Medinet Maadi
Medinet Maadi is a site in the southwestern Faiyum region of Egypt where a temple of the cobra-goddess Renenutet (a harvest deity) was founded during the reigns of Amenemhat III and Amenemhat IV (1855–1799 BC). It was later expanded and embellished during the Greco-Roman period.
The temple
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 Amenemhat 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.
2006 excavations
Medinet Maadi is "the only intact temple still existing from the Middle Kingdom" according to Zahi Hawass, a former Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).[1] The temple's foundations, administrative buildings, granaries and residences were recently uncovered by an Egyptian archaeological expedition in early 2006.
Coptic texts
Coptic texts were uncovered near Medinet Maadi in 1928. Among them was the Manichaean Psalm-book that includes the Psalms of Thomas.
Notes
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", MDAIK 8 (1939), 185–9.
- Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 178
- Medinet Madi website: http://www.medinetmadi.org
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Coordinates: 29°11′35″N 30°38′32″E / 29.1931°N 30.6421°E