Athribis
Athribis is the Greek name of an Egyptian ancient city of the delta, in the 10th names Low-Egypt, “the large black bull”. Its Egyptian name is Het-your-hérieb or Het-your-héri-ib or Hout-héry-ib . This site, known by the archeologists under the Arab name of Such-Athrib, is close to the Benha locality. It is known nowadays under the name of Kom Sidi Youssef.
History of the city
Although it is attested by the texts that the city existed already during the Ancient Empire, and that a pyramid out of raw brick identified and raised at the 19th century is probably a witness of this high time, the vestiges the oldest overdrafts on the site go back to. One will also note a stele of which, made rare deserving to be mentioned, carries titulature of the Pharaon Seânkhtaouy Sekhemkarê Amenemhat {{V}}. Today disappeared, the pyramid as for it is interpreted like belonging to the series of similar monuments with three or four degrees that the Pharaons Houni then Snéfrou built through all the country. These monuments did not have a funerary function but, according to the analysis of the Egyptologists, were more to mark the presence of a visible royal institution by all, even of a second home of the sovereign. According to this assumption the town of Athribis was then already an important, rival locality of the cities which had already this type of royal monument such Abydos or Éléphantine.One venerated there a god of the name of Kemour, with significance of fertility, but also the god Khentykhety, compared to the sun incipient, sometimes appeared in the shape of a crocodile but generally represented in the shape of a god Hiéracocéphale carrying the epithet of Horus Khenty-Khety , and also of Osiris which resides at Athribis .
The texts state to us indeed that a temple of this divinity had been built there under the reign of Amenhotep {{III}} and it is supposed that one of the two famous statues of lions lying of this Pharaon which are preserved at the British Museum, comes from this site, because it is marked of the god to which the temple of Athribis was devoted (the other laid down lion, more known, comes from the temple of Amon of Napata in Nubie).
It is of this city that Amenhotep wire in Hapou was originating celebrates it architect of Amenhotep {{III}}. This famous character of whom reached very high positions in the royal administration did not fail to honor his birthplace. Thus it made install in the temple of Horus Khenty-Khety an imposing statue representing a drawn up cobra which one baptized since his discovery the " Snake of Athribis". Exposed to the museum of Cairo, it carries in addition to titulature of the reigning Pharaon the epithet of " Perfect drawn up snake of the field of Horus Khenty-Khety".
Amenhotep wire of Hapou left very many texts and dedications, generally in the honor of its Master Amenhotep {{III}}. One of it informs us more particularly about the topography of the ancient city of Athribis: My Master made dig his southernmost lake and his septentrional lake which are variegated flowers of lotus . Thus one can reasonably restore the general aspect of the Pharaonic city of the Nouvel Empire with his principal temple in the center bordered in north and the south of two crowned lakes. Ramsès {{II}} built or increased the temple and set up there two Obélisque S out of black granite, whose specimen is currently visible and restored with the archaeological museum of Poznań in Poland and the other, fragmentary, is preserved at the museum of Cairo. These two obelisks received additional dedications of Mérenptah then of Séthi {{II}}.
The bases in red quarzite of these two obelisks were found and are currently exposed in the gardens of the museum of Cairo. A first base had been recorded already in the reserves of the very young Egyptian museum without precision on its source. Then the second base was discovered by the Polish mission which excavates the site since second half of the years 1940 thus making it possible to identify with certainty the source of the two monuments and their initial function. The obelisks unit more bases represent with some reliefs the only monumental vestiges which remain of the temple of Athribis of the Nouvel Empire. Mérenptah successor of Ramsès {{II}} also left many vestiges there, and it seems that it is as from this time that the city started to represent a true strategic role. Indeed, a text of Ramsès {{III}}, us informs that a local prince plotted against him. The king indicates how it reduced this sedition and made renovate and embellish for the circumstance the large temple of Athribis.
The city remained probably prosperous at the time of the {{intermediate IIIe}} period and of enjoying its proximity with the great centers of the delta such Bubastis or Tanis. Moreover, located at the base of the delta of the Nile and representing a strategic place, it was going soon to play a part of very first importance in the disorders which followed to the Low Time in particular in the fight which opposed the kouchites with the principalities of the delta then a few decades later with the Assyrie which coveted the richnesses of the ground of the Nile.
