Buto ( grc, Βουτώ, ar, بوتو, ''Butu''), Bouto, Butus ( grc, links=no, Βοῦτος, ''Boutos'')
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...
ii. 59, 63, 155. or Butosus was a city that the Ancient Egyptians called Per-Wadjet. It was located 95 km east of
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
in the
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta ( ar, دلتا النيل, or simply , is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to ...
of
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
. What in classical times the Greeks called Buto, stood about midway between the Taly (
Bolbitine) and Thermuthiac (
Sebennytic
The Nile Delta ( ar, دلتا النيل, or simply , is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Po ...
) branches of the Nile, a few kilometers north of the east-west Butic River and on the southern shore of the Butic Lake ( el, Βουτικὴ λίμνη, ''Boutikē limnē'').
Today, it is called Tell El Fara'in ("Hill of the Pharaohs"), near the villages of Ibtu (or Abtu), Kom Butu, and the city of
Desouk ( ar, دسوق).
History
Buto was a sacred site in dedication to the goddess
Wadjet
Wadjet (; egy, wꜢḏyt "Green One"), known to the Greek world as Uto (; grc-koi, Οὐτώ) or Buto (; ) among other renderings including Wedjat, Uadjet, and Udjo, was originally the ancient local goddess of the city of Dep. It became part ...
and was an important cultural site during
prehistoric Egypt
Prehistoric Egypt and Predynastic Egypt span the period from the earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period around 3100 BC, starting with the first Pharaoh, Narmer for some Egyptologists, Hor-Aha for others, with ...
, from the
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός '' palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
to 3100 BC.
Buto-Maadi culture was the most important
Lower Egyptian prehistoric culture, dating from 4000 - 3500, and contemporary with
Naqada
Naqada ( Egyptian Arabic: ; Coptic language: ; Ancient Greek: ) is a town on the west bank of the Nile in Qena Governorate, Egypt, situated ca. 20 km north of Luxor. It includes the villages of Tukh, Khatara, Danfiq, and Zawayda. Ac ...
I and II phases in
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south.
In ancient E ...
. The culture was best known from the site
Maadi
Maadi ( ar, المعادي / transliterated: ) is a leafy suburban district south of Cairo, Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile about upriver from downtown Cairo. The Nile at Maadi is parallelled by the Corniche, a waterfront promenade a ...
near Cairo,
[Maadi.](_blank)
University College London but was also attested in many other places in the Delta to the Faiyum region. This culture was marked by development in architecture and technology.
Archaeological evidence seems to show that Upper Egyptian Naqada culture replaced Buto-Maadi culture (also known as the ''Lower Egyptian Cultural Complex''), perhaps after a conquest. But, more recently, scholars have expressed reservations about this; they pointed out that, at the delta, there was a considerable transitional phase.
The unification of
Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt ( ar, مصر السفلى '; ) is the northernmost region of Egypt, which consists of the fertile Nile Delta between Upper Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, from El Aiyat, south of modern-day Cairo, and Dahshur. Historically, ...
and
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south.
In ancient E ...
into one entity is now considered to be a more complex process than previously thought.
Earliest texts
In the earliest records about the region, it contained two cities, Pe and Dep. Eventually, they merged into one city that the Ancient Egyptians named Per-Wadjet.
The goddess
Wadjet
Wadjet (; egy, wꜢḏyt "Green One"), known to the Greek world as Uto (; grc-koi, Οὐτώ) or Buto (; ) among other renderings including Wedjat, Uadjet, and Udjo, was originally the ancient local goddess of the city of Dep. It became part ...
was the patron deity of Lower Egypt and her
oracle
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The word ...
was located in her renowned temple in this area. An annual festival was held there that celebrated Wadjet. The area also contained sanctuaries of
Horus
Horus or Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the ...
and
Bast, and much later, the city became associated with
Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
.
At that time, many deities had parallel identities and roles, yet merged into a unified pantheon of deities due to the great similarities. That was not the case with patron deities, however. The patron deity of Lower Egypt,
Wadjet
Wadjet (; egy, wꜢḏyt "Green One"), known to the Greek world as Uto (; grc-koi, Οὐτώ) or Buto (; ) among other renderings including Wedjat, Uadjet, and Udjo, was originally the ancient local goddess of the city of Dep. It became part ...
, was represented as a
cobra. The patron deity of Upper Egypt,
Nekhbet
Nekhbet (; also spelt Nekhebit) is an early predynastic local goddess in Egyptian mythology, who was the patron of the city of Nekheb (her name meaning ''of Nekheb''). Ultimately, she became the patron of Upper Egypt and one of the two patron ...
