Heliopolis (ancient)

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Heliopolis (ancient)

Heliopolis (or On) (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: or ), meaning sun-city, was one of the most ancient cities of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, and capital of the 13th Lower Egypt

Lower Egypt

Lower Egypt is the northern-most section of Egypt. It refers to the Fertile Crescent Nile Delta region, which stretches from the area between El-Aiyat and Zawyet Dahshur, south of modern-day Cairo, and the Mediterranean Sea....
ian nome

Nome (Egypt)

A nome was a subnational administrative division of ancient Egypt. Today's use of the Greek nome rather than the Egyptian language term sepat came about during the Ptolemaic Egypt period....
. Its name also refers to an unrelated modern suburb

Heliopolis (Cairo Suburb)

Modern Heliopolis is a district of Cairo, Egypt. The town was established by the Cairo Electric Railways & Heliopolis Oases Company, headed by the Belgium industrialist Baron Empain, beginning in 1905....
of Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , which means "the triumphant", is the Cairo and largest city of Egypt.It is the most populous metropolitan area in Egypt and is also one of the most populous in the world....
, also known as ??? ???????, Masr al-gidedah (literally "New Egypt" in Egyptian Arabic [masr al-jidedah in Modern Standard Arabic]). The ancient city stood five miles (8 km) east of the Nile

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the List of rivers by length in the world.The Nile has two major tributary, the White Nile and Blue Nile, the latter being the source of most of the Nile's water and silt, but the former being the longer of the two....
north of the apex of the Delta

Nile Delta

The Nile Delta is the River delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas?from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline?and is a rich agricultural region....
.

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Encyclopedia

Heliopolis (or On) (Greek

Greek language

Egypt

Lower Egypt

Nome (Egypt)

Heliopolis (Cairo Suburb)

Cairo

Cairo , which means "the triumphant", is the Cairo and largest city of Egypt.It is the most populous metropolitan area in Egypt and is also one of the most populous in the world....
, also known as ??? ???????, Masr al-gidedah (literally "New Egypt" in Egyptian Arabic [masr al-jidedah in Modern Standard Arabic]). The ancient city stood five miles (8 km) east of the Nile

Nile

Nile Delta

Ain Shams

Ain Shams or Ein Shams is a suburb of Cairo, Egypt. The name means "eye of the sun" in Arabic language, with reference to the fact that Ain Shams is built on top of the ancient city of Heliopolis , once the spiritual centre of ancient Ancient Egypt Solar deity....
, Al-Matariyyah

Al-Matariyyah

Geography Al-Matariyyah or Mataria or AI-Matariya is a district in the north of Greater Cairo near Ain Shams district which was also a part of the ancient Heliopolis city....
and Tel Al-Hisn. In ancient times it was the principal seat of sun-worship, thus its name, which means city of the sun in Greek

Ancient greek language

#REDIRECT Ancient Greek...
.

Now Heliopolis contain the earliest temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A ??templum?? constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur....
obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk An Obelisks is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid like shape at the top. Ancient obelisks were made of a single piece of stone, a monolith; however, most modern obelisks are made of individual stones, and can even have interior spaces....
still in its original position. The 20.7 m / 68 ft high red granite Obelisk of Senusret I

Senusret I

Senusret I was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt of Ancient Egypt. He ruled from 1971 BC to 1926 BC, and was one of the most powerful kings of this Dynasty....
of the XIIth

Twelfth dynasty of Egypt

The Eleventh , Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Middle Kingdom of Egypt....
Dynasty

List of Egyptian dynasties

This page lists articles on dynasty of Ancient Egypt.See also: List of Pharaohs - Egyptian chronology - Conventional Egyptian chronology...
is at Al-Matariyyah

Al-Matariyyah

Geography Al-Matariyyah or Mataria or AI-Matariya is a district in the north of Greater Cairo near Ain Shams district which was also a part of the ancient Heliopolis city....
part of Heliopolis

Heliopolis (ancient)

Heliopolis , meaning sun-city, was one of the most ancient cities of Egypt, and capital of the 13th Lower Egyptian Nome . Its name also refers to an unrelated Heliopolis of Cairo, also known as ??? ???????, Masr al-gidedah ....
. It is now in Al-Masalla area of Al-Matariyyah

Al-Matariyyah

Geography Al-Matariyyah or Mataria or AI-Matariya is a district in the north of Greater Cairo near Ain Shams district which was also a part of the ancient Heliopolis city....
district near Ain Shams district (Heliopolis). It is tall and weighs 120 tons or 240,000 pounds.

