Senwosret III in his youth (Louvre)
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The only
monuments of subsisting importance date from
the reign of
Senwosret III. This Pharaoh is the first to have made build in
this city a
real funeral complex consisting of a temple in the south of Abydos
and of a real tomb. at the foot of the cliff. A complete city was built for the
craftsmen working to this funeral complex. A general plan of the site, as well as the plans of the temple and the tomb are duplicated in
the book of
P. Tallet (p. 241 and 244). (to see the page
biblio)
The temple
is a structure
made of grown bricks of about 54 m by 34 m (north-south). Only the center is built in limestone. The temple possesses
a pylon of raw bricks. The actual sanctuary is surrounded with
stores and houses. It includes a room hypostyle, a room of offerings
and a triple sanctuary. The fragments of wall
decorations show classic scenes, representations of the cult of Osiris. So this temple already played the
role of "temple of millions of years" as those of the
New Kingdom.
At the foot
of the cliff,
700 m to the north, be an enclosure of bricks in the shape
of T that protects the entry of a tomb. A debate exists to know if this
tomb really served to the Pharaoh's burial.
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The set down
steles were bound
to cenotaphs for the richest people, conceived either
like small chapels, either as full structures. At the end of the 12th dynasty and
during the 13th, some more modest people deposits their stele there
also.
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The stele
of chancellor
Ikhernofret, now in the museum of Berlin,
tells how
the chancellor, sent by Senwosret III that
made the war
in Nubie, controled the feasts of Osiris :
"J'ai donc agi conformément à tout ce qu'avait ordonné sa Majesté, réalisant au mieux ce qu'avait prescrit mon maître pour son père Osiris-Khentyimentyou, le très puissant seigneur d'Abydos qui réside dans This" (translation of J. Guiter in the magazine Egypt
n°10; to see
the page links
and the page
biblio for more of details
on Osiris,
the feasts of
Abydos and the
stele). (back to [Middle Kingdom])
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