Akhmim is among the weirdest sites from Ancient Egypt. You drive along crowded and dusty roads in the large town of Akhmim, then suddenly, in a large hole in the ground, you see the head of a grand female statue. It is in size quite similar to those of Ramses 2, but this one is of a woman. Unique in all of Egypt.The Statue is 11 meters high, and it for MeritAmun "Meret Amun" was a daughter and later Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Ramesses the Great.

 

MeritAmen was a daughter of Ramesses and his favourite wife Nefertari. She appears as the fourth daughter in the list of daughters in Abu Simbel. Around the time her mother died (around the 24th or 25th regnal year), Meritamen became Great Royal Wife, along with her half-sister Bintanath.

 

Statue of Meret Amun

 

The statue of her is 11 meters high, the statue was discovered in 1981 in Akhmim, when a school was about to be built. Excavations beside the Mosque of Sheikh Naqshadi revealed an 11m-high statue of Meret Amun. There was a temple here, dedicated to the fertility god, Min. There are traces left of this temple, but it is very hard to understand much from the remains around the statue.

 

This is the tallest statue of an ancient queen to have been discovered in Egypt. She is shown here with flail in hand, wearing a ceremonial headdress and large earrings. Nearby, the remains of a seated statue of her father still retain some original color.

 

The history of Akhmim goes back to the middle of the 3rd millennium, when it was an important regional town. Akhmim was by the 16th century geographer Leo Africanus called the "the oldest city in Egypt. It is among the weirdest sites from Ancient Egypt. You drive along crowded and dusty roads in the large town of Akhmim, and in a large hole in the ground, you see the head of a grand female statue. It is in size quite similar to those of Ramses 2, but this one is of a woman Unique in all of Egypt.