Malqata

The malqata site is located on the western shore of Thebes in upper Egypt. Its most prevalent feature is the mammoth palace complex constructed by the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. The city-palace is in heavy ruin now, but several features have been uncovered, including a festival hall, villas and apartments for visiting guests and family members, a temple to Amen, and a large artificial harbor called a Birket Habu. These structures were all made of mud brick, which was the common building material in the new kingdom.

It was speculated that the palace at Malqata was an actual residence where Amenhotep III and his family lived, though most likely not all year round. It was something like a vacation getaway where the Pharaoh would retreat to and leave matters of state to his advisors or his wife Tiye in Thebes.

Although much of the palace lay in ruin, many of the paintings and motifs can still be seen covering the walls and ceilings. The Goddess Nekbet is represented by a series of vulture motifs with outstretched wings and the titles of Amenhotep III scribed underneath. This motif was patterned in many of the palace’s rooms. The palace was filled with scrolled wood columns supporting the ceiling, all patterned with carved lotus flowers and bird relief’s. The paintings that covered much of the ceilings and walls are currently being restored by using fragments of the original paint as a color reference. Many of the archeologists working on the Malqata site believe Amenhotep III built the palace for his wife Tiye. There are many depictions of her throughout the palace. Amenhotep was getting weary in his later years and she was still relatively young, so much of the responsibilities of state fell to her shoulders, until he died when she was forty-eight and the infamous Pharaoh Akhenaten claimed the throne. It is also speculated that the grandson of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, the Pharaoh Tutankhamen, was born at Malqata.

The palace site at Malqata was first discovered and excavated by the archeologist J. Daressy in 1888. This expedition only partially uncovered the site before it was abandoned for unknown reasons. In 1910, the Metropolitan Museum of Art took over the site and excavated it for the next ten years. In 1970, the University Museum of Pennsylvania resumed excavation and in 1985, the site became part of the Waseda University Mission, who have been restoring it ever since.

Sources:

Nakagawa, Takeshi. AStudies on the palace of Malqata@ . Institute of Egyptology at Waseda University. 1993. <http://www.waseda.acjp/projects/egypt/sites/MP-E.html>

ANew look at Ancient Egypt@ University of Pennsylvania. 2000<http://www.upenn.edu/museum/Exhibits/malkata.html>

Written by David Clark