Marea

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Marea ( ancient Greek : Μάρεια Mareia ) was an ancient city in the western Nile Delta . The current hill of ruins of Kom el-Idris ( Arabic ﮐﻭﻡ ﺍﻻﺩﺭﯾﺱ) is located about 40 kilometers southwest of Alexandria on the southern bank of the Mareotis Lake , whose name is probably derived from the ancient city.

Marea is probably identical with the city of Chastemeh , which is mentioned in the Aramaic inscription on a death stele from Saqqara , which dates to the fourth year of the reign of Xerxes I (482 BC). The Egyptian place name Chastemeh means desert area of ​​the Tjemehu Libyans and referred to both the city and the associated administrative district, which was established by Psammetich I.

Herodotus reports that Psammetich I , the founder of the Egyptian 26th dynasty , set up a garrison in Marea to protect against the Libyans . According to Herodotus, the people of Marea considered themselves Libyans. Especially in the first millennium BC The western Nile Delta was the catchment area for Libyan tribes. According to Diodorus , there was also a battle between Apries and Amasis near Marea . Strabon reports that Marea was famous for its viticulture.

Excavations have mainly brought to light remains from the Byzantine period, including two bathhouses, a Christian basilica, shops and a bakery mill.

literature

  • Farouk Gomaa: Kom el-Idris . In: Lexicon of Egyptology . Volume III, Wiesbaden 1980, Col. 674.
  • Creighton fork: Marea. In: Kathryn A. Bard (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 , pp. 465-69.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Richard Lepsius , Julius Euting : An Egyptian-Aramaic stele , in: Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (ZÄS) 15 (1877), pp. 127–132; Max Burchardt : Dated monuments of the Berlin collection from the Achaemenid period, in: ZÄS 49 (1911), pp. 73–74 plate 8.2, 10.6 no. 5; Bezalel Porten, Ada Yardeni: Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt. 4: Ostraca & Assorted Inscriptions , Winona Lake 1999, pp. 254-255 (D 20.3).
  2. ↑ Jean Yoyotte : Berlin 7707. Un detail. In: Transeuphratène. Volume 9, 1995, p. 91; Günter Vittmann: Egypt and the foreigners in the first millennium BC. Mainz 2003, p. 14 Note 58.
  3. ↑ Herodotus , Historien Buch 2, 30, 2.
  4. ↑ Herodotus Histories, Book 2, 18, 2; see: Alan B. Lloyd: Herodotus, Book II. Commentary 1-98. Leiden 1976, pp. 87-89.
  5. ↑ Diodor , Diodori Siculi Bibliotheca historica book 1.68; Herodotus, on the other hand, relates that the battle of Momemphis (Kom el-Hisn) took place (Herodotus 2, 163, 169).
  6. ^ Strabon, Historiká Hypomnếmata Buch 17, 799.
  7. ↑ Mariusz Gwiazfa, Dagma Wielgosz-Rondolino: 'Marea' on Lake Mareotis: A Roman Amphora dump, a Byzantine Period House, and Its Early Islamic Dwellers. In: Journal of Egyptian Archeology. Volume 105, No. 2, Decemger 2019, pp. 259-273.

Coordinates: 30 ° 59 ′ 39 ″  N , 29 ° 39 ′ 20 ″  E