Amenemhat III (Nimaatre)

Amenemhat III (throne-name Nimaatre) presided over the prosperous high point of the Middle Kingdom, reigning around 1831-1786 BCE (Shaw's conventional dates). His long and stable reign completed the great land-reclamation of the Faiyum, turning marshland into productive farmland, and he built a vast pyramid and mortuary temple at Hawara whose sprawling, many-chambered plan the later Greeks called 'the Labyrinth'. He exploited the turquoise mines of the Sinai at Serabit el-Khadim more intensively than any earlier king, leaving numerous inscriptions there. The Greek reports of a 'Labyrinth' and of 'Lake Moeris' in the Faiyum, transmitted through Herodotus, relate to his works but are Greek reception, not Egyptian record. His reign marks the prosperous culmination of the dynasty.