It is indeed since Athribis that Psammétique {{Ier}}, then prince of the small kingdom which had been formed following Libyan anarchy and with the domination kouchite, the advantage began again after the withdrawal of the Assyrian troops and succeeds in joining together the Two Grounds while melting. The discoveries made on the site confirm that the city remained an important center of monarchy saïte and preserved this strategic role throughout this agitated period and well at beyond when the Greek troops then Roman take the way of Egypt in turn.
Archaeological excavations
The first identification of the city goes up with the French forwarding of Egypt, carried out by Bonaparte in 1798 - 1799, and whose plan was drawn up in monumental the description of Egypt which followed. This description presents a vast Tel. to us unexplored, characteristic of the sites of the delta and of which only that of Tanis can still give us an evocation today.
The Tel. of Athribis then included/understood at that time many visible vestiges and which since were lost. Two ways of Roman epoch crossed it right through delimiting four koms in which the scientists of forwarding could identify the following monuments:
- remainders of a pyramid of raw brick, which one thinks since belonging to a series of similar monuments that the Pharaon Houni of set up through all the country;
- a Roman aqueduct;
- a triumphal arch;
- vestiges of the temple of Horus, in particular including a hypostyle room, whose elements the latest statements go up with the reign of Ptolémée {{XII}} néos Dionysos;
- of the blocks of granite having belonged to a temple of Ramsès {{II}}, as well as a granite triad of this time;
- another temple reduced to the state of its foundations and some drums of columns whose vestiges were still visible in 1956.
The Tel. was excavated initially by Auguste Mariette in 1852 which discovered monuments of various times there. He discovered inter alia a famous bust of the one of the Tétrarque S in red porphyry dating from the 4th century, now exposed to the museum of Cairo. Indeed, this bust is of an invoice completely similar to the statue of tétrarques of Venice, which one can always admire enchased in an exterior angle of the Basilique Saint-Marc of Venice. However we know that the latter was brought back by the Venetian ones after the plundering of Constantinople at the time of the 4th crusade and was offered to patron saint of Sérénissime in thanks of a good voyage or a good fortune. Strange odyssey of these statues which by the chances of archeology thus seem to find their origins.
The demolition of the monuments located at the beginning of the 19th century began in 1862 during the construction of the railway line Alexandria - Cairo so much and so that the majority disappeared irremediably and than only three small koms remains of the gigantic Tel. which formerly recovered the ancient city and arrived to us in relatively good " état" , thanks to the installation of Moslem cemetery of this time.
In 1882 half of a large stele was released not far in Benha. Baptized " stele of Athribis" she reports the victory of Mérenptah over the invaders Libyen S in year 5 of her reign and confirms thus that one month after the advertisement of the mobilization of the enemy troops on the Western borders of the country, the king succeeds in overcoming them and pushing back them, made that he will report on many monuments whose Stele of the Victoire, or Stèle of Mérenptah, discovered in its funerary temple of Thèbes is one of the specimens. The stele of Athribis, in spite of its fragmentary state, thus comes to corroborate at the same time the facts reported on other monuments but also the precise chronology of the events. Although found in the close locality, this stele comes certainly from the temple of Athribis. It had, for the anecdote, a rather rocambolesque history since its discovery. Left on the site until in 1892, it was finally decided to repatriate it with the new whole museum of Cairo, but, during its transport, it fell into a channel close to the Cairo. It will remain there 35 years until in 1927, date on which it was fished out, restored and finally exposed to the museum.
The site was very upset since its identification, in particular by the researchers of sebbakh , this fertile material produced starting from the raw brick vestiges of which such abound in the delta. It is thus difficult to be located there on the spot or to even include/understand the ruins of them. One will quote however in the central kom a temple of the Low Time rebuilt or renovated under Amasis whose deposit of foundation was put at the day in 1957 by the Polish Center of Mediterranean archeology of Cairo. It is near this temple that in 1924 was discovered a hiding place containing a treasure of this period made up of fifty kilos jewel and bullion. This treasure since is exposed to the museum of Cairo.
