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Lost LABYRINTH Of Egypt Scanned

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Bianca
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« Reply #30 on: September 28, 2008, 10:44:07 am »









Press





This website is composed to give as much information as possible about the project.



Please read the content carefully before directing questions to the Mataha – Expedition contact persons. Like the communication team is very small, we will do our utmost best to deal with all press requests related to the NRIAG-UGent cooperated Mataha-Expedition. For general information contact Louis De Cordier, the coordinator of the Mataha-Expedition. For interviews and statements about the future of Hawara, please direct your questions to the Supreme Council of Antiquities represented by Dr. Zahi Hawass, the University of Cairo represented by the Dean of Archaeology Prof. Dr. Alaaeldin Shaheen, and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.



Ghent University conference:
presscards & TV production crews >
please reserve your conference press-seat
contact > Kaat.VandeVelde@UGent.be or t +3292648275

 

downloads
 print version with images 1,55Mb)





free copyright images



map sketch (64KB)

Athanasius Kircher (3MB)

Luigi Canina (672 Kb)

Napoleon expedition (768 Kb)

labyrinth area (2,2 Mb)

Scanning 1 (3,1 Mb)

Scanning 2 (2,8 Mb)

Hawara Pyramid (2,2 Mb)

Mataha-scanners (2,5 Mb)

Louis De Cordier 1 (1,4Mb)

Golden Sun Disk (2,3 Mb)

 



contact



Louis De Cordier

Mataha-Expedition coordinator
T +32 486 20 85 33  info@louisdecordier.com



Ghent University

Kaat Van de Velde: conference communication & reservations
T +3292648275  Kaat.VandeVelde@UGent.be

Guy Bovyn: art curator & Kunst-Zicht director
T +32476984993  Guy.Bovyn@hogent.be



NRIAG

Dr. Abbas Mohamed Abbas (Director of the Hawara Geophysic Survey)
T +2012 1141626 dr.abbas.ali@gmail.com



WEBSITE

Seppe Slabbinck: webmaster mataha.org
Should you have any question or remark regarding this website,
please send an e-mail to: webmaster@mataha.org.



http://www.mataha.org/
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« Reply #31 on: September 28, 2008, 08:13:07 pm »












Patrick Geryl:



                                                        Labyrinth of Egypt

 



Introduction

The mission of the Mataha-expedition was, besides preservation, to research the quarry theory by Petrie based on his finding of a great artificial stone surface (304meter on 244meter). Petrie interpreted the enormous artificial stone plateau he discovered at the depth of several meters, as the foundation of the labyrinth, concluding that the building itself was totally demolished, as a stone quarry in the Ptolemaic period. However, the “foundation” impenetrated by early expeditions, never lost the possibility of being the roof of the Labyrinth, described by Strabo as a great plain of stone. The Mataha – expedition research goal was to confirms the presence of archaeological features at the labyrinth area south of the Hawara pyramid of Amenemhet III.




The Mataha-expedition discovered the lost labyrinth of Egypt at Hawara.

A colossal temple described by many classic authors like Herodotus and Strabo, to contain 3000 rooms full of hieroglyphs and paintings. A legendary building lost for 2 millenia under the ancient sands of Egypt. Bringing the highest level of technology to unlock the secrets of the past. The sand of Hawara was scanned earlier this year (February-March 2008) by the Belgian Egyptian expedition team. Although ground penetrating techniques have been used by archaeologists for years, the Mataha-expedition (Mataha = labyrinth in Arabic) was the first to apply this technology at Hawara, to solve the enigma born in the Renaissance for once.
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« Reply #32 on: September 28, 2008, 08:17:21 pm »











Mataha Expedition: Labyrinth of Egypt at Hawara
©2008 Patrick Geryl



The conclusion of the Hawara geophysic-survey is officially released by the Egyptian authorities at the workshop in Cairo organized by the NRIAG on 11 of August 2008. This took place in the presence of some members of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, a representative of UNESCO, professors of international Universities, researchers of Cairo based archaeological institutes and a small selection of specialized archaeological press.





Before taking off with the conclusion, it needs to be said that the presented geo-archaeological results about the Labyrinth were received with positive scepticism by archaeologists and alike, who still prefer to believe actual excavation as confirmation of the discovery, without touching the integrity of the geophysic team professionalism. This feeling of doubt was expected like geophysic technics are new in the field of archaeology. Till very recently geophysics were namely only used by the military and oil industry. All geophysic results regarding the groundwater and the geologic situation, are in contrast fully taken for granted by all parties, and even formed the actual start of the existing preservation master plan for the Hawara archaeological site, by the Egyptian government and the Supreme council of Antiquities.





