In the New Kingdom kings built smaller residences throughout the country, where they stayed as they traveled. At Medinet Gurob near the entrance to the Faiyum region Thutmose III built what may have been a kind of retreat near a harem palace for senior royal women, which also housed a weaving industry. Barry Kemp has reconstructed two of these small royal “rest houses.” A kind of 18*h-Dynasty hunting lodge was located near the Giza Sphinx, and to the south of Amenhotep III’s palace in western Thebes at Malkata (at Kom el-‘Abd), the king built a small rest-house that was used for chariot exercise.
Amenhotep III’s large Malkata palace was built for his first sed-festival in regnal years 29-30. In 1888 Georges Daressy did some initial exploration of the site, and the palace was first systematically excavated in the early 20*h century by British Egyptologist Percy E. Newberry and the American Robb de Peyster Tytus. Later excavations in the 1970s were conducted by David O’Connor and Barry Kemp, and a Japanese expedition from Waseda University, Tokyo, which also located a ceremonial construction for the king’s sed-festival at Malkata South.
At Malkata Amenhotep erected a main palace surrounded by an enclosure wall, which was rebuilt, probably for later sed-festivals (which were celebrated in years 34 and 37) (see Figure 8.3). According to Kemp, use of the palace was ceremonial, while O’Connor thinks that it also functioned as an administrative center. The main palace contained throne rooms, colonnaded reception and audience halls, courts, and private suites. There were also storerooms, kitchens, work rooms, and quarters for officials. Three or more subsidiary palaces were also built near the complex for members of the royal family, and to the north was a temple of Amen. High officials were housed in nearby villas and there was also a workmen’s village (“North Village”) to the west of the North Palace.
The mud-brick palace was lavishly decorated with colorful frescoes - even in the storerooms. For example, in the great central hall the floor was covered with scenes of a papyrus marsh from which arose 16 columns ending in capitals of lotus buds. Painted on the steps to the king’s throne were bound enemies and bows, which he would have trampled symbolically. The king’s suite contained various private rooms, including a bathroom and bedroom with a raised bed platform. An antechamber there was painted with bulls’ heads and rosettes in a spiral design.
Figure 8.3 Plan of Amenhotep Ill's Malkata palace complex. Source: B. J. Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, fig. 74. London: Routledge, 1989. Copyright © 1989 by Routledge. Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis Books UK
An enormous artificial lake, now called the Birket Habu, was excavated for ceremonial use and was later expanded to an area ca. 2 kilometers x 1 kilometer. Some of the excavated soil from the lake was used to make a base for Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple to the northeast, of which little remains. During the king’s 5cd-festival, the lake was the setting for rituals involving ceremonial barges, which were towed, as described in a text in the Theban tomb of Kheruef (TT192), one of the high royal officials.
Inscribed jar labels excavated in and around the Malkata site span a period from year 8 of Amenhotep Ill’s reign to Horemheb’s reign, but it is uncertain if the site was used during the Amarna Period. The jar labels indicate royal provisioning, not only for the large ceremonies that took place there periodically during Amenhotep III’s reign, but also for state workers and personnel who built and cared for the site.
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