Athribis (Menu)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Athribis in hieroglyphics
Hwt-Rpyt.png
r
p 		X1
Repit.png

Hut-Repit
Ḥwt-Rpwt / Ḥwt-Rpyt
House of the temple of the (goddess) Repit
Greek Ἀθριβις (Athribis)
Coptic Atripe / Trifiu

Athribis ( Greek  Ἀθριβις ) was a city of the 9th district of Upper Egypt in ancient Egypt .

Names

The ahistorical name Athribis only appears in modern works and was formed analogously to the Lower Egyptian Athribis . As an excavation site, the place is also known by the name of the modern village of Wannîna ( al-gharbiya ), which is 3 km to the southeast. The Egyptian Antiquities Administration (SCA) manages the excavation site under the name of the neighboring village of Nag '(al-Shaykh) Hamad .

In medieval Arabic manuscripts the city was called Adrîba , which goes back to the Coptic ATRIPE . In Coptic sources, the name TRIFIU is also found occasionally , which is based on the Greek name form Trifeion . Both Coptic forms of the name can be traced back to the ancient Egyptian Hwt-Rpwt / Hwt Rpyt " House of the Temple of the (Goddess) Repit ".

location

Athribis (Menu) (Egypt)
Athribis
Athribis
Location in Egypt

The city was on the west bank of the Nile , 7 km southwest of today's Sohag , at the foot of the Western Mountains. Between the ruins and the eastern fields is the village of Nag 'al-Shaykh Silim, 500 m north of Nag' al-Shaykh Hamad and 3 km north of the ruins of the Coptic White Monastery . In ancient Egypt Athribis belonged to the 9th Upper Egyptian Gau , the capital of which was Achmim with the temple district of Gaugott Min on the east bank, opposite Sohag. In the Ptolemaic - Byzantine period (305 BC – 640 AD) Achmim was known as Panopolis and the 9th district as nomos panopolites .

city

The ancient city of Athribis, with its residential and farm buildings from the Ptolemaic- Roman and Byzantine-early Arab times, extended south, south-east and north-east of the temple area. Some excavated building remains can be dated more precisely to the 3rd - 4th century AD. In the 19th to 20th centuries, the adobe buildings were badly destroyed because the phosphate- containing clay was needed as a fertilizer and for the production of gunpowder .

Temple precinct

Archaeological site of Athribis, view from the southeast (2010)

The approximately three hectare temple area of ​​the goddess Repit (Triphis) was originally surrounded by an enclosure wall made of air-dried mud bricks and in the southeast by a stone monumental gate of Ptolemy IX. accessible. The temple house is largely destroyed today. Of the towers of the 50 m wide pylon , only the first floor remains.

Next to the main temple there is an older granite temple of Apries and across the axis the temple of Ptolemy XII. , which was built in honor of the Athribis family of gods. This is 45 × 75 m in size and had a pronaos of 2 × 6 columns. The back of the pronaos was either surrounded by a portico or consisted of an open portico with a sanctuary and side rooms. The temple building was further adorned under Tiberius and Claudius and completed under Hadrian . At the end of the 4th century AD, the temple was converted by Christian monks into a commercial enterprise with a dyeing workshop . The building was destroyed in the high Middle Ages and the stone material was burned to lime. About a third of the original structure has been preserved.

necropolis

To the west of the city lies the steep high plateau of the Libyan desert , where ancient quarries and rock tombs from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD are located. So far 700 graves have been identified. In the center of the 1.7 km long necropolis on the mountain slope is a Ptolemaic-Roman rock temple with a forecourt, two rock rooms and a cult niche. Half-columns with palm capitals were attached to the facade . The rock temple was dedicated to the gods of Athribis.

History and Cults

The temple inscriptions represent the most important source of the lion-headed goddess Repit, about which little is known until now, although it has been documented since early dynastic times . The oldest known cult building from Athribis dates back to the 30th dynasty and was built by Pharaoh Nectanebos II (ruled 360–343 BC). In the late Ptolemaic-Roman period, the temple district received two monumental new temples, one of which was under Ptolemy IX. (ruled 116-107; 88-81 BC) was established. The great temple of Ptolemy XII. for the trinity of the gods Min, Repit and Kolanthes was decorated until the time of Emperor Domitians (reigned 81–96 AD).

A Roman palace complex is documented in written sources for AD 298. At that time, the Egyptian temple cults may have ceased. At the beginning of the 4th century AD, Christian hermits settled on the Necropolis Hill. In the first half of the 4th century AD, a women's monastery was founded that was attached to the "White Monastery" under the Abbot Pkjol. Under Schenute von Atripe (385–465 AD) the convent expanded into the temple district and existed at least until early Arab times. In the high Middle Ages the monastery was abandoned and the limestone blocks from some temples were used to build the nearby White Monastery.

