14-Hawarah (Hawarah al-Maqta').
Hawara (Great Mansion ) or Arsinoiton polis, city of the Arsinoans, was the site of the pyramid complex of Amunemhet the third .
Pyramid Complex ol Amenemhat III. There does not appear to have been a causeway or valley temple attached to this pyramid. Of the Pyramid of Amenemhat 111 only the mud-brick core with brick filling between stone walls remains; the limestone casing has long since disappeared. It was originally 58m high and 100m sq. with a slope of 48°45'; there is still a splendid view of the Fayyum from the top of the pyramid.
The entry is to the S (now inaccessible) and was intended to mislead the tomb robbers, with false burial shafts.
The quartzite sarcophagus had a curved lid and a panel design at the foot, but the tomb had been robbed and the body destroyed and burnt. It was excavated with great difficulty by Petrie who found the chamber half full of water. Fragments of vases with the name of Amenemhat III upon them were recovered.
Apparently it was not finished at his death and was completed for him by his daughter Sobek-Nefru who came to the throne as the last ruler of the 12 Dyn. after the depletion of the male line.
This site was famous for its Mortuary Temple, known in Classical times as the Labyrinth, said to have been carved from a single rock. It was still in existence when Herodotus visited Egypt; he saw it and thought that it far surpassed the pyramids as a building. Now little remains of the vast structure, said to have contained over 3000 rooms, except piles of debris and a vast quantity of chipped stone fragments.
It was near here in a cemetery in the desert to the N that Petrie found the Fayyum portraits, painted in wax encaustic on flat boards and dating to the Roman period. Painted during life and attached to the coffins after death, they are among the earliest portraits known (now in the EM and BM and elsewhere).
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