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Thebes (Thebai) was a city 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....
 located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river 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....
 . It was the capital of Waset, the fourth 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....
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....
. (Waset was also a name for the city.) It was the capital of Egypt during part of the 11th Dynasty
Eleventh dynasty of Egypt

The Eleventh dynasty of ancient Egypt was one group of rulers, whose earlier members are grouped with the four preceding dynasties to form the First Intermediate Period, while the later members are considered part of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt....
 (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....
) and most of the 18th Dynasty
Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt

The Eighteenth Dynasty is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt. As well as a number of Egypt's most powerful pharaohs, it included Tutankhamun, whose tomb, uncovered by Howard Carter in 1922, was one of the greatest of all archaeological discoveries, being completely undisturbed by tomb robbers....
 (New Kingdom), when Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut , meaning, Foremost of Noble Ladies, was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt of Ancient Egypt. She is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an Indigenous peoples Egyptian dynasty....
 built a Red Sea fleet to facilitate trade between Thebes Red Sea port of Elim, modern Quasir, and Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba.






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Thebes (Thebai) was a city 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....
 located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river 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....
 . It was the capital of Waset, the fourth 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....
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....
. (Waset was also a name for the city.) It was the capital of Egypt during part of the 11th Dynasty
Eleventh dynasty of Egypt

The Eleventh dynasty of ancient Egypt was one group of rulers, whose earlier members are grouped with the four preceding dynasties to form the First Intermediate Period, while the later members are considered part of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt....
 (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....
) and most of the 18th Dynasty
Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt

The Eighteenth Dynasty is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt. As well as a number of Egypt's most powerful pharaohs, it included Tutankhamun, whose tomb, uncovered by Howard Carter in 1922, was one of the greatest of all archaeological discoveries, being completely undisturbed by tomb robbers....
 (New Kingdom), when Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut , meaning, Foremost of Noble Ladies, was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt of Ancient Egypt. She is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an Indigenous peoples Egyptian dynasty....
 built a Red Sea fleet to facilitate trade between Thebes Red Sea port of Elim, modern Quasir, and Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Traders bought frankincense, myrrh, bitumen, natron, fine woven linen, juniper oil and copper amulets for the mortuary industry at Karnak with Nubian gold. With the 19th Dynasty
Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt

The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, New Kingdom....
 the seat of government moved to 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....
. The archaeological remains of Thebes offer a striking testimony to Egyptian civilization at its height. The Greek poet 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....
 extolled the wealth of Thebes in the Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
, Book 9 (c. 8th Century BC): "... in Egyptian Thebes the heaps of precious ingots gleam, the hundred-gated Thebes."

The name Thebai is 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....
 designation of the ancient 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....
 niwt "(The) City" and niwt-rst "(The) Southern City". At the seat of the Theban triad
Egyptian mythology

Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Egypt over at least 3,000 years, from the Predynastic Egypt until the adoption of Coptic Christianity in the early centuries Common Era....
 of Amun
Amun

Amun, reconstructed Egyptian language Yamanu , was the name of a deity in Egyptian mythology who gradually rose from being an abstract concept to the patron deity of Thebes, Egypt and one of the most important deities in Ancient Egypt before fading into obscurity....
, Mut
Mut

Mut, which meant mother in the ancient Egyptian language, was an ancient Egyptian mother goddess with multiple aspects that changed over the thousands of years of the culture....
, and Khonsu, Thebes was known in the Egyptian language
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....
 from the end of the New Kingdom as niwt-imn, "The City of Amun
Amun

Amun, reconstructed Egyptian language Yamanu , was the name of a deity in Egyptian mythology who gradually rose from being an abstract concept to the patron deity of Thebes, Egypt and one of the most important deities in Ancient Egypt before fading into obscurity....
." This found its way into the Hebrew Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
 as ?? ???? no? ?amôn (Nahum
Book of Nahum

The book of Nahum is a book in the Bible's Old Testament and Judaism Tanakh. It stands seventh in order among what are known as the twelve Minor Prophets....
 3:8),"no" in Hebrew meaning city with "no amon" or "City of Amon" referring to the Egyptian deity Amon-Ra, most likely it is also the same as ?? ("No") (Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel

The Book of Ezekiel is a book of the Hebrew Bible named after the prophet Ezekiel....
 30:14). In Greek this name was rendered Diospolis, "City of Zeus", as 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....
 was the god whom the Greeks identified with Amun
Amun

Amun, reconstructed Egyptian language Yamanu , was the name of a deity in Egyptian mythology who gradually rose from being an abstract concept to the patron deity of Thebes, Egypt and one of the most important deities in Ancient Egypt before fading into obscurity....
, see interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca

Interpretatio graeca is a Latin term for the common tendency of ancient Greek writers to equate foreign divinities to members of their own pantheon....
. The Greeks surnamed the city megale, "the Great", to differentiate it from numerous other cities called Diospolis. The 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....
 rendered the name Diospolis Magna.

In modern usage, the mortuary temple
Mortuary temple

Mortuary temples were temples constructed adjacent to, or in the vicinity of, royal tombs in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and New Kingdom periods of Ancient Egypt....
s and tomb
Tomb

For the New York prison see The Tombs.A tomb is a repository for the remains of the death. The term generally refers to any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes....
s on the west bank of the river Nile are generally thought of as part of Thebes.

Two towns at or near two important temples on the outskirts of the city are now called Luxor
Luxor

Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. Its population numbers 376,022 , and its area is about . As the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Egypt, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor Temple standing wi...
 (Arabic: ??????, Al-Uq?ur, "The palaces") and al-Karnak
Karnak

The Karnak temple complex, universally known only as Karnak, describes a vast conglomeration of ruined temples, chapels, pylons and other buildings....
.

See also

  • Theban Necropolis
    Theban Necropolis

    The Theban Necropolis is an area of the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, Egypt in Egypt. It was used for ritual burials for much of Ancient Egypt times, especially in the New Kingdom of Egypt....
  • Memphis, Egypt
    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....


Sources

  • Gauthier, Henri. 1925–1931. Dictionnaire des noms géographiques contenus dans les textes hieroglyphiques. Vol. 3 of 7 vols. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire. (Reprinted Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1975). 75, 76.
  • Polz, Daniel C. 2001. "Thebes". In The Oxford Encyclopedia of ancient Egypt, edited by Donald Bruce Redford. Vol. 3 of 3 vols. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. 384–388.
  • Redford, Donald Bruce. 1992. "Thebes". In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman. Vol. 6 of 6 vols. New York: Doubleday. 442–443. ISBN 0-385-42583-X (6-volume set)
  • Strudwick, Nigel C., & Strudwick, Helen, Thebes in Egypt: A Guide to the Tombs and Temples of Ancient Luxor. London: British Museum Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8014-3693-1 (hardcover)/ISBN 0-8014-8616-5 (paperback)


External links

  • , data from an Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities
    Supreme Council of Antiquities

    The Supreme Council of Antiquities is part of the Egypt Ministry of Culture and is responsible for the conservation, protection and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt....
    /CyArk
    CyArk

    CyArk is a nonprofit, noncommercial project of the Kacyra Family Foundation located in Orinda, California, United States. The company's website refers to it as a "High-Definition Heritage Network"....
     research partnership