Research history

In 1825 the first findings were made by John Gardner Wilkinson and a report in his work Modern Egypt and Thebes . In 1839 Nestor l'Hôte visited the excavation site and provided a brief description in his travel letters. Karl Richard Lepsius visited the site with the Prussian expedition in 1845 and published his results in LD IV. In 1906/07 Flinders Petrie began the first scientific excavation of the British School of Archeology in Egypt and published the results in Volume 14 of the BSAE Reports . 1983–96 the excavation was resumed by the Egyptian Antiquities Administration and large areas of the temple precinct were exposed in 14 excavation campaigns.

Since 2003 there has been a German-Egyptian cooperation project headed by R. El-Sayed, Y. El-Masry and Christian Leitz , in which the University of Tübingen , the SCA as well as scientific institutions and employees from Germany , Poland , England and France are involved are ( Athribis project ). The aim of the project is the documentation and scientific development of the archaeological finds and the recording of the temple inscriptions. In addition, one would like to see the reliefs and wall paintings of the temple of Ptolemy XII. preserve.

literature

General

  • Dieter Arnold : Lexicon of Egyptian architecture . Albatros, Düsseldorf 2000, ISBN 3-491-96001-0 , p. 30 → Athribis (Wannina) .
  • Dieter Arnold: The temples of Egypt . Artemis & Winkler, Zurich 1992, ISBN 3-7608-1073-X , p. 177.
  • Hans Bonnet : Real Lexicon of Egyptian Religious History. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000, ISBN 3-11-016884-7 , p. 58 → Athribis.
  • WMF Petrie: Athribis. In: British School of Archeology in Egypt. (BSAE) Volume 14, London 1908.
  • Richard H. Wilkinson: The world of temples in ancient Egypt . Theiss, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1975-3 , p. 142.

Publications of the Athribis Temple

  • Rafed El-Sayed, Yahya El-Masry (eds.): Athribis I. General Site Survey 2003-2007. Archaeological & Conservation Studies. The Gate of Ptolemy IX. Architecture and Inscriptions (= Publications de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire. Volume 1010). Imprimerie de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, Cairo 2012, ISBN 978-2-7247-0529-4 .
  • Christian Leitz, Daniela Mendel, Yahya El-Masry: Athribis II. The temple of Ptolemy XII .: The inscriptions and reliefs of the sacrificial halls, the gallery and the sanctuary 3 volumes (= Publications de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire. 1016). Imprimerie de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, Cairo 2010, ISBN 978-2-7247-0539-3 .
  • Christian Leitz, Daniela Mendel: Athribis III. The eastern access rooms and side chapels as well as the stairs to the roof and the rear rooms of the temple of Ptolemy XII , 2 volumes, Cairo 2017
  • Christian Leitz, Daniela Mendel: Athribis IV, Handling L 1 to L 3 , 2 volumes, Cairo 2017.
  • Christian Leitz, Daniela Mendel, Mohamed el-Bialy: The outer walls and western side chapels of the Temple of Athribis. 2 volumes, Ministry of Antiquities Press, Cairo 2014.
  • Marcus Müller, Mohamed El-Bialy, Mansour Boraik: Athribis V, Archeology in the Repit Temple at Athribis 2012-2016 , 2 volumes, Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, Cairo 2019.

Web links

Commons : Upper Egyptian Athribis  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to Arnold, it was a birthplace .
  2. ↑ Reached the dimensions of the main temples of Edfu and Dendera . D. Arnold: The temples of Egypt. Zurich 1992, p. 177.
  3. ↑ Until some time ago it was believed to be a temple of Asclepius ; B. with D. Arnold: Lexicon of Egyptian architecture. Düsseldorf 2000, p. 30 → Athribis (Wannina).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b ATHRIBIS A German-Egyptian excavation project. Names on: athribis.uni-tuebingen.de from August 13, 2010.
  2. ↑ The hieroglyphs
    pr Z1
    relate to a temple or place of worship, according to the thesaurus with reference to Wb 2, 397.6-7 .
  3. ^ H. Bonnet: Reallexikon der Ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte. Berlin / New York 2000, p. 58 → Athribis.
  4. ↑ ATHRIBIS A German-Egyptian excavation project. Temple on: athribis.uni-tuebingen.de from August 13, 2010.
  5. ↑ ATHRIBIS A German-Egyptian excavation project. Necropolis On: athribis.uni-tuebingen.de from August 13, 2010.
  6. ^ RH Wilkinson: The world of temples in ancient Egypt. Stuttgart 2005, p. 142.

Coordinates: 26 ° 30 ′ 41 ″  N , 31 ° 39 ′ 55 ″  E