The city's Egyptian

Egyptian language

Egyptian is a branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages language family along with the Chadic languages, Berber languages, Semitic languages, Cushitic languages and possibly Omotic languages languages....
name (shown in hieroglyphs, right, transliterated

Transliteration of ancient Egyptian

In the field of Egyptology, transliteration is the process of converting texts written in the Egyptian language to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral Egyptian hieroglyph or their hieratic and demotic Egyptian counterparts....
?wnw), is often transcribed

Transcription (linguistics)

Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing....
as Iunu (literally "[place of] pillars"), and was often written in Greek as On, and in biblical Hebrew

Biblical Hebrew language

Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew languages in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelites inscriptions were written....
as ?? ?Ôn and ??? ?Awen.

Ancient Heliopolis

Heliopolis has been occupied since the Predynastic Period, with extensive building campaigns during the Old

Old Kingdom

The Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to that period in the 3rd millennium BCE when Ancient Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement ? this was the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley ....
and Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom

The Middle Kingdom may refer to*China*The Middle Kingdom of Egypt*A group of midwest U.S. states associated with the Society for Creative Anachronism...
s. Today, unfortunately, it is mostly destroyed, its temples and other buildings having been used for the construction of mediæval Cairo

Cairo

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus , was a Roman Greece historian who flourished in the 1st century BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agira in Sicily ....
Heliopolis was built by Actis

Actis

In Greek mythology, Actis was one of the Heliadae, a son of Rhodus and Helios. Actis, along with his brothers, Triopas, Macar and Candalus, were jealous of a fifth brother, Tenages's, skill at science....
, one of the sons of Helios

Helios

Helios is the god of sun.In Greek mythology the sun was personified as Helios . Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion , while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn....
and Rhode

Rhode

In Greek mythology, Rhode was one of the eldest Oceanids, a daughter of Tethys and Oceanus. Though she does not appear among the lists of nereids in Iliad XVIII or Bibliotheke 1.2.7, such an ancient island nymph in other contexts might gain various Olympian parentages: she was thought of as a daughter of Poseidon with any of several...
, who named the city after his father. While all Greek cities were destroyed during the flood, the Egyptian cities including Heliopolis survived. The chief deity of Heliopolis was the god Atum

Atum

Atum is an important deity in Egyptian mythology, whose cult centred on the city of Heliopolis . His name is thought to be derived from the word 'tem' which means to complete or finish....
, who was worshipped in the primary temple, which was known by the names Per-Aat (pr-?3t; "Great House") and Per-Atum (pr-?tmw; "Temple [lit. "House"] of Atum"). The city was also the original source of the worship of the Ennead pantheon

Ennead

Ennead , an ancient Greek translation of the Egyptian word, Pesedjet, consists of a grouping of nine deity, most often appearing in the context of Egyptian mythology....
, although in later times, as Horus

Horus

Horus is a god of the Ancient Egyptian religion, most commonly known by the Greek language version Horus, of the Egyptian language Heru/Har....
gained in prominence, worship focused on the synchrentistic

Syncretism

Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term may refer to attempts to merge and analogy several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity allowing for an inclu...
solar deity

Solar deity

A Solar Deity , is a deity who represents the sun, or an aspect of it. People have worshiped these for all of recorded history. Hence, many beliefs have formed around this worship, such as the "missing sun" found in many cultures ....
Ra-harakhty (literally Ra
Ra

Ra is an ancient Egyptian Solar deity . By the Fifth dynasty of Egypt he became a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon, with other deities representing other positions of the sun....
, (who is) Horus
Horus

Horus is a god of the Ancient Egyptian religion, most commonly known by the Greek language version Horus, of the Egyptian language Heru/Har....
of the Two Horizons). During the Amarna Period

