In Ancient Egypt, Heracleopolis Magna was called nn nswt, meaning Child of the King (appearing as hnn nswt or hwt nn nswt; also transcribed Henen-Nesut or Hut-Nen-Nesut). This later developed into Coptic: Ϩⲛⲏⲥ or ϩⲛⲉⲥ (/ǝhnes/), which was borrowed into early Egyptian Arabic: اهناسAhnās. The site is now known as Ihnasiyyah Umm al-Kimam "Ihnasiyyah, Mother of the Shards" and as Ihnasiyyah al-Madinah "The City of Ihnasiyyah".[2]
Some Egyptologists and Biblical scholars connect the biblical city of Hanes (Hebrew: חָנֵסḤānês) mentioned in Isaiah 30:4 with Heracleopolis Magna.[3][4][5][7]
HistoryEdit
Early Dynastic PeriodEdit
The date of the earliest settlements on the site of Herakleopolis is not known, but an entry on the Palermo Stone reporting king Den's visit to the sacred lake of Heryshef at Nenj-neswt, the ancient name of the city, suggests that it was already in existence by the mid First Dynasty, c. 2970 BC.[8][9]
First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC)Edit
Partial view of the bas-relief from the north wall of a funerary chapel containing the tombs of district governor Neferkhau-(Nfr-khaU) and a woman named Sat-Bahetep (probably his wife)-(Sa-t, Ba-htp), dated between 9th and 11th Dynasties. It shows a funerary food-offering ritual for Sat-Baheteps's ka (between 2160 and 1990 BC).
Herakleopolis first came to prominence and reached its apogee of power during the First Intermediate Period, between 2181 and 2055 BC.[10] Eventually after the collapse of the Old Kingdom, Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower Egypt. Herakleopolis became the principal city of Lower Egypt and was able to exercise its control over much of the region.[2] Herakleopolis exerted such great control over Lower Egypt during this time that Egyptologists and Egyptian archaeologists sometimes refer to the period between the 9th and 10th Dynasties (2160–2025 BC) as the Herakleopolitan Period.[2] During this period, Herakleopolis often found itself in conflict with the de facto capital of Upper Egypt, ancient Thebes.[10]
Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 BC)Edit
Between the latter part of the First Intermediate Period and the early Middle Kingdom, the city became the religious center of the cult of Heryshaf, and the Temple of Heryshaf was constructed.[10] Heracleopolis Magna and its dynasty was defeated by Mentuhotep II in c. 2055–2004 BC, which ushered in the Middle Kingdom period.[11]
Third Intermediate Period (1069–664 BC)Edit
By the time of the Third Intermediate Period (1069–664 BC), Herakleopolis again rose in importance. There were many renovations and new constructions of the temple and mortuary centers that existed in the city, and it again became an important religious and political center.[10]
Ptolemaic Egypt (322–30 BC)Edit
By the Ptolemaic Kingdom (332–30 BC), Herakleopolis was still an important religious and cultural center in Egypt. The Greek rulers of this period, in an attempt to find connections and comparisons between their own gods and the gods of the land that they were now ruling, associated Haryshef with Heracles in the interpretatio graeca, thus the name often used by modern scholars for Herakleopolis.[10]
Roman Egypt (30 BC–390 AD)Edit
The site of Herakleopolis was occupied even into Roman times. Near the Necropolis of Sedmet el-Gebel, houses dating to this period were found,[10] which in and of itself implies a continued occupation of the area.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Herakleopolis Magna.
The first person to undertake an extensive excavation at Herakleopolis was the Swiss Egyptologist Edouard Naville. After excavating what he believed to be the entirety of the Temple of Heryshef, Naville came to the conclusion that he had found all that Herakleopolis had to offer.[6]
His friend Sir Flinders Petrie, on the other hand, “...in 1879 suspected that the region already cleared was only a part of the temple,”[6] and thus Herakleopolis (or Ehnasya as he called it, a name harking back to the site's period of Roman occupation) had much left to be unearthed.
