Amenemhet III. believed that a vast reservoir might regulate the supply, receiving the water when it was at high flood and giving it out once more when the stream was low. He looked about for a natural depression and found it to the west of Memphis, beyond a narrow range of hills. Canals were made leading into this basin and Lake Moeris was the result. Some hundreds of square miles were gained by this new means of irrigation and the tract thus made arable, became royal domain. The district is known as the Fayoum. Near its entrance Amenemhet III. built his pyramid. It differed from earlier tombs in that the chamber destined to receive his mummy was reached by passages even more secret and winding than ordinary. False doors were placed here and there to mislead any who might attempt to molest the body.
Under his direction, a wonderful building was constructed. It was called the Labyrinth. Being about 800 feet wide and 1,000 feet long, it contained 1,500 rooms above the ground and as many more below it. There were many courts with numerous doors leading from them and Strabo, a Greek geographer, who saw it long after Amenemhet had taken his journey to the realm of Osiris, said that the ceilings and sides of the rooms were made from single stones! It is believed that the king planned this structure to serve as a great capitol for his kingdom, and that there were suites of halls for every nome, with chapels for their gods. A vast number of chambers would naturally be required for this, and probably there was no thought of making the building baffling or bewildering, as the name labyrinth now signifies. This was counted among the wonders of the ancient world, but, like the city built around it, disappeared ages ago. Herodotus has left us a description of the huge building, written to inform his countrymen of a structure more remarkable than anything they could boast. When he saw it, almost five hundred years before the time of Christ, it was still in perfect condition.
"I visited the place," he says, "and found it to surpass description; for if all the walls and other great works of the Greeks could be put together into one, they would not equal this Labyrinth. The pyramids likewise surpass description, and are severally equal to a number of the greatest works of the Greeks; but the Labyrinth surpasses the pyramids. It has twelve courts, all of them roofed, with gates exactly opposite one another, six looking to the north, and six to the south. A single wall surrounds the whole building. It contains two different sorts of chambers, half of them under ground, and half above ground, the latter built upon the former; the whole number is three thousand, of each kind fifteen hundred. The upper chambers I myself passed through and saw, and what I say of them is from my own observation; of the underground chambers I can only speak from report, for the keepers of the building could not be induced to show them; since they contain, they said, the sepulchres of the kings who built the labyrinth, and also those of the sacred crocodiles. Thus it is from hearsay only that I can speak of them; but the upper chambers I saw with my own eyes, and found them to excel all other human productions; for the passages through the houses and the varied windings of the paths across the courts, excited in me infinite admiration, as I passed from these colonnades into fresh houses, and again from these into courts unseen before. The roof was, throughout, of stone, like the walls; and the walls were carved all over with figures; every court was surrounded with a colonnade, which was built of white stone, exquisitely fitted together. At the corner of the Labyrinth stands a pyramid, forty fathoms high, with large figures engraved upon it, which is entered by a subterranean passage."
In comparison with the Old Empire kings, those of the Middle Empire seem to us much more modern in spirit. Instead of merging the whole population into instruments to work out the pharaoh's fancy, instead of squandering the riches of the land and the lives of subjects to provide mammoth tombs which should eternalize the ruler's memory and flame forth his power and greatness unto succeeding generations, the farsighted Twelfth dynasty kings devoted their time and resources to the improvement of their kingdom. Wells were dug; roads constructed; public buildings erected; fortifications strengthened; frontiers extended. The attention of the monarch was directed to the commercial prosperity of the realm, to the agricultural conditions and their improvement—in short, the best years of the Middle Empire were years of material gain for the Nile dwellers, wherein men developed the arts of peace, and the valley testified to wise administration. Through a second period of depression a nation was to look back upon the age of its material progress with longing eyes, and still better, to retain even under adverse conditions standards of government and life which would later be recovered. After the death of the great king, called Amenemhet the Good by his grateful subjects, none appeared able to adequately fill his place, and his glorious reign was overshadowed by a second period of darkness.
[1] Trans. by Breasted, Hist. Egypt, 149. The approximate dates of this period are: Dynasties VII. and VIII. Ca. 2475-2445 B.C.; Dynasties XI. and X. Ca. 2475-2160 B.C.
[2] Dynasties XI. and XII. 2160-1788 B.C.
[3] Rawlinson, Ancient Egypt, 95.
[4] Trans. by Breasted, Ancient Records, I, §483.
[5] Petrie, Hist. of Egypt, Vol. I, 181.
[6] Petrie, Hist. of Egypt, Vol. I, 182.