The mission of the Mataha-expedition was, besides preservation, to research the quarry theory by Petrie based on his finding of a great artificial stone surface (304meter on 244meter). Petrie interpreted the enormous artificial stone plateau he discovered at the depth of several meters, as the foundation of the labyrinth, concluding that the building itself was totally demolished, as a stone quarry in the Ptolemaic period. However, the “foundation” impenetrated by early expeditions, never lost the possibility of being the roof of the Labyrinth, described by Strabo as a great plain of stone.
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« Reply #33 on: September 28, 2008, 08:22:03 pm »










The Mataha – expedition research confirms the presence of archaeological features at the labyrinth area south of the Hawara pyramid of Amenemhet III. These features covering an underground area of several hectares, have the prominent signature of vertical walls on the geophysical results. The vertical walls with an average thickness of several meters, are connected to shape nearly closed rooms, which are interpreted to be huge in number. Consequently, the geophysic survey initiated with the cordial permission of Dr. Zahi Hawass the president of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and conducted by the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (Helwan, Cairo) with the support of Ghent University, can now officially verify the occurrence of big parts of the Labyrinth as described by the classic authors at the study area. The Labyrinth data are acquired mainly from 2 scanned surfaces at the labyrinth area south of the pyramid. One scan survey of 150m by 100m on the right site of the Bahr Wahbi canal, and one on the left site (80m by 100m). Two considerations regarding the conclusion. Seen the survey provided only two big puzzles, the total size and shape of the labyrinth can not yet been concluded. Secondly, the data of the labyrinth are accurate, because of the exceptional dimensions of the structure, but the geophysic profiles still need some filtration to give more details. Groundwater affected the consistency of the survey. The partial defacement of the data is due to the high salinity of the shallow subsurface water and the seasonal fluctuation of this level. So we recommend also another episode of geophysical survey after the dewatering project to enhance the outcome to great extent.


In the upper ground zone above the water level, walls appear at the shallow depth ranging between 1,5 to 2,5 meters. These decayed mudbrick features are very chaotic and show no consistent grid structure and can be comfortably related with the historic period of the Ptolemaic and Roman times. A period in which is known, that the labyrinth area was used as a cemetery, and probably also changed to a living area in the Byzantine period. Underneath this upper zone, below the artificial stone surface appears (in spite of the turbid effect of the groundwater) at the depth of 8 to 12 meters a grid structure of gigantic size made of a very high resistivity material like granit stone. This states the presence of a colossal archaeological feature below the labyrinth “foundation” zone of Petrie, which has to be reconsidered as the roof of the still existing labyrinth. The conclusion of the geo-archaeological expedition encounters in a scientific way the idea that the labyrinth was destructed as a stone quary in Ptolemaic times and validates the authenticity of the classical author reports. The massive grid structure of the labyrinth is also out of angle by 20° to 25° from the Hawara pyramid orientation. An analysis shifting the contemporary idea of the labyrinth as funerary temple and its supposed construction age, but on the other hand it hardens Herodotus accuracy, who described the nearby pyramid to be at the corner of the labyrinth. It might even be considered that the remains of the labyrinth run unaffectedly underneath the canal, which crosses the total Hawara area. Like the scanned Labyrinth sections on both sides of Bahr Wahbi canal have similar and parallel grids on the geophysical results.


From a preservative view of the Hawara archaeological site, humanity is now facing a great challenge. The water level, which raised dramatically since the last decades, is detected at a depth of about 4-5 meters below the ground surface at the labyrinth area. Drowning the whole site completely in the corrosive salty water, which agressively destructs the stones of the labyrinth on a great scale. Making environmental protection directly the utmost necessity. UNESCO committee members publicly considered after the official release of the research conclusion at the workshop in Cairo, to mark the total Hawara site “world heritage”, as the first UNESCO step towards the launch of an international safeguarding campaign. This should be a great honour en help, like Hawara not only contains important Middle Kingdom to late Roman antiquities, but also the greatest wonder of the classical world. With the words of Herodotus “surpassing even the great pyramids of Giza”.
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« Reply #34 on: September 28, 2008, 08:23:33 pm »










In contrast to many sites, which become vulnerable to illegal excavations and theft after the release of their discovery, the Labyrinth is contradictory protected from illegal human activity by the saline water that destroys it. A situation we can not push towards a next generation without presenting an empty box, like all hieroglyphic texts as described by the classic others will be very soon lost forever, eaten out by salt crystals.