Petrie discovered a great deal that Naville had not believed existed. He completed the excavation of the temple of Heryshef, and attempted to find other remains in an area around the temple. In so doing, he succeeded in discovering such previously unknown features. such as a house's remains from the Roman period of occupation.[6] He also identified another temple that he attributed to the 19th Dynasty, as well as the aforementioned additions to the Temple of Heryshef associated with Ramesses the Great.[6] Other than archaeological features, the artefacts found by Petrie during his excavation are numerous, and span the entire chronological range of settlement. Relating specifically to artefacts found from the end of the First Intermediate Period and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, Petrie uncovered numerous pot sherds he associated with the 11th Dynasty.[6] From the later Roman periods, Petrie found numerous objects associated with many of the mortuary sites that he unearthed, including iron tools, pottery, and icons.[6]
Recent excavationsEdit
While other excavations are not numerous and are naturally overshadowed by that of Flinders Petrie and his famous expedition, there have been several more recent excavations that have also increased knowledge of the site. During the 1980s, a Spanish team conducted excavations and uncovered such artefacts as a libation altar and a pair of decorated eyes, presumably from a statue, all attributed to a temple dated to the Third Intermediate Period.[10]
A Spanish team also conducted excavations as recently as 2008, under the direction of María del Carmen Pérez-Die of the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, Spain. Their efforts revealed a previously unknown tomb with several false doors dating to the First Intermediate Period, as well as funeral offerings, all of which had not been vandalized.[12] Other finds include the funeral chapel of senior official Neferjau and his wife Sat-Bahetep,[13] and the remains of tomb H.1 belonging to a late-11th Dynasty officier named Khety.[14]
^ abcdAn Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, 2008. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 2008.
^ abWallis Budge, E. A. (1920). An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary: with an index of English words, king list and geological list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, coptic and semitic alphabets, etc. Vol II. John Murray. p. 1016.
^ abGauthier, Henri (1927). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 4. pp. 83–84.
^ abBrugsch, Heinrich (1879). Dictionnaire géographique de l'ancienne Egypte: contenant par ordre alphabétique la nomenclature comparée des noms propres géographiques qui se rencontrent sur les monuments et dans les papyrus. Leipzig: J. C. Heinrichs. pp. 601, 604.
^ abcdefgEhnasya 1904. London: Gilbert and Rivington Limited. 1905.
^Orr, James, M.A, D.D. (1915). International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
^Toby Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt. Routledge, London/New York 1999, ISBN0-415-18633-1 p. 325.
^Heinrich Schäfer: Ein Bruchstück altägyptischer Annalen, (= Abhandlungen der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Anhang: Abhandlungen nicht zur Akademie gehöriger Gelehrter. Philosophische und historische Abhandlungen. 1902, 1. Quartal). Verlag der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1902, p. 18-21.
^ abcdefgThe Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 2008. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2008.
^Van De Mieroop, Marc (2011). A History of Ancient Egypt (1st ed.). Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 97, 99. ISBN978-1-4051-6070-4.
^Stanek, Stephen (25 February 2008). "False Doors for the Dead Among New Egypt Tomb Finds". National Geographic. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
^Juan Rodríguez Lázaro: Some blocks of the funeral chapel of Neferkhau and Sat-Bahetep in the MAN of Madrid , Bulletin of the Spanish Association of Orientalists, ISSN 0571-3692, Year 41, 2005, p.107-124.
^Juan Rodríguez Lázaro: The ritual journey of Khety (H.1) of Herakleópolis, Newsletter of AE (BIAE), Year V- Number LI, October 2007.
