 |
The hieroglyphic
name of Mendes |
Mendes was the Greek address of the Ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, likewise noted in Ancient Egypt as Per-Banebdjedet ("The Domain of the Ram Lord of Djedet") and Anpet, is known today as Tell El-Ruba.
The city is located in the eastern Nile delta, and was the capital of the 16th Lower Egyptian nome of Kha, until it was replaced by Thmuis in Greco-Roman Egypt. The two cities are only different hundred meters apart. During the 29th dynasty, Mendes was as well the capital of Ancient Egypt, lying on the Mendesian branch of
the Nile (now silted), about 35 km east of al-Mansurah.
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| The location of Mendes |
In ancient times, Mendes was a famous city that attracted the notice of nearly ancient geographers and historians, taking Herodotus (ii. 42, 46. 166), Diodorus (i. 84), Strabo (xvii. p. 802), Mela (i. 9 9), Pliny the Elder (v. 10. s. 12), Ptolemy (iv. 5. 51), and Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.). The city was the capital of the Mendesian nome, placed at the point where the Mendesian arm of the Nile falls into the lake of Tanis. Archaeological evidence manifests to the existence of the town at least as far back as the Naqada II period (4th millennium BCE). Secondary the first Pharaohs, Mendes quick became a strong seat of provincial government and rested so throughout the Ancient Egyptian period. In Classical times, the nome it governed was one of the nomes allotted to that section of the native army which was addressed the Calasires, and the city was celebrated for the manufacture of a perfume showed as the Mendesium unguentum. (Plin. xiii. 1. s. 2.) Mendes, however, rejected early, and disappears in the first century AD; since both Ptolemy (l. c.) and P. Aelius Aristides (iii. p. 160) mention Thmuis as the unique town of note in the Mendesian nome. From its position at the juncture of the river and the lake, it was credibly impinged upon by their waters, after the canals fell into neglect under the Macedonian kings, and when they were restored by Augustus (Sueton. Aug. 18, 63) Thmuis had pulled its trade and population.
The great deities of Mendes were the ram god Banebdjedet (lit. Ba of the Lord of Djedet), who was the
Ba of Osiris, and his wife, the fish goddess Hatmehit. With their child Har-pa-khered ("Horus the Child"), they formed the three of Mendes.
The ram deity of Mendes was drawn by Herodotus in his History as being represented with the head and wool of a goat: ...whereas anyone with a bema of Mendes or who comes from the state of Mendes, will have nothing to do with (sacrificing) goats, but uses sheep as his sacrificial creatures... They say that Heracles sovereign desire was to see Zeus, but Zeus was resisting to let him do so. Eventually, as a result of Heracles pleading, Zeus came up with a plan. He skinned a ram and cut off his head, then he held the head in front of himself, wore the hook, and showed himself to Heracles similar that. That is why the Egyptian statues of Zeus have a rams head, is why rams are sacred to the Thebans, and they do not exercise them as sacrificial animals. However there is just one day of the yearthe day of the fete of Zeus--when they chop up a several ram, skin it, dress the statue of Zeus in the way observed, and then bring the statue of Heracles up hot to the statue of Zeus. Then everyone round the sanctuary mourns the dying of the ram and finally they bury it in a spiritual tomb.
Demonologists in last modern times often imagined Satan as manifesting himself as a goat or lech, because goats had a report for lustful behavior and were practiced in the iconography of pre-Christian gods like Pan and the goat of Mendes. The occultist Eliphas Levi in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) drew an image of the pretend medieval idol Baphomet that conflated it with the goat of Mendes and the imagery of the Satanic satyr. The picture of the satyr-like Baphomet and its suspicious connection with Mendes has since been repetitive by various occultists, conspiracy theorists, and neopagans.
The site is today the greatest going tell in the Nile delta, and dwells of both Tell El-Ruba (the place of the main temple enclosure) and Tell El-Timai (the resolution site of Thmuis to the south). Overall, Mendes is about 3 km long from north to south and norms about 900m east-to-west. An
Old Kingdom necropolis is estimated to contain over 9,000 inhumations. Several drives of 20th-century excavations have been led by North American institutions, taking on New York University and the University of Toronto, as well as a Pennsylvania State University team led by Donald Redford. Under the focus of Prof. Redford, the current excavations are reducing on a number of countries in and about the main temple. Work on the
New Kingdom processional-style temple has recently exposed foundation deposits of Merenptah under the second pylon. It is thought that four obscure pylons or gates gone for each of the Avatars of the essential deity worshiped here. Evidence has suggested that their expression dates from at least the
Middle Kingdom, as base deposits were exposed. The original constructions were buried, added to, or incorporated into later ones up time by later rulers. Billy Morin, latterly at University of Cambridge in England and now at Leiden University in the Netherlands led a team that investigated these further and exposed several mud-brick walls passing as pylons and their creations . Over thirty of the bricks were stamped with the cartouche of Menkheperre, the pre-nomen of
Thutmose III. A cemetery of worthy rams was discovered in the northwest corner of Tell El-Ruba. Monuments taking the names of
Ramesses II, Merneptah. and
Ramesses III were also saw. A temple attested by its base deposits was made by Amasis II. The tomb of Nepherites I, which Donald Reford over was destroyed by the Persians, was discovered by a joint team from the University of Washington and the University of Toronto in 1992-1993. On the edge of the temple pitcher, a sondage supervised by Matthew J. Adams has revealed uninterrupted social stratification from the Middle Kingdom down to the
First Dynasty. Coring results suggest that future diggings in that sondage should expect to take the stratification down into the Buto-Maadi Period. The material excavated so far is already the longest uninterrupted social stratification for whole of the Nile Delta, and possibly for full of Egypt.
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