An archaeological rescue operation as never seen before will therefore have to be organized, to raise the necessary media attention, experts, technology and funds to start the drainage, protection and the total excavation of the labyrinth of Egypt. The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities expressed their great devotion and responsibility by announcing the start of the actual renovate master plan for the site, but as a the labyrinth affects the whole world, we are responsible to work together with this great country that bears already the heavy weight to preserve and protect the remains of a giant civilization. A fantastic country with great people, that is reaching a warm hand to the rest of the world to share this new discovered global human heritage.


The Mataha-Expedition team therefore directs the need for any kind of support to all man. We believe that humanity reached the point of civilization to be able to work unconditional together at high efficiency with the honorary aim to protect and discover the colossal stone book that the ancients built with an unimaginable effort of love, to communicate with us from the deep black of time.



Mataha-Expedition website: www.mataha.org

 
 

©2008 Patrick Geryl
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« Reply #35 on: September 28, 2008, 08:25:10 pm »







Herodotus' Egyptian Labyrinth



Even more generally, labyrinth might be applied to any extremely complicated maze-like structure. Herodotus, in Book II of his Histories, describes as a "labyrinth" a building complex in Egypt, "near the place called the City of Crocodiles," that he considered to surpass the pyramids in its astonishing ambition:

It has twelve covered courts — six in a row facing north, six south — the gates of the one range exactly fronting the gates of the other. Inside, the building is of two storeys and contains three thousand rooms, of which half are underground, and the other half directly above them. I was taken through the rooms in the upper storey, so what I shall say of them is from my own observation, but the underground ones I can speak of only from report, because the Egyptians in charge refused to let me see them, as they contain the tombs of the kings who built the labyrinth, and also the tombs of the sacred crocodiles. The upper rooms, on the contrary, I did actually see, and it is hard to believe that they are the work of men; the baffling and intricate passages from room to room and from court to court were an endless wonder to me, as we passed from a courtyard into rooms, from rooms into galleries, from galleries into more rooms and thence into yet more courtyards. The roof of every chamber, courtyard, and gallery is, like the walls, of stone. The walls are covered with carved figures, and each court is exquisitely built of white marble and surrounded by a colonnade.*





* Source:  Peck, Harry Thurston (chief editor). "Hieratic Papyrus. (Twentieth Dynasty.)" in the Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, published 1898, page 29.




During the time of Sir William Smith, the remains of the "Labyrinthus" (as he calls it) were discovered "11 1/2 miles from the pyramid of Hawara, in the province of Faioum." As professor Smith states in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1870), the Labyrinthus was likely modified and added upon "at various times. The names of more than one king have been found there, the oldest" name being that of Amenemhat III. "It is unnecessary to imagine more than that it was monumental, and a monument of more than one king of Egypt."


In 1898, the Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities described the structure as "the largest of all the temples of Egypt, the so-called Labyrinth, of which, however, only the foundation stones have been preserved."



Source: www.wikipedia.org



http://www.world-mysteries.com/newgw/gw_pgeryl_hawara.htm
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« Reply #36 on: September 30, 2008, 07:53:00 pm »










                                           A Virtual Exploration of the Lost Labyrinth






                    Developing a Reconstructive Model of Hawara Labyrinth Pyramid Complex

                                         Narushige Shiode, Wolfram Grajetzki

                                        Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis

                                               University College London

 

Abstract



This paper reports on a case study* that explores the possibility of reproducing a destroyed historic site from its remaining artefacts. Using VR (virtual reality) technologies, we construct a series of low-end, 3D models that are navigable through the Web. This gives us the opportunity to visualise, explore and present ancient sites in their original form. We focus mainly on the Hawara Labyrinth site. However, the method developed is generic in that it is applicable to other sites and artefacts that require reconstruction and dissemination using digital technologies. The feedback from this pilot project will be integrated into an on-going project** on creating online learning and teaching resource.



* This report is based on a short-term project supported by the Graduate School, University College London.



A version of the project output can be obtained from http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/digital_egypt/hawara/.



