Soknopaiu Nesos

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Soknopaiu Nesos was an ancient settlement in Fayum , Egypt . The ruins are now also known as Dimai. The place flourished especially in the Greco-Roman period . Today's hill of ruins is approximately 660 × 350 meters.

exploration

The place was already visited by the Lepsius expedition in the years 1842-1845, which also drew a first plan. Further investigations took place around 1900 by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt , who were mainly looking for papyri . Other undertakings followed, most of which again aimed at papyri. From 1931 to 1932, the University of Michigan excavated a number of houses here. Since 2001 there has been Italian research on site again. Soknopaiu Nesos is the place where numerous Greek and demotic texts were found. Most of them are documents from the temple area.

Building the settlement and temple

The place formed an elongated rectangle with the main temple in the north and a main road that led directly to this temple from the south. The layout of the place has obviously been laid out according to plan with streets intersecting at right angles, although the insulae show certain irregularities in detail. There were several temples in the village. In the north was a Temenos district , 113 × 63 meters in size , in which the north-south oriented main temple of the city was, next to it there was a smaller sanctuary and other buildings, such as a building identified as the temple archive. The main temple is made of stone in the Egyptian style. He was dedicated to Soknopaius . Most of the other buildings in the city were made of adobe bricks and once had several floors. In the south of the city there was another probably younger temple, which was oriented east-west and stood directly on the main street.

literature

  • Paola Davoli: L'archeologia urbana nel Fayyum di eta ellenistica e romana. Generoso Procaccini, Naples 1998, pp. 39-71.
  • Terry G. Wilfong: Fayum, Graeco-Roman sites. In: Kathryn A. Bard (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 , pp. 309-310.
  • Sandra Lippert , Maren Schentuleit (eds.): Tebtynis and Soknopaiu Nesos. Life in Roman Fajum. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-447-05141-8 .
  • S. de Maria, P. Campagnoli, E. Giorgi, G. Lepore: Topografia e urbanistica di Soknopaiou Nesous . In: Fayum Studies . Vol. 2, 2006, pp. 23-90.

Web links

Commons : Soknopaiou Nesos  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Soknopaiou Nesos  - travel guide

Coordinates: 29 ° 32 ′ 0 ″  N , 30 ° 40 ′ 10 ″  E