, was represented as a
white vulture. Their separate cultural statures were such important features that they never were merged when the two cultures unified into one, as were so many deities with similar roles or natures from religious beliefs of the two unified regions. The two goddesses became known euphemistically as the '
Two Ladies
In Ancient Egyptian texts, the "Two Ladies" ( egy, nbtj, sometimes anglicized ''Nebty'') was a religious epithet for the goddesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, two deities who were patrons of the ancient Egyptians and worshiped by all after the unificati ...
', who together, remained the patrons of unified Egypt throughout the remainder of its ancient history. The image of Nekhbet joined Wadjet on the
Uraeus
The Uraeus (), or Ouraeus (Ancient Greek: , ; Egyptian: ', "rearing cobra"), ''(plural: Uraei)'' is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian cobra, used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority in ancient Egypt.
Symbol ...
that would encircle the crown of the kings who ruled Ancient Egypt thereafter.
Ptolemaic period
During foreign occupation of Egypt under the
Ptolemaic Kingdom, a dynasty that ruled from 305 to 30 BC, the classical Greeks coined the toponym ''Buto'' for the city. It served as the capital, or according to Herodian, merely the principal village of the Nile Delta. Herodotus styled it the
Chemmite nome,
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
knew it as the Phthenothite
nome (), and
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
as Ptenetha.
Greek historians recorded that Buto was celebrated for its monolithite temple and the oracle of the
goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes ...
Wadjet (Buto), and that a yearly festival was held there in honour of the goddess. While writing about Egyptian culture, the classical Greeks attempted to associate the more ancient Egyptian deities with their own. They wrote about them as essentially the same deities, but with different names in the Greek culture. For Wadjet the parallel identification was made with the Greek
Leto
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Leto (; grc-gre, Λητώ , ''Lētṓ'', or , ''Lātṓ'' in Doric Greek) is a goddess and the mother of Apollo, the god of music, and Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.Hesiod, ''Theogony'404–409/ref> ...
or
Latona. They also noted that at Buto there was a sanctuary of
Horus
Horus or Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the ...
(whom the
ancient Greeks
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
associated with
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
) and a sanctuary of
Bast (whom the Greeks associated with
Artemis
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Artemis (; grc-gre, Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. She was heavily identified with ...
).
Writing during that Graeco-Roman period,
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...
reported that Isis had entrusted the baby Horus to "Leto" (Wadjet) to raise at Buto while Isis searched for the body of her murdered husband
Osiris
Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...
. According to these same late sources, the
shrew
Shrews (family Soricidae) are small mole-like mammals classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are not to be confused with treeshrews, otter shrews, elephant shrews, West Indies shrews, or marsupial shrews, which belong to differ ...
(sometimes associated with Horus) was worshiped at Buto as well.
Archeological findings
A palace building dating to the Second Dynasty is considered one of the most important discoveries within Buto. Archaeological excavations were undertaken at Buto by the
Egypt Exploration Society
The Egypt Exploration Society (EES) is a British non-profit organization. The society was founded in 1882 by Amelia Edwards and Reginald Stuart Poole in order to examine and excavate in the areas of Egypt and Sudan. The intent was to study and ana ...
from 1964–1969, under the direction of
Veronica Seton-Williams and later, by
Dorothy Charlesworth
Dorothy Charlesworth (1927–1981) was a Roman archaeologist and glass specialist who served as Inspector of Ancient Monuments. She worked within Britain and Egypt.
Early life and education
Born and brought up in Northumberland, the daughter ...
. The German Archaeological Institute, Cairo has been excavating at Buto since the early 1980s. Six Greek bathhouses also were excavated by different missions in Buto.
In 2022, excavations over an area of 6.5m x 4.5m uncovered the remains of an ancient hall lined with pillars within the larger temple structure. The hall contained the remains of three surviving columns, aligned on a north-south axis at the southwestern end of the temple. A number of stone fragments decorated with engravings where found, as well as numerous ceramics and pottery associated with ritual activity.
[ In a press release issued by the ]Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
The Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities is the Egyptian government organization which serves to protect and preserve the heritage and ancient history of Egypt. In December 2019 it was merged into the Ministry of Tourism with Khaled al-Anani retai ...
, archaeologists also found a limestone painting with the representation of a bird’s head wearing a white crown surrounded by feathers.
See also
*
* Diocese of Buto for ecclesiastical history and current titular sees
* Kafr El Sheikh Governorate
Kafr El Sheikh Governorate is one of the governorates of Egypt. It lies in the northern part of the country, along the western branch of the Nile in the Nile Delta. Its capital is the city of Kafr El Sheikh.
Kafr El Sheikh is the first nationwid ...
* Sais, Egypt
References
External links
*
*{{Commons category-inline
Ptolemaic colonies
Archaeological sites in Egypt
Ruins in Egypt
Former populated places in Egypt
Nile Delta
Tells (archaeology)
Desouk
Cities in ancient Egypt
Former capitals of Egypt
Egyptian mythology
Egyptology
Archaeological discoveries with year of discovery missing
Wadjet