**Digital Egypt for Universities is a three-year project to create online learning and teaching resource, funded by JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee) that is currently carried out by Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London.
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« Reply #37 on: September 30, 2008, 07:54:39 pm »










1. Introduction



There has been much discussion about the capabilities of the Internet and cyberspace to promote increased accessibility to museum collections (Economow 1995, Johnston 1998). Potentially, visitors can indulge in virtual experiences of artefacts to which access in a real museum is limited by physical distance, conservation requirements, or limitations on exhibition space. In the virtual museum, the collection in the museum is available at any time online (Sweeney 1997). In addition, the flexible nature of such virtual environments can be further utilised in reproducing full-scale, 3D models of archaeological sites. In particular, we can adopt VR technology to generate a virtual reconstruction of an ancient site that was destroyed long time ago.
This is of immense importance for archaeological studies as it opens up many new dimensions in understanding and simulating such sites. Perhaps for the first time in archaeological terms, does it provide us with the opportunity to visualise, explore and present ancient sites in their original form. We may even be able to create dynamic models which incorporate chronological transitions and reflect the cultural and physical shifts that have taken place at each time period.

In other words, one of the effective ways to promote and provide archaeological resources online is to address the limitation on exploring real artefacts by creating a virtual archaeological site equipped with 3D visualisation utility. It should be complemented by web interface that includes the relevant information, so as to attract the user's interest and lead them to the models.
In this light, we set up a project on the VR modelling of ancient sites and propose a series of digital reconstruction, which is developed and disseminated using state-of-the-art digital technologies. We then popularise it in a web-based context so that various publics could view the exhibits as well as consider various reconstructions for themselves.

As a short-term case study, we focus on the Hawara Labyrinth site for which we have primary access to a wealth of artefacts and archaeological records. However, the techniques we develop would be of wide use in archaeological reconstruction; this study in fact is the pilot phase of a much larger project which is aimed at realising the full potential of these new media in archaeology and museum planning.
We will start by discussing the applicability of VR to archaeology. This is followed by revisions on some of the related studies. We will then trace the history of Hawara and examine how it was gradually destroyed. Based on this information, we construct online contents of Hawara including two models of the Labyrinth that are proposed by different archaeologists.
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« Reply #38 on: September 30, 2008, 07:55:57 pm »










2 Revision and Methodology






2.1 Applicability of VR to Archaeology



Information technology has contributed to archaeology from innumerable different aspects. For instance, geographic information system (GIS) supports the excavation process through the provision of geo-reference data. Moreover, owing to the exponential growth of the Internet and the rapid advancement of VR, there is now vast potential for assisting excavation and reconstruction of historic sites as well as disseminating the relevant information to a wider public (Batty 1997).

Indeed, technology has come a long way in solving many of the early limitations of VR; Virtual worlds have quietly found growing acceptance in selected areas, from research to industrial training, entertainment, and medicine. Less than a decade ago, however, issues of graphic quality and speed troubled virtual world developers, forcing simplistic representations and triggering criticism from the heritage community (Addison and Gaiani 1998). In addition, until recently we were short of inexpensive software and data standards for creating visually realistic interactive environments. The development of VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) in 1994, the de facto standard 3D descriptive language, has broken the technical barrier and enabled the visualisation and distribution of 3D models on-line (Pesce 1996).

We adopt VRML97 as a primary means to visualise texture and create 3D models. This however, is complemented by other form of online material such as movies and still images so as to allow low-end users to access the contents and to deliver it to a wider audience.
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« Reply #39 on: September 30, 2008, 07:56:54 pm »










2.2 Research Objectives



Our primary aim is to virtually reproduce the historic site of the Hawara Labyrinth which was built around 1800BC. Today the site resembles a moonscape, following its destruction in the first millennium AD. We thus have no clear picture of the plans of the entire Labyrinth or the cemetery; nor do we know their design or proportions. Nevertheless, with the aid of VR technology, we are able to devise visualisations of different probable forms. We also benefit significantly by the fact that many of the artefacts excavated from Hawara are now conserved at the Petrie Museum and that we have hands-on access to these artefacts as well as the archaeological records by Petrie.

