The Palace of Amenhotep III at Malqata

The Palace of Amenhotep III at Malqata in Western Thebes is perhaps the best preserved of all the royal palaces of Ancient Egypt.  Located on the sandy edge of the cultivation at the southern end of Western Thebes, the site today is marked only by low mud brick ruins and the bare hillocks that border the ancient harbor known as the Birket Habu. The Palace itself was the centerpiece of what David O’Connor has defined as a “Royal City.”   Such cities, like Deir el-Ballas, Tell el-Amarna, or Per-Ramesses in the Delta, were artificial court communities much like the Palace of Versailles or Washington D. C. consisting of the residence of the head of state, offices of the official bureaucracy and homes of the members of the court. The king’s palace was the single most important element in the all the royal cities, and served not only the residence and ceremonial setting for the pharaoh, but also the focus for the associated storerooms, magazines, stables, offices, courts, audience halls, chapels, kitchens and bakeries, gardens and pools, harims and residences for the members of the court and the state administration. All of our examples of these settlements date to the New Kingdom, and it is unclear if this is a phenomenon linked only to that era or if they existed before or after.

The palace of Amenhotep III was called the  “House of Rejoicing” of the Pharaoh and does not appear to have been built until around the king’s thirtieth year, the time of his first jubilee or heb sed. While it is near the vast Mortuary Temple built by Amenhotep III at the Kom el-Hetan, the Palace of Amenhotep III did not serve as a temple palace,  but instead it must have functioned principally as a temporary residence for the series of three Sed festivals celebrated by the king in the latter years of his long reign.

The first archaeological investigation of the site was conducted by the Egyptian Antiquities Service in 1888 and directed by Georges Daressey. Later, Robb De Peyster Tytus, who had traveled to Egypt in 1899 to work with Howard Carter and Percy Newberry, would go on to work with Newberry at the Palace of Malqata in the winter of 1901–1902.

From 1971 to 1974, excavations were carried out by David O’Connor and Barry Kemp for the University of Pennsylvania Museum, but they largely concentrated on the Birket Habu. Their work showed that the mounds were created after a vast area was artificially leveled, and that the placement of the mounds around the artificial lake was planned with an ingenious design consideration for the palace landscape. After the University of Pennsylvania Expedition terminated its work at Malqata and gave up the concession in 1982, the Universality of Waseda in Japan started investigation of the Malqata Palace in 1985. In the early 2000’s Holeil Gali, then Chief Inspector at Luxor and William Raymond Johnson Director of Chicago House, concerned about potential dangers to the site approached me to see if I might be interested in working at the site of Malqata. Knowing that the Metropolitan Museum had extensive unpublished records of their work at the site, I approached the Metropolitan Museum to see if they would be interested in a collaborative project. Survey work and restoration was done at the  palace from 2008 to 2017.

Lecture 1:  Malqata- History of Excavation

Lecture 2: Malqata- its site and setting

Lecture 3: Amenhotep III and Malqata

Lecture 4: Art and artifacts from Malqata