smaller coffin. The sepulchral chapel was very large, and its
arrangements were of a somewhat complicated character. It consisted of
a considerable number of chambers, some tolerably large, and others
of moderate dimensions, while all of them were difficult of access and
plunged in perpetual darkness: this was the Egyptian Labyrinth, to
which the Greeks, by a misconception, have given a world-wide renown.
Amenemhait III. or his architects had no intention of building such a
childish structure as that in which classical tradition so fervently
believed. He had richly endowed the attendant priests, and bestowed upon
the cult of his double considerable revenues, and the chambers above
mentioned were so many storehouses for the safekeeping of the treasure
and provisions for the dead, and the arrangement of them was not more
singular than that of ordinary storage depots. As his cult persisted
for a long period, the temple was maintained in good condition during a
considerable time: it had not, perhaps, been abandoned when the Greeks
first visited it.*

* The identity of the ruins at Hawara with the remains of
the Labyrinth, admitted by Jomard-Caristie and by Lepsius,
disputed by Vassali, has been definitely proved by Petrie,
who found remains of the buildings erected by Amenemhait
III. under the ruins of a village and some Graeco-Roman
tombs.

The other sovereigns of the XIIth dynasty must have been interred not
far from the tombs of Amenemhait III. and Usirtasen II.: they also had
their pyramids, of which we may one day discover the site. The outline
of these was almost the same as that of the Memphite pyramids, but the
interior arrangements were different. As at Illahun and Dahshur, the
mass of the work consisted of crude bricks of large size, between which
fine sand was introduced to bind them solidly together, and the whole
was covered with a facing of polished limestone. The passages and
chambers are not arranged on the simple plan which we meet with in
the pyramids of earlier date. Experience had taught the Pharaohs that
neither granite walls nor the multiplication of barriers could preserve
their mummies from profanation: no sooner was vigilance relaxed, either
in the time of civil war or under a feeble administration, than robbers
appeared on the scene, and boring passages through the masonry with
the ingenuity of moles, they at length, after indefatigable patience,
succeeded in reachin