There are two aspects to this contextualisation of objects in virtual space:

Reconstruction of ancient cities to exploit the medium - this includes successive historical phases of a single place as well as developing a range of possible forms where the original form is uncertain.
Spaces for an ideal exhibition space - using the medium to plan in the 3D space various future plans of museum layout which would best cater for the display of the artefacts.
As aforementioned, this project focuses on the single example of the Hawara site, but the methodology is generic and therefore applicable to the reproduction of other sites, at different time periods and reflecting very different collections of artefacts. Furthermore, the techniques we evolve may also find use in many other historical and artistic contexts where visualisation of unknown structures is the goal.
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« Reply #40 on: September 30, 2008, 07:58:31 pm »










2.3 Related Studies



In archaeology, the Web is mostly used as a medium to introduce certain projects, or to swiftly provide preliminary reports from excavations. In some cases, the web contents are edited on the site; one of such examples being the Theban necropolis expedition led by Nigel Strudwick

 (http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/egypt/tt99/). Some attempts have been also made on Internet

publications which include the following two initiatives in the Netherlands: the Coffin Text database

(http://www.ccer.ggl.ruu.nl/ct/ct.html) and the Deir el-Medina database

(http://www.leidenuniv.nl/nino/dmd/dmd.html). Both are designed mainly for philologists.

Also, a few novel attempts have been made recently in the field of virtual preservation and reproduction of historical or heritage sites (Addison and Gaiani 1998). These include the virtual conservation of a large scale, ancient site such as Angkor Vat in South Asia and the Roman site of Sagalassos, south-west Turkey (Pollefeys et al. 1998). However, most of these projects aim to reproduce an existing site or to construct a realistic model where the original plan is known. In this project, we propose a generic method for visualising the possible forms of a historic site whose form is uncertain, and which has to be estimated from the few remaining artefacts.
At the Petrie Museum itself, there is an ongoing project involving the digitisation of the entire collection for dissemination using web-based technology. This project includes an association with the University of Manchester and has been funded by the Museum and Galleries Commission under the Designated Museum Challenge Fund.

In terms of virtual museums, there are a number of projects and studies relevant to the future planning of galleries in the virtual environment. Currently, there are over 500 web sites and projects that relate to the electronic reproduction of a collection of digital artefacts and information resources for public exploration in the form of a museum-like environments (Shiode and Kanoshima 1998). Using VRML and the proprietary technologies, some museums have already reproduced their galleries either partially or entirely in 3D visual form; the Philadelphia Museum of Art (http://www.libertynet.org/pma/) and the Hara Art Museum (http://www.haramuseum.or.jp/) to name but two. Nevertheless, as their primary intention is to imitate real museums, existing virtual museum contents appear similar to 3D CAD models and do not surpass the presentations of traditional museums, nor do they explore the potential for exploring the possible form of ancient archaeological sites (Worden 1997).
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« Reply #41 on: September 30, 2008, 08:01:47 pm »









3 A History of the Hawara Site and Its Excavation



Before we move onto the modelling and dissemination of the online contents, let us brief on the study area. Hawara is a cemetery site in the southeastern Fayum region, about 80km south of present day Cairo. It is the burial place of Amenemhat III, the last great king of the 12th dynasty (about 1855-1808 BC). To the south of the pyramid the king constructed a large cult complex (approximately 120 metres by 300 metres), in which the king was worshipped as a god. The complex was most probably built in the second half of his reign, and seems to have been called Ankh-Amenemhat. After some 1500 years, king Amenemhat III was still attested as a god in the Fayum region, especially in Hawara and, during the period of Classical Antiquity, the cult complex of the king came to be known as the "Labyrinth" (Arnold 1980).

The Greek historian Herodotus, who visited the temple in the 5th century BC, described a building complex with three thousand rooms connected by winding passages. Later Strabo visited the temple about 25 BC and also described an amazing building. Pliny the Elder gives the longest report on the "Labyrinth" even though he never saw it himself and was probably mixing direct observations from other authors with his own imagination of what he thought a Labyrinth might be. Since Ptolemaic times, especially under the Romans, the complex was used as a quarry and hence has mostly disappeared (Lloyd 1970). In Late Antiquity, the complex was considered as one of the wonders of the world.

The Renaissance stimulated rising interest in Antiquity, and brought back into circulation classical authors such as Herodotus. As a result, once again people became interested in the Egyptian Labyrinth. The scholar Athanasius Kircher produced one of the first pictorial reconstructions, mainly based on the account in Herodotus. At the centre of his architecture drawing, Kircher placed a maze, most likely to have been inspired by Roman labyrinth mosaics, and surrounded it with the twelve courts described by Herodotus (Kern 1995: fig. 63).

