Thebes, Egypt
Encyclopedia
Thebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt
located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile
within the modern city of Luxor
. The Theban Necropolis
is situated nearby on the west bank of the Nile.
ian nome
. Waset was the capital of Egypt during part of the 11th Dynasty
(Middle Kingdom
) and most of the 18th Dynasty
(New Kingdom), when Hatshepsut
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
the seat of government moved to the Delta
. The archaeological remains of Thebes offer a striking testimony to Egyptian civilization at its height. The Greek poet Homer
extolled the wealth of Thebes in the Iliad
, 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
designation of the ancient Egyptian
opet "The Karnak Temple" (from coptic ta-pe, Ta-opet became Thebai). At the seat of the Theban triad
of Amun
, Mut
, and Khonsu, Thebes was known in the Egyptian language
from the end of the New Kingdom as niwt-imn, "The City of Amun
." This found its way into the Hebrew Bible
as נא אמון (nōʼ ʼāmôn) (Nahum
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 נא ("No") (Ezekiel
30:14). In Greek this name was rendered Diospolis, "City of Zeus", as Zeus
was the god whom the Greeks identified with Amun
, see interpretatio graeca
. The Greeks surnamed the city megale, "the Great", to differentiate it from numerous other cities called Diospolis. The Romans
rendered the name Diospolis Magna.
In modern usage, the mortuary temple
s and tomb
s on the west bank of the river Nile are generally thought of as part of Thebes.
In 1979, the ruins of ancient Thebes were inscribed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage site. The two great temples
the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, Luxor Temple
(Arabic: الأقصر, Al-Uqṣur, "The palaces") and al-Karnak
(الكرنك), are among the great achievements of ancient Egypt.
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
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 North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...
within the modern city of Luxor
Luxor
Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...
. The Theban Necropolis
Theban Necropolis
The Theban Necropolis is an area of the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes in Egypt. It was used for ritual burials for much of Pharaonic times, especially in the New Kingdom of Egypt.-Mortuary Temples:* Deir el-Bahri** Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut...
is situated nearby on the west bank of the Nile.
History
Thebes was inhabited from around 3200 BC. It was the eponymous capital of Waset, the fourth Upper EgyptUpper Egypt
Upper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag 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 term sepat came about during the Ptolemaic period. Fascinated with Egypt, Greeks created many historical records about the country...
. Waset 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...
(Middle Kingdom
Middle Kingdom of Egypt
The Middle Kingdom of Egypt is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty, between 2055 BC and 1650 BC, although some writers include the Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties in the Second Intermediate...
) and most of the 18th Dynasty
Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt
The eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt...
(New Kingdom), when Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut also Hatchepsut; meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies;1508–1458 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt...
built a Red Sea fleet to facilitate trade between Thebes Red Sea port of Elim
Elim (Bible)
Elim was one of the places where the Israelites camped following their Exodus from Egypt. It is referenced in Exodus 15.27 and Numbers 33.9 as a place where "there were twelve wells of water, and seventy date palms," and that the Israelites "camped there near the water".From the information that...
, modern Quasir, and Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba
Gulf of Aqaba
The Gulf of Aqaba is a large gulf located at the northern tip of the Red Sea. In pre twentieth-century and modern sources it is often named the Gulf of Eilat, as Eilat is its predominant Israeli city ....
. 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 Nineteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt was one of the periods of the Egyptian New Kingdom. Founded by Vizier Ramesses I, whom Pharaoh Horemheb chose as his successor to the throne, this dynasty is best known for its military conquests in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria.The warrior kings of the...
the seat of government moved to the Delta
Nile Delta
The 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...
. The archaeological remains of Thebes offer a striking testimony to Egyptian civilization at its height. The Greek poet Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
extolled the wealth of Thebes in the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
, Book 9 (c. 8th Century BC): "... in Egyptian Thebes the heaps of precious ingots gleam, the hundred-gated Thebes."
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
designation of the ancient Egyptian
Egyptian language
Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...
opet "The Karnak Temple" (from coptic ta-pe, Ta-opet became Thebai). At the seat of the Theban triad
Egyptian mythology
Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...
of Amun
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...
, 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. Alternative spellings are Maut and Mout. She was considered a primal deity, associated with the waters from which...
, and Khonsu, Thebes was known in the Egyptian language
Egyptian language
Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...
from the end of the New Kingdom as niwt-imn, "The City of Amun
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...
." This found its way into the Hebrew Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
as נא אמון (nōʼ ʼāmôn) (Nahum
Book of Nahum
The book of Nahum is the seventh book of the 12 minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Nahum, and was probably written in Jerusalem in the 8th century BC.-Background:...
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 נא ("No") (Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....
30:14). In Greek this name was rendered Diospolis, "City of Zeus", as Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
was the god whom the Greeks identified with Amun
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...
, 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. Herodotus, for example, refers to the ancient Egyptian gods Amon, Osiris and Ptah as "Zeus", "Dionysus" and "Hephaestus", respectively.-Roman...
. 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 post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic 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 Ancient Egypt. The temples were designed to commemorate the reign of the pharaoh by whom they were built, as well as for use by the pharaoh's cult after death.-History:Mortuary temples were built...
s and tomb
Tomb
A tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally 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.
In 1979, the ruins of ancient Thebes were inscribed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage site. The two great temples
Egyptian temple
Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of the gods and commemoration of pharaohs in Ancient Egypt and in regions under Egyptian control. These temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated...
the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, Luxor Temple
Luxor Temple
Luxor Temple is a large Ancient Egyptian temple complex located on the east bank of the River Nile in the city today known as Luxor and was founded in 1400 BCE.,...
(Arabic: الأقصر, Al-Uqṣur, "The palaces") and al-Karnak
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex—usually called Karnak—comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings, notably the Great Temple of Amun and a massive structure begun by Pharaoh Ramses II . Sacred Lake is part of the site as well. It is located near Luxor, some...
(الكرنك), are among the great achievements of ancient Egypt.
Names in hieroglyphs
External links
- More information on ancient Thebes, a World Cultural Heritage site
- Theban Mapping Project
- Ramesseum/Ancient Thebes Digital Media Archive (photos, laser scans, panoramas), data from an Egyptian Supreme Council of AntiquitiesSupreme Council of AntiquitiesThe Supreme Council of Antiquities is the branch of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture responsible for the conservation, protection and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt...
/CyArkCyArkCyArk is a 501 nonprofit organization located in Oakland, California, United States. The company's website refers to it as a "digital archive of the world’s heritage sites for preservation and education"...
research partnership - ICOMOS Heritage at Risk 2001/2002