'aneah was really Ipiankhu, a name common in the Middle Kingdom but "'not any later.'" His Biblical wife Asenath was named "Ius-en-at ('she belongs to you')". [p 350]
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