Around 1840, the original Labyrinth site at Hawara was rediscovered by the Prussian expedition of Richard Lepsius (Lepsius 1849). Lepsius thought that the structures excavated by his team were parts of the temple of King Amenemhat III, but later research showed that they belonged to Roman tombs. Since the expedition of Lepsius, the place came to be known as a findspot for some high quality royal statues. In 1888, Flinders Petrie started to excavate at Hawara. The results of his work on the Labyrinth itself were disappointing for him. Since Roman times the whole building had been totally destroyed, and he was unable to recover any part of the complex. Sensationally though, he found a series of portrait panel paintings, depicting the local elite in the period of Roman rule (Petrie 1889, 1890). With these findings, he restored to classical art history a field that had been virtually unknown until then.

In 1911, Petrie returned to Hawara to excavate in the Labyrinth and to find more of the so-called Fayum portraits on the Roman Period mummies. As usual, Petrie published his results soon after his work and also depicted partial reconstructions of the complex within his volumes. These were still mainly based on the classical authors, and only few points depended on the little evidence he found for the original architecture (Petrie et al. 1912).

Since Petrie’s excavations in 1911, no official excavation has been carried out in the Labyrinth, though some shorter expeditions from the Antiquity Service have dug in the necropolis of Hawara. Apart from some short notes in Egyptological journals nothing has been published from these excavations. Only this year a Belgian mission began a survey of the site, which has already begun to produce more accurate information. This should advance the research by colleagues such as Dieter Arnold (Arnold 1979, 1980), Ingrid Blom-Boer (Blom-Boer 1989), and Eric Uphill (Uphill 2000), who have published much stimulating work on Hawara (Figure 1).
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« Reply #42 on: September 30, 2008, 08:02:46 pm »



Figure 1. The pyramid of Amenemhet III at Hawara

(Image courtesy of
Christiane Mueller-Hazenbos).

 







4 Reconstruction of the Labyrinth



The fact that the Labyrinth was destroyed long time ago makes it almost impossible to depict its original form. Even its scale is still under dispute, and to a greater extent, we have to rely on older references such as the description by Herodotus as well as on brief archaeological notes from earlier excavations. In our project, we produced two versions of the Labyrinth model in VR.
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« Reply #43 on: September 30, 2008, 08:05:52 pm »












4.1 The Labyrinth Model by Flinders Petrie



Soon after his second expedition, Petrie published a partial reconstruction of the Labyrinth (Figure 2a). It consists of 18 large chambers separated by three main corridors, two running sideways and one at the centre. Because he did not find enough evidence, these are considered to be primarily based on the classical authors, and only few points depended on the little evidence he found for the original architecture (Petrie et al. 1912).

Taking his plan for granted, we measured his drawings and redrew the plan as shown in Figure 2b. Heights were taken from another tomb chapel constructed by King Amenemhat III assuming that he used the same module. The model was then constructed in 3D Studio Max, a 3D Computer Aided Designing (CAD) package in its proprietary format, exported to VRML97 format, and manually edited to give it the right scale and light setting. The result is shown in Figure 3.

 


Figure 2. (a) A plan of Hawara in late 19th century and
a partial diagram of the predicted structure of the
Labyrinth hand drawn by Petrie, and





(b) The plan of the Petrie model of the Labyrinth
produced in the project.
 
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« Reply #44 on: September 30, 2008, 08:15:19 pm »



Figure 3. A 3D model of the Labyrinth
based on a drawing by Petrie (1890).

 

 






4.2 The Second Labyrinth Model



Based on some recent results and proposals, we have come up with an alternative to the Petrie model. The overall shape of the Labyrinth itself is based on the study by Arnold (1979) who assumed that the building follows the tradition of the Djoser complex in Saqqara. A large open court was placed in the front section, similar to that of the Djoser complex.

The small twelve open courts at the back are based on the description by Herodotus. There are also five chapels in this model, which are common for pyramid complexes in the Old and the Middle Kingdom. The pyramid was also decorated with two temples, one in the north and the other in the east side. These are based on the fact that traces of the temple to the north of the pyramid were still visible in the 19th century, and the one to the east of the pyramid is seen on parallels.







Figure 4 shows a bird's-eye view of this second model.

The columns are decorated in such way that they
resemble the ones that are found in a well preserved
example from the same period.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2008, 08:26:53 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
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