Mendes

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Mendes

Mendes , the 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....
name of the Ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, also known in 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....
as Per-Banebdjedet ("The Domain of the Ram Lord of Djedet") and Anpet, is known today as Tell El-Ruba .

The city

City

A city is an urban area with a high population density and a particular administrative, legal, or historical status.Large industrialized cities generally have advanced systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, house, and transportation and more....
is located in the eastern Nile 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....
and was the capital of the 16th 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....
of Kha

Kha

eading=Cyrillic letter Kha|Image=...
, until it was replaced by Thmuis

Thmuis

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
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....
. The two cities are only several hundred meters apart.

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Encyclopedia

Mendes , the Greek

Greek language

Ancient Egypt

City

Nile Delta

Lower Egypt

Nome (Egypt)

Kha

eading=Cyrillic letter Kha|Image=...
, until it was replaced by Thmuis

Thmuis

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
Egypt

Egypt

Twenty-ninth dynasty of Egypt

Nepherites I founded the Twenty-ninth Dynasty of ancient History of Ancient Egypt by defeating Amyrtaeus in open battle, and later putting him to death at Memphis, Egypt....
, Mendes was also the capital of Ancient Egypt, which lies on the Mendesian branch 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....
(now silted up), about 35 km east of al-Mansurah

Al Mansurah

El Mansoura is a city in Egypt, with a population of 420,000. It is the capital of the Dakahlia Governorate....
.

History

Mendes was a famous city in ancient times, attracting notice of most ancient geographers and historians, including 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. 42, 46. 166), Diodorus (i. 84), Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
(xvii. p. 802), Mela

Mela

Mela is a Sanskrit word meaning 'gathering' or 'to meet' or a Fair. It is used in the Indian subcontinent for all sizes of gathering and can be religious, commercial, cultural or sports....
(i. 9 § 9), 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. 10. s. 12), 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. § 51), and 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.). The city was the capital of the Mendesian nome, situated at the point where the Mendesian arm of the Nile (Scylax, p. 43; Ptol. iv, 5. § 10; Mendesium ostium, Pliny, Mela, ll. cc.) flows into the lake of Tanis

Tanis

The word Tanis has a number of meanings:* Tanis - An alternative metal group from Baton Rouge, Louisiana* Tanis Diena - A Latvian pig festival...
. Archaeological evidence attests to the existence of the town

Town

A town is a type of human settlement ranging from a few to several thousand inhabitants, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas; the precise meaning varies between countries and is not always a matter of legal definition....
at least as far back as the Naqada II period. Under the first Pharaoh

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....
s, Mendes quickly became a strong seat of provincial government and remained so throughout the Ancient Egyptian period. In Classical

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
times, the nome it governed was one of the nomes assigned to that division of the native army which was called the Calasires, and the city was celebrated for the manufacture of a perfume

Perfume

Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, animals, objects, and living spaces a pleasant smell....
designated as the Mendesium unguentum. (Plin. xiii. 1. s. 2.) Mendes, however, declined early, and disappears in the first century AD; since both Ptolemy (l. c.) and P. Aelius Aristides (iii. p. 160) mention Thmuis

Thmuis

Thmuis is a city of Upper and Lower Egypt, on the canal east of the River Nile, between its Tanitic and Mendesian branches. In Greco-Roman Egypt, Thumis replaced Djedet as the capital of Lower Egypt's 16th Nome of Kha [ Herodotus ]....
as the only town of note in the Mendesian nome. From its position at the junction of the river and the lake, it was probably encroached upon by their waters, after the canal

Canal

Canals are artificial channels for water. There are two types of canals: Aqueduct canals, which are used for the conveyance and delivery of water, and waterways, which are navigable transportation canals used for passage of goods and people, often connected to existing lakes, rivers, or oceans....
s fell into neglect under the Macedonian kings, and when they were repaired by Augustus (Sueton

Suetonius

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was an equestrian and a historian during the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies on the battles of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar until Domitian, entitled On the Life of the Caesars....
. Aug. 18, 63) Thmuis had attracted its trade

Trade

Tradeis the willing exchange of goods, Service , or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter , the direct exchange of goods and services....
and population.

