Medinet Maadi

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Medinet Maadi is a site in the southwestern Fayum region of Egypt where a temple of the cobra-goddess Renenutet (a harvest deity) was founded during the reigns of Amenemhat III and IV (1855-1799 BC). It was later expanded and embellished during the Greco-Roman period.

The dark sandstone inner part of the temple consists of a small papyrus-columned hall leading to a sanctuary comprising three chapels, each containing statues of deities. The central chapel incorporated a large statue of Renenutet, with Amenemhat III and IV standing on either side of her. The Ptolemaic parts of the temple comprise a paved processional way passing through an eight-columned kiosk leading to a portico and transverse vestibule. It has been suggested that the unusually good preservation of this temple complex, excavated by a team of archaeologists from the University of Milan in the 1930s, may have been due simply to its relative seclusion.

[edit] Further reading

• A.Vogliano, Primo (e secondo) rapporto degli scavi condetti della R. Universita di Milano nella zona di Amdinet Maadi, 1935-6 (Milan, 1936-7).
• R.Naumann, 'Der Tempel des Mittleren Reiches in Medinet Madi', MDAIK8 (1939), 185-9.
• Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 178