Amarna Period

The first recorded formal relations of Egypt with foreign countries were under Amenhotep III. Under his reign, Egypt enjoyed an economic boom. He built many temples and monuments across Egypt to honor his favorite deity, Sobek, who always was depicted as a crocodile....
, king

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. In antiquity this title began to be used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader of united ancient Egypt, only during the New Kingdom, specifically, during the middle of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt....
Akhenaten

Akhenaten

Akhenaten , was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, who died 1336 BC or 1334 BC. He is especially noted for attempting to compel the Egyptian population in the monotheism worship of Aten, although there are doubts as to how successful he was at this....
introduced monotheistic

Monotheism

In theology, monotheism is the belief that only one god exists. The concept of "monotheism" tends to be dominated by the concept of God in the Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the Neoplatonism concept of God as put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite....
or perhaps henotheistic

Henotheism

Henotheism is a term coined by Max M?ller, to mean worshiping a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deity. M?ller made the term central to his criticism of Western theology and religion exceptionalism , focusing on a cultural dogma which held "monotheism" to be both fundamentally well-defined and inhe...
worship of Aten

Aten

Aten was the disk of the sun in ancient Egyptian mythology, and originally an aspect of Ra. He became the deity of the monotheism ? in fact, monism ? religion Atenism of Amenhotep IV, who took the name Akhenaten....
, the deified solar disc, built here a temple named Wetjes Aten (w?s ?tn "Elevating the Sun-disc"). Blocks from this temple were later used to build the city walls of mediaeval Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , which means "the triumphant", is the Cairo and largest city of Egypt.It is the most populous metropolitan area in Egypt and is also one of the most populous in the world....
and can be seen in some of the city gates. The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of the god Ra, had its centre here, and possessed a formal burial ground north of the city.

As the capital of Egypt for a period of time, grain was stored in Heliopolis for the winter months, when many people would descend on the town to be fed, leading to it gaining the title place of bread. The Book of the Dead

Book of the Dead

"The Book of Dead" is the common name for the ancient Egyptian funerary text known as "Spells of Coming" "Forth By Day". The book of dead was a description of the ancient Egyptian conception of the Duat and a collection of hymns, spells, and instructions to allow the deceased to pass through obstacles in the afterlife....
goes further and describes how Heliopolis was the place of multiplying bread, recounting a myth in which Horus feeds the masses there with only 7 loaves.

Greco-Roman Heliopolis

Heliopolis was well known to the ancient Greeks

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
and Romans

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, being noted by most major geographers of the period, including: Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
, iv. 5. § 54; Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
, ii. 3, 7, 59; Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
, xvii. p. 805; Diodorus, i. 84, v. 57; Arrian

Arrian

File:Flavius_Arrianus.jpgLucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Ancient Rome historian , a public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the Roman and Byzantine Greece period....
, Exp. Alex. iii. 1; Aelian

Aelian

Aelian or Aelianus may refer to:*Aelianus Tacticus, Greek military writer of the 2nd century, who lived in Rome*Casperius Aelianus, Praetorian Prefect, executed by Trajan...
, H. A. vi. 58, xii. 7; Plutarch

Plutarch

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
, Solon. 26, Is. et Osir. 33; Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
, xviii. 8. § 6; Josephus

Josephus

Josephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizenship, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70....
, Ant. Jud. xiii. 3, C. Apion. i. 26; Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Ancient Rome philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Constitution of the Roman Republic. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest rhetoric and prose stylists....
, De Natura Deorum
De Natura Deorum

De Natura Deorum is a work by Ancient Rome orator Cicero written in 45 BC. It is laid out in three "books", each of which discuss the theology of different Roman and Greek philosophy....
iii. 21; Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
, v. 9. § 11; Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman Senate and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories —examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those that reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors....
, Ann. vi. 28; Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela, who wrote around 43, was the earliest Roman Empire geographer.His little work is a mere compendium, occupying less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures....
, iii. 8. The city also merits attention by the Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
geographer Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephanus of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus was the author of an important Gazetteer entitled Ethnica . Of the dictionary itself only meagre fragments survive, but we possess an epitome compiled by one Hermolaus....
, s. v. .

