Labyrinth of Egypt: A Middle Kingdom Funerary Complex at Hawara
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.8
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Egypt
- Primary era
- Bronze Age
- Eras represented
- Bronze Age, Classical
- Civilizations
- Egyptian
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Temple
On this page14 sections
History
Foundation under Amenemhat III
The Labyrinth of Egypt was a multifunctional Middle Kingdom Egyptian complex at Hawara, Egypt, built around 1800 BC during the reign of Amenemhat III, the sixth pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty. It stood near the foot of his pyramid, south of ancient Crocodilopolis, later called Arsinoe, at the entrance to the Faiyum oasis. Its central purpose may have been funerary, but the complex probably also incorporated a palace, administrative center, settlement, and places of worship.
Amenemhat III was probably buried in the adjacent pyramid, while the Labyrinth served the religious and commemorative needs associated with his burial. Cartouches, the elongated enclosures surrounding royal names in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, belonging to his daughter Sobekneferu were found at the complex. Their presence suggests that she added to its decoration after succeeding him as the last ruler of the Twelfth Dynasty and Egypt’s first securely attested female pharaoh.
Ancient descriptions and changing traditions
The complex became famous through classical literature. Herodotus described twelve courts and numerous chambers, presenting the building as a major ritual and funerary center. Strabo portrayed it as a large palace connected with its builder’s tomb and associated its courts with the nomes, the traditional administrative districts of ancient Egypt. In his account, the districts gathered there with their priests and priestesses to make sacrifices, present offerings, and administer justice in important cases.
Diodorus Siculus emphasized the building’s difficult plan, saying that visitors could not easily find the exit without a guide. He also linked the Egyptian complex with the legendary labyrinth built by Daedalus for King Minos on Crete. Pliny the Elder preserved several competing traditions, attributing the building to Petesuchis, Tithoës, twelve kings, or Psammetichus, and describing it as dedicated to the Sun. The Historia Augusta states that the Roman emperor Septimius Severus visited the site around AD 200. These accounts differ because the structure had already deteriorated and some writers depended on indirect or inaccurate information.
Destruction and later rediscovery
The Labyrinth was dismantled during antiquity. The western portion may have been demolished during the Late Period or early Ptolemaic period, the era of Greek Macedonian rule in Egypt after Alexander the Great. The eastern portion probably remained in use or was maintained during the Ptolemaic period and possibly under Roman rule. After Roman rule ended, the ruins were quarried for stone, and knowledge of the site’s precise location gradually faded.
A canal called Bahr Sharqiyyah, also known as Bahr Seilah, was dug through the middle of the reported location sometime before the mid-thirteenth century AD. The Bahr Abdul Wahbi canal was later built over it between 1900 and 1907, causing further damage. In the seventeenth century, Claude Sicard proposed that the Labyrinth stood at Hawara. The 1821 Description de l’Égypte offered an early published description that distinguished important features of the site, and later investigators, including Howard Vyse, John Shae Perring, and John Gardner Wilkinson, identified ruins south of Amenemhat III’s pyramid as the complex’s remains.
Excavation and continuing investigation
Karl Richard Lepsius excavated around the pyramid in 1843 and believed that brick chambers marked the Labyrinth’s location, although his identification was not initially considered conclusive. In 1888, Flinders Petrie reexamined the chambers and identified them as a Greco-Roman town built over the earlier ruins. He exposed the small surviving portion of the Labyrinth’s foundations and recovered associated statues, shrines, and Greco-Roman material. His findings were published in The Labyrinth Gerzeh and Mazghuneh in 1912.
No large-scale excavation has taken place since Petrie’s work in the early twentieth century. Later investigations used non-destructive methods, including very low frequency electromagnetic scanning, vertical electrical sounding, electrical resistivity tomography, satellite imaging, and synthetic-aperture radar. Surveys in 2010 indicated underground anomalies south of Amenemhat III’s pyramid that may represent walls and rooms. A 2024 electrical resistivity survey produced possible evidence of buried archaeological remains, but excavation is still needed to verify their nature.
A 2008 survey by the Mataha Expedition, a collaboration involving Egyptian authorities and Ghent University, was reported to have detected ordered, grid-like structures deeper beneath the sand than the remains excavated by Petrie. Satellite surveys in 2014 and 2015 were also reported to indicate monumental spaces cut into bedrock, although the associated investigation remained incomplete. The Hawara complex continues to face water intrusion and a high local water table, while changes to irrigation systems on neighboring agricultural land have been proposed as possible protective measures. The Labyrinth’s ancient reputation also influenced later culture, including central scenes in Bolesław Prus’s 1895 historical novel Pharaoh.
Remains
Enclosure and reconstructed plan
The complex occupied a north to south oriented enclosure measuring approximately 385 by 158 meters. The Labyrinth itself is estimated to have covered about 28,000 square meters. Because the building was destroyed in antiquity, its plan can be reconstructed only in part. The eastern area produced the most imposing architectural and sculptural elements, while Greco-Roman buildings were erected over the western portion.
Petrie proposed that the northernmost section contained nine shrines arranged behind twenty-seven columns running from east to west. In front of them stood twelve columned courts, open spaces defined by rows of columns, divided into two groups by a long hall. This reconstruction provides a physical framework for the complex, although the destruction of the building prevents its complete layout from being recovered.
Courts, chambers, and associated tomb
Columned courts and chambers
Herodotus described twelve roofed courts arranged in two continuous rows, six facing north and six south, all enclosed within one outer wall. He counted three thousand chambers in paired sets, with 1,500 above ground and 1,500 underground. According to his account, the underground rooms held the burial vaults of the kings who first built the Labyrinth and those of sacred crocodiles. He described the upper rooms as exceptionally large, with passages running through the courts.
Pyramid and tomb
Herodotus also placed a 240-foot-high pyramid near the end of the complex, with large carved figures and an underground passage leading to it. Strabo described the associated tomb as a square pyramid and named the buried person Imandes. That identification belongs to the ancient literary tradition rather than to a securely established modern interpretation.
Surviving sculpture and later settlement
Statues and shrines
Petrie found the Labyrinth’s surviving foundations amid a large bed of stone chips. The associated sculpture included a limestone statue of Sobek, the Egyptian crocodile deity associated with fertility, water, and the Faiyum, and another statue of Hathor, a major goddess linked with motherhood, music, and royal power. Two granite shrines were also recovered, each containing a statue of Amenemhat III.
Greco-Roman town
Greco-Roman chambers and a town occupied the western part of the earlier complex. Excavated material from this later settlement included Greco-Roman artifacts and papyri containing parts of the Iliad. The later buildings and the stone quarrying that followed Roman rule affected the survival and interpretation of the Middle Kingdom remains.
Materials and buried evidence
Ancient literary accounts variously described the complex as built from stone, with white-stone columns, Parian marble, or syenite, a durable coarse-grained igneous stone used in Egyptian monumental construction. These descriptions conflict and may reflect different traditions or attempts to reconcile information about a structure already damaged over time.
Geophysical surveys have identified ordered underground structures, walls, rooms, and possible monumental spaces beneath the sand. The techniques can reveal variations that may indicate buried remains, but they do not establish the structures’ precise date or function. Their relationship to the Labyrinth therefore remains unverified without excavation. The surviving deposits are further threatened by the canals, earlier stone quarrying, water intrusion, and the high local water table.
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