Modern Heliopolis Modern Heliopolis Modern Heliopolis ' onMouseout='HidePop("13285")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Cairo">Cairo
Cairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
, also known as
مصر الجديدة,
Masr al-gidedah (literally "New Egypt" in Egyptian Arabic [masr al-jadīdah in Modern Standard Arabic]). The ancient city stood five miles (8 km) east of the
NileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world....
north of the apex of the
DeltaThe Nile Delta is the 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...
. Heliopolis originally refers to an area that covers the areas of
Ain ShamsAin Shams or Ein Shams is a suburb of Cairo, Egypt. The name means "eye of the sun" in Arabic, with reference to the fact that Ain Shams is built on top of the ancient city of Heliopolis, once the spiritual centre of ancient Egyptian sun-worship.According to the 10th century Jewish biblical...
,
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.
Now Heliopolis contains the earliest
templeA 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. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
obeliskAn obelisk is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top...
still in its original position. The 20.7 m / 68 ft high red granite Obelisk of
Senusret ISenusret I was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 BC to 1926 BC, and was one of the most powerful kings of this Dynasty. He was the son of Amenemhat I and his wife Nefertitanen. His own wife and sister was Neferu. She was also the mother of the successor...
of the
XIIthThe Eleventh , Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Middle Kingdom.-Rulers:Known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Twelfth Dynasty are as follows:...
Dynasty is at
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.
It is now in Al-Masalla area of
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
EgyptianEgyptian is the indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BCE, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century CE in the form of Coptic...
name (shown in hieroglyphs, right,
transliteratedIn the field of Egyptology, transliteration is the process of converting texts written in the Egyptian language to alphabetic symbols representing uniliteral hieroglyphs or their hieratic and demotic counterparts...
ỉwnw), is often
transcribedTranscription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken-language source, as in the proceedings of a court hearing. It can also mean the conversion of a written source into another medium, as by scanning books and making digital versions...
as
Iunu (literally "[place of] pillars"), and was often written in Greek as
On, and in
biblical HebrewBiblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions were written....
as אן ''ˀÔn
and און ''ˀĀwen.
Ancient Heliopolis
Heliopolis has been occupied since the Predynastic Period, with extensive building campaigns during the
OldThe Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The...
and
Middle KingdomThe 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*A part of Ocean Park Hong Kong*Middle Francia*The Middle Kingdom, an album by Celtic metal band Cruachan...
s. Today, unfortunately, it is mostly destroyed, its temples and other buildings having been used for the construction of mediæval
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
; most information about it comes from textual sources.
According to
Diodorus SiculusDiodorus Siculus , was a Greek historian who flourished in the 1st century BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doing than is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca historica...
Heliopolis was built by
ActisIn 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. They killed him and Actis escaped to Egypt. According to Diodorus Siculus, Actis built the city...
, one of the sons of
HeliosIn 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
RhodeIn 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...
, 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
AtumAtum 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-ˁ3t; "Great House") and
Per-Atum (
pr-ỉtmw; "Temple [lit. "House"] of Atum"). The city was also the original source of the worship of the
Ennead pantheonEnnead , an ancient Greek translation of the Egyptian word, Pesedjet, consists of a grouping of nine deities, most often appearing in the context of Egyptian mythology....
, although in later times, as
HorusHorus is one of the oldest and most significant of the deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horuses are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
gained in prominence, worship focused on the
synchrentisticSyncretism is the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. This may involve attempts to merge and analogise several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an...
solar deityA Solar Deity is a deity who represents the sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found through-out most of recorded history in various forms...
Ra-harakhty (literally
RaRA is an abbreviation or code which may refer to :Science* Right ascension, an astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system...
, (who is) HorusHorus is one of the oldest and most significant of the deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horuses are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
of the Two Horizons). During the
Amarna PeriodThe Amarna Period was an era of Egyptian history during the latter half of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten in what is now modern-day Amarna...
,
kingPharaoh 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. This was true only during the New Kingdom, specifically during the middle of...
AkhenatenAkhenaten was known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV . A Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, he ruled for 17 years and died in 1336 BC or 1334 BC...
introduced
henotheisticHenotheism is a term coined by Max Müller, to mean worshiping a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities...
worship of
AtenAten was the disk of the sun in ancient Egyptian mythology, and originally an aspect of Ra. He became the deity of the monotheistic — in fact, monistic — religion Atenism of Amenhotep IV, who took the name Akhenaten. The worship of Aten seemed to stop shortly after Akhenaten's death...