Religion

The chief deities of Mendes were the ram

Sheep

#REDIRECT Domestic sheep...
deity Banebdjedet (lit. Ba of the Lord of Djedet), who was the Ba

Egyptian soul

The Ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul was made up of five parts: the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. In addition to these components of the soul there was the human body ....
of Osiris

Osiris

Osiris was an Egyptian mythology, usually called the god of the Afterlife.Osiris is one of the oldest gods for whom records have been found; one of the oldest known attestations of his name is on the Palermo Stone of around 2500 BC....
, and his consort, the fish goddess Hatmehit

Hatmehit

In Egyptian mythology, Hatmehit, or Hatmehyt was a fish-goddess, originally a deification of the Nile River, by the people in the area around the delta city of Per-banebdjedet, Mendes....
. With their child Har-pa-khered ("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....
the Child"), they formed the triad of Mendes.

The ram

Ram

Ram, ram, or RAM as a non-acronymic wordAs a non-acronymic word Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:...
deity of Mendes was described by 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....
in his History (Book II, 42)[Robin Waterfield translation] as being represented with the head and fleece

Fleece

Fleece is a general term for a soft bulky fabric with deep pile, and may refer to:* The woolen coat of a domestic sheep, especially after having been sheep shearinged ...
of a goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep: both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae....
: “...whereas anyone with a sanctuary of Mendes or who comes from the province of Mendes, will have nothing to do with (sacrificing

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is commonly known as the practice of offering food, objects , or the lives of animals or people to the deity as an act of propitiation or worship....
) goats, but uses sheep

Sheep

#REDIRECT Domestic sheep...
as his sacrificial animals... They say that Heracles’ overriding desire was to see Zeus

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
, but Zeus was refusing to let him do so. Eventually, as a result of Heracles’ pleading, Zeus came up with a plan. He skinned a ram and cut off his head, then he held the head in front of himself, wore the fleece, and showed himself to Heracles like that. That is why the Egyptian statues of Zeus have a ram’s head, is why rams are sacred to the Thebans, and they do not use them as sacrificial animals. However there is just one day of the year--the day of the festival of Zeus--when they chop up a single ram, skin it, dress the statue of Zeus in the way mentioned, and then bring the statue of Heracles up close to the statue of Zeus. Then everyone around the sanctuary

Sanctuary

Sanctuary has multiple meanings. A sanctuary is the consecrated area of a church or temple around its church tabernacle or altar. An animal sanctuary is a place where animals live and are protected....
mourns the death of the ram and finally they bury it in a sacred tomb.”

Presumably following Herodotus' description, the occultist Eliphas Levi

Eliphas Levi

Eliphas L?vi, born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a France occult author and magic ."Eliphas L?vi," the name under which he published his books, was his attempt to translation or transliteration his given names "Alphonse Louis" into Hebrew language....
in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) called his goat-headed conception of Baphomet

Baphomet

Baphomet is a name of unestablished origin, but later appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Papal Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 1300s....
the "Baphomet of Mendes", thus popularizing and perpetuating this incorrect attribution, which has given rise to a flood of spurious connections, such as "The Goat of Mendes" by the blackened death metal

Blackened death metal

Blackened death metal is a style of extreme metal that mixes elements of black metal and death metal. During the mid 1980s, bands such as Hellhammer and Celtic Frost straddled the still-vague genres of thrash metal, black metal and death metal....
band Akercocke

Akercocke

Akercocke is a Great Britain progressive metal blackened death metal band. They take their name from a talking monkey in Robert Nye's interpretation of the Faust-legend, and are notable for their heavily Satanism and sexual lyrical content....
.

