Pyramid of King Amanitenmemide

16.9389°N, 33.7494°E.

The pyramid of king Amanitenmemide at Meroë, built for a Kushite ruler who reigned approximately 45–62 CE — successor to the joint reign of Natakamani and Amanitore and one of the kings of the late prosperous phase of Meroitic civilisation. Original base approximately 8 metres per side; original height around 15 metres at the steep Meroitic slope. Excavated by George Reisner between 1920 and 1923. The substructure preserved a small vaulted burial chamber, fragmentary canopic jars naming the king in Meroitic cursive script, and a cache of bronze and faience amulets. The mortuary chapel on the east face produced relief fragments showing the king offering before the lion-headed god Apedemak — the principal Meroitic war deity, whose iconography is unique to the Kushite kingdom and has no Egyptian counterpart.

A pyramid for a king of the Meroitic high empire, dedicated to a lion god worshipped only in his kingdom, in a script his own court could read but the visiting Roman ambassadors of his generation could not.