Hermopolis

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Hermopolis

Hermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis (Ammian, ii. 16) or Hermopolis Megale (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....
: , Steph. B.

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.; Ptol.

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. § 60) or Hermupolis (It. Anton.

Antonine Itinerary

The Antonine Itinerary is a register of the stations and distances along the various roads of the Roman empire, containing directions how to get from one Roman settlement to another....
pp 154, seq.) is the site of ancient Khmun, and is located near the modern 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....
ian town of El Ashmunein (from Coptic

Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
: Shmounein) in Al Minya governorate.

n, the Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
ian name of the city, means "8-town", after the Ogdoad

Ogdoad

In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad were eight deities worshipped in Hermopolis during what is called the Old Kingdom, the third through sixth dynasties, dated between 2686 to 2134 B.C....
, a group of eight deities who represented the world before creation.

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Encyclopedia

Hermopolis Magna or simply Hermopolis (Ammian, ii. 16) or Hermopolis Megale (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....
: , Steph. B.

Stephanus of Byzantium

Ptolemy

Antonine Itinerary

Egypt

Coptic language

Etymology

Khmun, the Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ogdoad

Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
as (Shmounein), from which the modern name, El Ashmunein, is derived. In 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....
, the city was called Hermopolis, after Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
, who the Greeks identified with Thoth

Thoth

Thoth, , though variations are accepted , was considered one of the more important god of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Sacred Ibis....
, because the city was the main cult center of Thoth, the god of majic, healing and wisdom, and the patron of scribes.

History

The city was the capital of the Hermopolite nome (the fifteenth 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....
of Upper Egypt

Upper Egypt

File:Ancient Egypt map-en.svgUpper Egypt is a narrow strip of land that extends from the Cataracts of the Nile section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Asyut is sometimes known as Middle Egypt....
) in the Heptanomis

Heptanomis

'Heptanomis' , the modern Mlesr-Wostani'>' of the Arabian geographers, or Middle Egypt, may be described generally as the district which separates the Thebaid from the Nile Delta....
. Hermopolis stood on the borders of Upper and 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....
, and, for many ages, the Thebaïd

Thebaid

The Thebaid or Thebais is the region of ancient Egypt containing the thirteen southernmost nome of Upper Egypt, from Abydos, Egypt to Aswan....
or upper country extended much further to the north than in more recent periods. As the border town, Hermopolis was a place of great resort and opulence, ranking second to Thebes

Thebes, Egypt

Thebes was a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile . It was the capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian Nome ....
alone. A little to south of the city was the castle of Hermopolis, at which point the river craft from the upper country paid toll (Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
xvii. p. 813; Ptol. loc. cit.; the Bahr Jusuf in Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
). The grottos of Beni Hasan

Beni Hasan

Beni Hasan Beni Hasan is a cemetery site located in the region known as Middle Egypt, which is the area between Asyut and Memphis.[1] While there are some Old Kingdom burials at the site, it was primarily used during the Middle Kingdom period which spanned from 2040 to 1640 BCE.[2] To the south of the cemetery is Speos Artemidos a...
, near Antinopolis

Antinopolis

Antinopolis was a city founded at an older Egyptian village by the Roman Empire emperor Hadrian to commemorate his deified young eromenos, Antinous, on the east bank of the Nile, not far from the site in Upper Egypt where Antinous drowned in 130 A.D....
, upon the opposite bank of the Nile, were the common cemetery of the Hermopolitans, for, although the river divided the city from its necropolis, yet, from the wide curve of the western hills at this point, it was easier to ferry the dead over the water than to transport them by land to the hills. The principal deities worshipped at Hermopolis were Typhôn

Typhon

In Greek mythology, Typhon , also Typheus/Typhoeus , Typhaon or Typhos is the final son of Gaia , fathered by Tartarus, and is the god of wind....
and Thoth

Thoth

Thoth, , though variations are accepted , was considered one of the more important god of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Sacred Ibis....
. Typhon was represented by a hippopotamus, on which sat a hawk fighting with a serpent. (Plut.

Plutarch

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
Is. et Osir, p. 371, D.) Thoth, who the Ancient Greeks associated with Hermes

Hermes

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....
eras, devastated the Heptanomis; but, on the other hand, its structures have undergone severe changes under its Muslim

Muslim

:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits "....
rulers, who ave burned its stones for lime or carried them away for building materials. A surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyrus

Oxyrhynchus Papyri

The Oxyrhynchus papyri are a very numerous group of manuscripts discovered by archaeologists at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt....
of the 3rd century AD indicates that high-rise buildings with seven stories existed in the town.

The city is still a titular diocese in the Roman Catholic Church. and in the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Structures

The town is in a ruinous state. However, some important ruins remain. The Ibis-headed god, was, with his accompanying emblems, the Ibis

Ibis

The ibises are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae. They all have long down curved bills, and usually feed as a group, probing mud for food items, usually crustaceans....
and the Cynocephalus or ape, the most conspicuous among the sculptures upon the great portico of the temple of Hermopolis. His designation in inscriptions was "The Lord of Eshmoon". This portico was a work of the Pharaonic era

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
, but the erections of the Ptolemies at Hermopolis were on a scale of great extent and magnificence, and, although raised by Greek monarchs, are essentially Egyptian in their conception and execution. The portico, the only remnant of the temple, consists of a double row of pillars, six in each row. The architraves are formed of five stones; each passes from tile centre of one pillar to that of the next, according to a well-known usage with Egyptian builders. The intercolumnation of the centre pillars is wider than that of the others; and the stone over the centre is twenty-five feet and six inches long. These columns were painted yellow, red, and blue in alternate bands. There is also a peculiarity in the pillars of the Hermopolitan portico peculiar to themselves, or, at least, discovered only again in the temple of Gournou. (Dénon, L'Egypte, plate 41.) Instead of being formed of large masses placed horizontally above each other, they are composed of irregular pieces, so artfully adjusted that it is difficult to detect the lines of junction. The bases of these columns represent the lower leaves of the lotus; next come a number of concentric rings, like the hoops of a cask; and above these the pillars appear like bunches of reeds held together by horizontal bonds. Including the capital, each column is about 40 feet in height; the greatest circumference is about 28 1/2 feet, about five feet from the ground, for they diminish in thickness both towards the base and towards the capital. The widest part of the intercolumnation is 17 feet; the other pillars are 13 feet apart.

Museum

Currently there is a small open air museum in which stand two massive statues of Thoth

Thoth

Thoth, , though variations are accepted , was considered one of the more important god of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Sacred Ibis....
as a baboon worshipping the sun, and a few carved blocks of masonry.

Famous people from Hermopolis Magna

Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa
Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa

Severus ibn al-Muqaffa? or Severus of El Ashmunein was a Copts Bishop, author and historian. In Arabic language, his name is spelled Sawirus ??????....