Ruins

The site is today the largest surviving tell

Tell

Tell, tel , meaning "hill" or "mound", is a type of archaeology site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by long human occupation....
in the Nile delta, and consists of both Tell El-Ruba (the site of the main temple enclosure) and Tell El-Timai (the settlement site of Thmuis to the south). Overall, Mendes is about 3km long from north to south and averages about 900m east-to-west. An Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom

Necropolis

A necropolis is a large cemetery or burial place . Apart from the occasional application of the word to modern cemeteries outside large towns, the term...
is estimated to contain over 9,000 interments. Several campaigns of 20th-century excavations have been led by North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
n institutions, including New York University

New York University

New York University is a private university, nonsectarian, research university in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan....
and the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public university research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated a mile north of the city's Financial District, Toronto on grounds that surround Queen's Park ....
, as well as a Pennsylvania State University

Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, Land-grant university, space grant college public research university located in State College, PA, Pennsylvania, United States....
team led by Donald Redford. Under the direction of Prof. Redford, the current excavations are concentrating on a number of areas in and around the main 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....
. Work on the New Kingdom

New Kingdom

The New Kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in ancient Egyptian History of Ancient Egypt between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC, covering the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt, and Twentieth dynasty of Egypt....
processional-style temple has recently uncovered foundation deposits of Merenptah below the second pylon. It is thought that four separate pylons or gates existed for each of the avatar

Avatar

Avatar or Avatara , often translated into English as incarnation, literally means descent and usually implies a deliberate descent from higher spiritual realms to lower realms of existence for special purposes....
s of the main deity worshiped here. Evidence has suggested that their construction dates from at least the Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom of Egypt

The middle kingdom is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh dynasty of Egypt to the end of the Fourteenth dynasty of Egypt, roughly between 2040 BC and 1640 BC....
, as foundation deposits were uncovered. The original structures were buried, added to, or incorporated into later ones over time by later rulers. Billy Morin, recently at University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge , located in Cambridge, England, is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation university in the Anglosphere....
in England

England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
and now at Leiden University in the Netherlands led a team that investigated these further and uncovered several mud-brick walls acting as pylons and their foundations . Over thirty of the bricks were stamped with the cartouche

Cartouche

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oblong inclosure with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a pharaoh name, coming into use during the beginning of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt under Pharaoh Sneferu....
of Menkheperre

Menkheperre

Menkheperre, son of Pharaoh Pinedjem I by wife Henuttawy , was the High Priests of Amun at Thebes in Ancient Egypt from 1045 BC to 992 BC and de facto ruler of the south of the country....
, the pre-nomen of Thutmose III

Thutmose III

Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his aunt, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh....
. A cemetery

Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which death body and cremation are burial. The term cemetery implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground....
of sacred rams was discovered in the northwest corner of Tell El-Ruba. Monument

Monument

A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of past events....
s bearing the names 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....
, Merneptah

Merneptah

Merneptah was the fourth ruler of the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt of Ancient Egypt. He ruled Egypt for almost ten years between late July or early August 1213 to May 2, 1203 BC, according to contemporary historical records....
. and Ramesses III

Ramesses III

Usimare Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt and is considered to be the last great New Kingdom king to wield any substantial authority over Egypt....
were also found. A temple attested by its foundation deposits was built by Amasis. The tomb of Nepherites I, which Donald Reford concluded was destroyed by the Persians, was discovered by a joint team from the University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, Washington, United States. Also known as Washington and locally as UW or the U, it is the largest university in the northwestern United States and the oldest public university on the west coast....
and the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

Stratification

Stratification is the building up of layers, and can have several meanings*Social stratification, is the dividing of a society into levels based on wealth or Power ....
from the late Old Kingdom

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 ....
/First Intermediate Period down to the First Dynasty. Coring results suggest that future excavations in that sondage should expect to take the stratification down into the early Naqada

Naqada

Naqada is a town on the west bank of the Nile in the Egyptian governorate of Qena Governorate. It was known in Ancient Egypt as Nubt and in classical antiquity as Ombos....
Period. The material excavated so far is already the longest uninterrupted stratification for all of the Nile Delta, and possibly for all of Egypt. An architectural and ceramic report on this unprecedented sequence is currently in progress.

Mendes

History

Religion

Ruins

External links