In the north of the site, a necropolis, always from the Low Time, was disengaged in 1946 in one of the koms remaining, by the Inspector of the Service of Egyptian Antiquities Naguib Farag. Remarkable fact, this necropolis delivered the vestiges of the tomb of the queen Takhout, wife royal of Psammétique {{II}}. In addition to the remainders of its sarcophagus and some fragments of its funerary furniture, a miniature pair of gold sandal was found there. The unit is also exposed to the museum of Cairo. This discovery lets predict that a necropolis princely of this dynasty had been arranged there, unless this queen was not itself native of the area. Undoubtedly the excavations which continue on the site will make it possible to clarify this point.
The city was prosperous under the Ptolémées. Besides several vestiges discovered with the accesses it site let suppose that the site was inhabited as of - by the troops Macedonians which accompanied Alexandre Large the in his conquering tour and were left stationed in the city because it represented a strategic site then. It is also of this city that Djedhor is originating, character famous for the autobiographical statue which it left, under the reign of Philippe Arrhidheus. Indeed, it belongs to the prophylactic sculptor kind which flowers with the Low Time in the Egyptian sanctuaries. These covered statues of hiéroglyphes thus present a whole magic corpus of texts intended to protect and look after. Generally one finds them accompanied by an image of a Bès panthée or of a figure of Harpocrate, divinities considered particularly effective in this kind of ritual practice. In the case which occupies us here, Djedhor was made represent squatted, the arms crosseds on a stele precisely being reproduced the young god Harpocrate upright on two crocodiles, in front of a basin intended to collect ritual water which was poured on the covered statue of these litanies that it was advisable to recite at the same time as water was collected then drunk by the pilgrim.
What makes this statue particular it is especially the fact that on its base, rather imposing, Djedhor made register an autobiographical text which informs us in a more precise way about the sanctuaries than contained the city. It also made appear his children in its sides. Obviously this statue comes from Athribis and undoubtedly from the one of the sanctuaries that Djedhor quotes in its text. Preserved on the first floor of the museum of Cairo it was to have during because an identical base acquired in 1919, is preserved at the Eastern Institute of the University of Chicago.
Since 1985, the égypto-Polish team directed by the professor Karol Mysliwiecz of the Université of Warsaw, which excavates the site of the gréco-Roman city not far from Kom Sidi Youssef, in particular updated a workshop of production of figurines out of terra cotta going up precisely at this period and remained in activity throughout the ptolémaïque period and beyond that. The site with delivered more than 260 figurines which come to already enrich in a new way the iconographic repertory at disposal for the history of art of this time rich in transformation. These figurines represent most of the time mythological or prophylactic subjects which were particularly snuffed in the ancient world. In addition to this artisanal district the excavations revealed an establishment of baths ptolémaïques, probably of pertaining to worship destination, the vestiges of a pertaining to worship center dedicated to Dionysos and undoubtedly also at Aphrodite so much of the statuettes representing it there were put at the day, as well as a ptolémaïque villa which delivered several statues out of marble, discovered in 1986. Two years later, the same team discovers a monetary treasure going back to Ptolémée {{VI}} as of new terra cotta coming from the district artisanal whose constructions are spread out between - and the 1st century and identified three years earlier.
Athribis taken especially of the importance at the time of the Roman domination. Flourishing for this period, in particular at the 2nd century of our era, the archeologists released the city there. In 1939, Allan Rowe of the archaeological Institute of Liverpool, identified and excavated a system of drain of Roman epoch, undoubtedly related to the antique aqueduct raised by the scientists of forwarding of Egypt. In 1946, little before discovering falls it from the queen Takhout, Naguib Farag puts at the day an establishment of Roman baths. One decade later, in 1957, the team of the Polish Center of Mediterranean archeology of Cairo discovers another hydropathic establishment of the time julio-claudienne, rebuilt under the reign of Trajan then of Hadrian and destroyed at the 3rd century to leave room to large marble colonnades of color which were to border the famous Roman ways which squared the ancient city. It was especially famous during this time for its production of ceramics and earthenware whose égyptisant style was very run to Alexandria and later in all the Roman Mediterranean basin.
Photographs
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