Mendès

See also: Mendès (homonymy)

Mendès is an Egyptian ancient city of religious order where the god Banebdjedet lived, represented in the form of a ram. One also venerated there the goddess Hatméhyt.

Its foundation goes back to the beginning of the Ancient Empire and as Bouto had an important mythological role for the periods which followed.

Currently the site bears the name of Such el-Rub' has and is presented in the form of many sites of the delta like a vast zone of debris hillocks extending on 3 km, formed by the many layers of the ancient city (see Bubastis, Tanis) whose emergent of the scattered blocks, crashed to pieces, romantic remainders of the old zone of the temples. Only large a naos monolith, dedicated to the god Cabbage, borer this horizon of ruins, still upright on its foundations, and which initially belonged to a large group of four naos grouped in the sanctuary of the principal temple of the city. The remainders of the three others naos still lie on the ground.

Mendès was the capital of which took again its independence with the conqueror Perse little time after the first invasion. Four Pharaons are attested in the lists of Manéthon: Néphéritès {{Ier}}, Psammouthis, Achôris and Néphéritès {{II}}.

The site is the object since ten year of excavations by the mission carried out by Donald B. Redford, which revealed that the city undergoes important destruction to the IV E, undoubtedly at the time of the reconquest by Artaxerxès {{III}} which is famous to have profaned the necropolis of the crowned rams and in particular fall it from Néphéritès.

Thanks to these excavations, we know now that the city was not given up and continued to play a big role in particular in the trade with the Mediterranean and this until the Roman epoch.

A large commemorative stele was raised by Ptolémée {{II}} and was dedicated to the god of Mendès. As other examples of this time she proclaims work which the king in this part of Egypt undertook.

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