heracleopolis, magna, 08556, 93444, 08556, 93444, greek, Μεγάλη, Ἡρακλέους, πόλις, megálē, herakléous, pólis, heracleopolis, Ἡρακλεόπολις, herakleópolis, herakleoupolis, Ἡρακλεούπολις, roman, name, capital, 20th, nome, ancient, upper, egypt, known, ancient, eg. 29 5 8 N 30 56 4 E 29 08556 N 30 93444 E 29 08556 30 93444 Heracleopolis Magna Greek Megalh Ἡrakleoys polis Megale Herakleous polis and Heracleopolis Ἡrakleopolis Herakleopolis and Herakleoupolis Ἡrakleoypolis 1 is the Roman name of the capital of the 20th nome of ancient Upper Egypt known in Ancient Egyptian as nn nswt The site is located approximately 15 km 9 3 mi west of the modern city of Beni Suef in the Beni Suef Governorate of Egypt 2 Heracleopolisnn nswtShown within EgyptLocationBeni Suef Governorate EgyptCoordinates29 5 8 N 30 56 4 E 29 08556 N 30 93444 E 29 08556 30 93444TypeSettlement Contents 1 Name 2 History 2 1 Early Dynastic Period 2 2 First Intermediate Period 2181 2055 BC 2 3 Middle Kingdom 2055 1650 BC 2 4 Third Intermediate Period 1069 664 BC 2 5 Ptolemaic Egypt 322 30 BC 2 6 Roman Egypt 30 BC 390 AD 3 Notable people 4 Archaeological excavations 4 1 Sir Flinders Petrie and Edouard Naville 4 2 Recent excavations 5 References 6 External linksName Editḥwt nn nswt 3 4 5 in hieroglyphsIn Ancient Egypt Heracleopolis Magna was called nn nswt meaning Child of the King appearing as hnn nswt or hwt nn nswt also transcribed Henen Nesut or Hut Nen Nesut This later developed into Coptic Ϩⲛⲏⲥ or ϩⲛⲉⲥ ǝhnes which was borrowed into early Egyptian Arabic اهناس Ahnas The site is now known as Ihnasiyyah Umm al Kimam Ihnasiyyah Mother of the Shards and as Ihnasiyyah al Madinah The City of Ihnasiyyah 2 The Greek name meant City of Heracles with the epithet great being added to distinguish it from other towns with that name The Greek form became more common during the Ptolemaic Kingdom which came to power after the death of Alexander the Great The Roman Empire used a Latinised form of the Greek name 6 Some Egyptologists and Biblical scholars connect the biblical city of Hanes Hebrew ח נ ס Ḥanes mentioned in Isaiah 30 4 with Heracleopolis Magna 3 4 5 7 History EditEarly Dynastic Period Edit The date of the earliest settlements on the site of Herakleopolis is not known but an entry on the Palermo Stone reporting king Den s visit to the sacred lake of Heryshef at Nenj neswt the ancient name of the city suggests that it was already in existence by the mid First Dynasty c 2970 BC 8 9 First Intermediate Period 2181 2055 BC Edit nbsp Partial view of the bas relief from the north wall of a funerary chapel containing the tombs of district governor Neferkhau Nfr khaU and a woman named Sat Bahetep probably his wife Sa t Ba htp dated between 9th and 11th Dynasties It shows a funerary food offering ritual for Sat Baheteps s ka between 2160 and 1990 BC Herakleopolis first came to prominence and reached its apogee of power during the First Intermediate Period between 2181 and 2055 BC 10 Eventually after the collapse of the Old Kingdom Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower Egypt Herakleopolis became the principal city of Lower Egypt and was able to exercise its control over much of the region 2 Herakleopolis exerted such great control over Lower Egypt during this time that Egyptologists and Egyptian archaeologists sometimes refer to the period between the 9th and 10th Dynasties 2160 2025 BC as the Herakleopolitan Period 2 During this period Herakleopolis often found itself in conflict with the de facto capital of Upper Egypt ancient Thebes 10 Middle Kingdom 2055 1650 BC Edit Between the latter part of the First Intermediate Period and the early Middle Kingdom the city became the religious center of the cult of Heryshaf and the Temple of Heryshaf was constructed 10 Heracleopolis Magna and its dynasty was defeated by Mentuhotep II in c 2055 2004 BC which ushered in the Middle Kingdom period 11 Third Intermediate Period 1069 664 BC Edit By the time of the Third Intermediate Period 1069 664 BC Herakleopolis again rose in importance There were many renovations and new constructions of the temple and mortuary centers that existed in the city and it again became an important religious and political center 10 Ptolemaic Egypt 322 30 BC Edit By the Ptolemaic Kingdom 332 30 BC Herakleopolis was still an important religious and cultural center in Egypt The Greek rulers of this period in an attempt to find connections and comparisons between their own gods and the gods of the land that they were now ruling associated Haryshef with Heracles in the interpretatio graeca thus the name often used by modern scholars for Herakleopolis 10 Roman Egypt 30 BC 390 AD Edit The site of Herakleopolis was occupied even into Roman times Near the Necropolis of Sedmet el Gebel houses dating to this period were found 10 which in and of itself implies a continued occupation of the area Notable people EditTheophanes 8eofanhs a Physicist 1 Archaeological excavations EditSir Flinders Petrie and Edouard Naville Edit nbsp Pottery ushabti from Heracleopolis Magna with linen grave clothes of T3y ms 