Amanitenmemide was a Nubian king whose throne name was Nebmaatre. His name is written in Meroitic

Meroitic script

The Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë/Kush. It was developed in the Napatan Period , and first appears in the 2nd century BCE. For a time, it was also possibly used to write the Nubian...

, while his throne name is written in classical Egyptian hieroglyphs. He is thus far only known from his pyramid in Meroe

Meroë

Meroë Meroitic: Medewi or Bedewi; Arabic: and Meruwi) is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah...

 (Beg. N17). The pyramid occupies an area of 8.6 X 8.6 m and is, therefore, one of the smaller royal pyramids at Meroe. In front of the pyramid there was a decorated chapel. The decoration was copied by the Lepsius

Karl Richard Lepsius

Karl Richard Lepsius was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist and linguist and pioneer of modern archaeology.-Background:...

 expedition. One wall was brought to Berlin

Egyptian Museum of Berlin

The Egyptian Museum of Berlin is home to one of the world's most important collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts.The collection is part of the Neues Museum.-History:...

. Another, now only preserved in six blocks, is in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 in London.

Three skeletons were found in the burial chamber of the pyramid - two of them belonging to women, the third to a man of about 30 years, which are, perhaps, the remains of the king himself.

There is little evidence for dating the king. The small size of the pyramid indicates a date after Natakamani

Natakamani

Natakamani was a King of Kush who reigned from around or earlier than 1 BC to circa AD 20. Natakamani is the best attested ruler of the Meroitic period. He was born to queen Amanishakheto....

, under whom the pyramids in general became smaller. It has been suggested that Amanitenmemide belongs to the first century AD.

Literatur

• Inge Hofmann, Beiträge zur meroitischen Chronologie, St. Augustin bei Bonn 1978, p. 139, ISBN 3921389801
• Laszlo Török, in: Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, Vol. III, Bergen 1998, p. 914-916, ISBN 8291626073

External links

• The decoration of the chapel copied by the Lepsius expedition (top left and bottom left)