, the deified solar disc, built here a temple named
Wetjes Aten (
wṯs ỉtn "Elevating the Sun-disc"). Blocks from this temple were later used to build the city walls of mediaeval
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
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.
Greco-Roman Heliopolis
Heliopolis was well known to the
ancient GreeksAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
and
RomansThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
, being noted by most major geographers of the period, including:
PtolemyClaudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Greek ancestry. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and a poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under the Roman Empire, and is believed to have been born in the town of...
, iv. 5. § 54;
HerodotusHerodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture. He was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, ii. 3, 7, 59;
StraboStrabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born in a wealthy family from Amaseia in Pontus , which had recently become part of the Roman Empire.. He studied under various geographers and philosophers; first in Nysa, later in Rome...
, xvii. p. 805; Diodorus, i. 84, v. 57;
ArrianLucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian , a public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the Roman period...
,
Exp. Alex. iii. 1;
AelianAelian 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;
PlutarchPlutarch, born Plutarchos then, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 – 120, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
,
Solon. 26,
Is. et Osir. 33;
Diogenes LaertiusDiogenes Laërtius , was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is known about his life. He must have lived after...
, xviii. 8. § 6;
JosephusJosephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizen, 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;
CiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.Cicero is generally perceived to be one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome...
,
De Natura DeorumDe Natura Deorum is a work by Roman orator Cicero written in 45 BC. It is laid out in three "books", each of which discuss the theology of different Roman and Greek philosophers...
iii. 21;
Pliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, v. 9. § 11;
TacitusPublius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator 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 who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
,
Ann. vi. 28;
Pomponius MelaPomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman 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
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
geographer
Stephanus of ByzantiumStephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...
,
s. v. .
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
, on his march from
PelusiumPelusium 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 , Seyân , and Tell el-Farama...
to
MemphisMemphis 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),
BaalbekBaalbek is a town in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude , situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman 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
OrpheusOrpheus is an important figure from Greek mythology, the inspiration for subsequent Orphic cults, much of the literature, poetry and drama of ancient Greece and Rome and, due to his association with singing and the lyre, much dramatic Western classical music.Orpheus was called by Pindar "the...
,
HomerHomer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey...
,
PythagorasPythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy...
,
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
,
SolonSolon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and elegiac poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens...
, and other Greek philosophers. From Ichonuphys, who was lecturing there in 308 BC, and who numbered
EudoxusEudoxus was the name of two ancient Greeks:* 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
AlexandriaAlexandria , 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
AugustamnicaAugustamnica or Avgoustamnikai was a Roman province of Egypt created during the 5th century and was part of the Roman Catholic Church Diocese of Egypt...
province. Its population probably contained a considerable Arabic element. (Plin. vi. 34.) In Roman times
obeliskAn obelisk is a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top...
s were taken from its temples to adorn the northern cities of the Delta, and even across the Mediterranean to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, including the famed
Cleopatra's NeedleCleopatra'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. The London and New York ones are a pair, while the Paris one comes from a different original site where its twin remains...
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
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
, only to the southwest, caused the ruins to be ransacked for building materials. The site was known to the Arabs as ''ˁAyn Šams
("the well of the sun"), more recently as ''ˁArab al-Ḥiṣn. 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 ISenusret I was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 BC to 1926 BC, and was one of the most powerful kings of this Dynasty. He was the son of Amenemhat I and his wife Nefertitanen. His own wife and sister was Neferu. She was also the mother of the successor...
, the second king of the
Twelfth DynastyThe Eleventh , Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Middle Kingdom.-Rulers:Known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Twelfth Dynasty are as follows:...
) and a few granite blocks bearing the name of
Ramesses IIRamesses II was the third Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty...
.
Egyptian and Greco-Roman mythology said that the
phoenixThe phoenix is a mythical sacred firebird which originated in the ancient mythologies mentioned in the Phoenician Mythology and the Egyptian and later the Greek Mythology.- Appearance and Abilities :...
, after rising from the ashes of its predecessor, would bring the ashes to the altar of the sun god in Heliopolis.
See also
- Heliopolis (Cairo Suburb)
Modern Heliopolis Modern Heliopolis Modern Heliopolis ' onMouseout='HidePop("87075")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Heliopolis_style">Heliopolis style
Heliopolis style is an architectural style specific to an Egyptian district in eastern Cairo. At the beginning of the 20th century, the architects of the Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company which was the Belgian company responsible for the building of a new suburb “Heliopolis” ;...
, the architectural style of the modern Heliopolis Cairo suburb
External links