19th Dynasty Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology London nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Herakleopolis Magna The first person to undertake an extensive excavation at Herakleopolis was the Swiss Egyptologist Edouard Naville After excavating what he believed to be the entirety of the Temple of Heryshef Naville came to the conclusion that he had found all that Herakleopolis had to offer 6 His friend Sir Flinders Petrie on the other hand in 1879 suspected that the region already cleared was only a part of the temple 6 and thus Herakleopolis or Ehnasya as he called it a name harking back to the site s period of Roman occupation had much left to be unearthed Petrie discovered a great deal that Naville had not believed existed He completed the excavation of the temple of Heryshef and attempted to find other remains in an area around the temple In so doing he succeeded in discovering such previously unknown features such as a house s remains from the Roman period of occupation 6 He also identified another temple that he attributed to the 19th Dynasty as well as the aforementioned additions to the Temple of Heryshef associated with Ramesses the Great 6 Other than archaeological features the artefacts found by Petrie during his excavation are numerous and span the entire chronological range of settlement Relating specifically to artefacts found from the end of the First Intermediate Period and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom Petrie uncovered numerous pot sherds he associated with the 11th Dynasty 6 From the later Roman periods Petrie found numerous objects associated with many of the mortuary sites that he unearthed including iron tools pottery and icons 6 Recent excavations Edit While other excavations are not numerous and are naturally overshadowed by that of Flinders Petrie and his famous expedition there have been several more recent excavations that have also increased knowledge of the site During the 1980s a Spanish team conducted excavations and uncovered such artefacts as a libation altar and a pair of decorated eyes presumably from a statue all attributed to a temple dated to the Third Intermediate Period 10 A Spanish team also conducted excavations as recently as 2008 under the direction of Maria del Carmen Perez Die of the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid Spain Their efforts revealed a previously unknown tomb with several false doors dating to the First Intermediate Period as well as funeral offerings all of which had not been vandalized 12 Other finds include the funeral chapel of senior official Neferjau and his wife Sat Bahetep 13 and the remains of tomb H 1 belonging to a late 11th Dynasty officier named Khety 14 References Edit a b Stephanus of Byzantium Ethnica H304 7 a b c d An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt 2008 Oxford Blackwell Publishing 2008 a b Wallis Budge E A 1920 An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary with an index of English words king list and geological list with indexes list of hieroglyphic characters coptic and semitic alphabets etc Vol II John Murray p 1016 a b Gauthier Henri 1927 Dictionnaire des Noms Geographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hieroglyphiques Vol 4 pp 83 84 a b Brugsch Heinrich 1879 Dictionnaire geographique de l ancienne Egypte contenant par ordre alphabetique la nomenclature comparee des noms propres geographiques qui se rencontrent sur les monuments et dans les papyrus Leipzig J C Heinrichs pp 601 604 a b c d e f g Ehnasya 1904 London Gilbert and Rivington Limited 1905 Orr James M A D D 1915 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Toby Wilkinson Early Dynastic Egypt Routledge London New York 1999 ISBN 0 415 18633 1 p 325 Heinrich Schafer Ein Bruchstuck altagyptischer Annalen Abhandlungen der Koniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Anhang Abhandlungen nicht zur Akademie gehoriger Gelehrter Philosophische und historische Abhandlungen 1902 1 Quartal Verlag der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften Berlin 1902 p 18 21 a b c d e f g The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt 2008 Princeton Princeton University Press 2008 Van De Mieroop Marc 2011 A History of Ancient Egypt 1st ed Chichester West Sussex UK Wiley Blackwell pp 97 99 ISBN 978 1 4051 6070 4 Stanek Stephen 25 February 2008 False Doors for the Dead Among New Egypt Tomb Finds National Geographic Retrieved 30 October 2012 Juan Rodriguez Lazaro Some blocks of the funeral chapel of Neferkhau and Sat Bahetep in the MAN of Madrid Bulletin of the Spanish Association of Orientalists ISSN 0571 3692 Year 41 2005 p 107 124 Juan Rodriguez Lazaro The ritual journey of Khety H 1 of Herakleopolis Newsletter of AE BIAE Year V Number LI October 2007 External links EditPleiades ID https pleiades stoa org places 736920Preceded byMemphis Capital of Egypt2185 BC 2060 BC Succeeded byThebes Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Heracleopolis Magna amp oldid 1176238925, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
