Amenemhat III
| With Amenemhat III Egypt of the Middle Reign had its last great sovereign. For more than fory years he was able to keep Egypt in a state of wealth and prosperity increasing particularly the exploitation of the turquoise and copper mines in Sinai. Here he changed the miners’ camps in permanent plants and he enlarged the temple dedicated to Hator in Serabit el-Khadim. He could count on great manpower made by oriental population that, attracted to Egypt by its prosperity, worked for the pharaoh as farmers, soldiers and even craftsmen. Amenemhat III didn’t have any problems even with Nubia. The border with this disturbing neighbor was still delimitated by the fortresses in Semna, through which nobody could pass without a permission by the Egyptian authorities. In that area the pharaoh ordered to control the level of the Nile, creating a “nilemeter” , a construction in stone inside which the floods and the dryness of the providential river were measured. Regarding the relations with Asia, some statues from the reign under Amenemhat III have been found eastwards and in Dahshur, an image of the king slaughtering the Beduins, was found. It’s not known if in the last years of his reign, he governed with his son Amenemhat IV. |