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
, on his march from Pelusium

Pelusium

Pelusium was a city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to the southeast of the modern Port Said. Alternative names include Sena and Per -Amun , Pelousion , Sin , Sey?n , and Tell el-Farama ....
to Memphis

Memphis, Egypt

Memphis was the ancient capital of the first Nome of Lower Egypt, and of the Old Kingdom of Egypt from its foundation until around 2200 BC and later for shorter periods during the New Kingdom, and an administrative centre throughout ancient history....
, halted at this city (Arrian, iii. 1); and, according to Macrobius (Saturn. i. 23), Baalbek

Baalbek

Baalbek is a town in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude 1,170 m , situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman Empire period, when Baalbek, known as Heliopolis was one of the largest sanctuaries in the Empire....
, or the Syrian Heliopolis, was a priest-colony from its Egyptian namesake.

The temple of Ra was said to have been, to a special degree, a depository for royal records, and Herodotus states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in matters of history of all the Egyptians. Heliopolis flourished as a seat of learning during the Greek period; the schools of philosophy and astronomy are claimed to have been frequented by Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary figure, probably from Thracian origin, venerated by the Greeks and Thracians of the Classical age as a chief among poets and musicians, and the perfector of the lyre invented by Hermes....
, Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
, Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
, Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
, Solon

Solon

Solon was an Athens statesman, lawmaker, and lyric poetry. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic period in Greece Athens....
, and other Greek philosophers. From Ichonuphys, who was lecturing there in 308 BC, and who numbered Eudoxus

Eudoxus

Eudoxus was the name of two ancient Greece:* Eudoxus of Cnidus , Greek astronomer and mathematician.* Eudoxus of Cyzicus , Greek navigator....
among his pupils, the Greek mathematician learned the true length of the year and month, upon which he formed his octaeterid, or period of eight years or ninety-nine months. Ptolemy II had Manethon, the chief priest of Heliopolis, collect his history of the ancient kings of Egypt from its archives. The later Ptolemies probably took little interest in their "father" Ra, and Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
had eclipsed the learning of Heliopolis; thus with the withdrawal of royal favour Heliopolis quickly dwindled, and the students of native lore deserted it for other temples supported by a wealthy population of pious citizens. By the 1st century BC, however, Strabo found them deserted, and the town itself almost uninhabited, although priests were still there.

In Roman times Heliopolis belonged to the Augustamnica province. Its population probably contained a considerable Arabic element. (Plin. vi. 34.) In Roman times obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk An Obelisks is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid like shape at the top. Ancient obelisks were made of a single piece of stone, a monolith; however, most modern obelisks are made of individual stones, and can even have interior spaces....
s were taken from its temples to adorn the northern cities of the Delta, and even across the Mediterranean to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
, including the famed Cleopatra's Needle

Cleopatra's Needle

Cleopatra's Needle is the popular name for each of three Ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London, Paris, and New York City during the nineteenth century....
that now resides on the Thames embankment, London (this obelisk was part of a pair, the other being located in Central Park, New York) . Finally the growth of Fustat and Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , which means "the triumphant", is the Cairo and largest city of Egypt.It is the most populous metropolitan area in Egypt and is also one of the most populous in the world....
, only to the southwest, caused the ruins to be ransacked for building materials. The site was known to the Arabs as ?Ayn Šams ("the well of the sun"), more recently as ?Arab al-?i?n. It has now been brought for the most part under cultivation, but the ancient city walls of crude brick are to be seen in the fields on all sides, and the position of the great temple is marked by an obelisk still standing (the earliest known, being one of a pair set up by Senusret I

Senusret I

Senusret I was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt of Ancient Egypt. He ruled from 1971 BC to 1926 BC, and was one of the most powerful kings of this Dynasty....
, the second king of the Twelfth Dynasty

Twelfth dynasty of Egypt

The Eleventh , Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Middle Kingdom of Egypt....
) and a few granite blocks bearing the name of Ramesses II

Ramesses II

Ramesses II was the third Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. He is often regarded as Ancient Egypt's greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh....
.

Heliopolis (ancient)

Ancient Heliopolis

Greco-Roman Heliopolis

Endnotes

See also

External links