Oxyrynchus
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Oxyrynchus
Oxyrhynchus (; grc-gre, Ὀξύρρυγχος, Oxýrrhynchos, sharp-nosed; ancient Egyptian language, Egyptian ''Pr-Medjed''; cop, or , ''Pemdje''; ar, البهنسا, ''Al-Bahnasa'') is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo in Minya Governorate. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered. Since the late 19th century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been excavated almost continually, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts dating from the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Egypt (Roman province), Roman Egypt. They also include a few vellum manuscripts, and more recent Arabic language, Arabic manuscripts on paper (for example, the medieval P. Oxy. VI 1006) History Ancient Egyptian Era Oxyrhynchus lies west of the main course of the Nile on the Bahr Yussef, a branch that terminates in Lake Moeris and the Faiyum oasis. In ancient Egyptian times, there was a city on the site called Pr (hieroglyph), P ...
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Oxyrhynchos Map
Oxyrhynchus (; grc-gre, Ὀξύρρυγχος, Oxýrrhynchos, sharp-nosed; ancient Egyptian ''Pr-Medjed''; cop, or , ''Pemdje''; ar, البهنسا, ''Al-Bahnasa'') is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo in Minya Governorate. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered. Since the late 19th century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been excavated almost continually, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts dating from the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt. They also include a few vellum manuscripts, and more recent Arabic manuscripts on paper (for example, the medieval P. Oxy. VI 1006) History Ancient Egyptian Era Oxyrhynchus lies west of the main course of the Nile on the Bahr Yussef, a branch that terminates in Lake Moeris and the Faiyum oasis. In ancient Egyptian times, there was a city on the site called Per-Medjed, named after the medjed, a species of elephantfish of the Nile ...
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Medjed (fish)
Medjed was a kind of elephantfish worshipped at Oxyrhynchus (Ὀξύρρυγχος) in ancient Egyptian religion. These fish were believed to have eaten the penis of the god Osiris after his brother Set had dismembered and scattered the god's body. A settlement in Upper Egypt, Per-Medjed, was named after the fish; it is now better known under its Greek name ''Oxyrhynchus,'' meaning "sharp-nosed", a nod to the Egyptian depiction of the fish. As a sacred fish, it is frequently depicted wearing a horned sun-disc. Figurines were sometimes provided with rings to enable them to be worn as pendant amulets. Freshwater elephantfish (subfamily Mormyrinae) are medium-sized freshwater fish abundant in the Nile. Some of the species have distinctive downturned snouts, lending them their common name. The Oxyrhynchus fishes depicted as bronze figurines, mural paintings, or wooden coffins in the shape of fishes with downturned snouts, with horned sun-disc crowns like those of the goddess Hathor ...
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Early Muslim Conquests
The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests ( ar, الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, ), also referred to as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. He established a new unified polity in Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Islamic rule being established across three continents. According to Scottish historian James Buchan: "In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting." At their height, the territory that was conquered stretched from Iberia (at the Pyrenees) in the west to India (at Sind) in the east; Muslim rule spanned Sicily, most of North Africa and the Middle East, and the Caucasus and Central Asia. English historian Edward Gibbon writes in '' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'': Among other drastic changes, the early ...
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Bahr Yussef
The Bahr Yussef ( ar, بحر يوسف; "the waterway of Joseph") is a canal which connects the Nile River with Fayyum in Egypt. In ancient times it was called Tomis () by the Greeks which was derived from its Egyptian name ''Tm.t'' "ending canal" and was still in use after the Arab conquest, translated into Arabic as al-Manhi (). It was also known as "the Great canal" () or "the canal of Moeris". The modern Arabic name refers to the prophet Yusuf, the Quranic counterpart of the Biblical Joseph. In prehistoric times, the canal was a natural offshoot of the Nile which created a lake to the west during high floods. Beginning with the 12th dynasty, the waterway was enlarged and the Fayyum was developed to enlarge Lake Moeris. The canal was built into the natural incline of the valley, creating a channel 15 km long and 5 m deep that sloped into the Fayyum depression. The canal was controlled by the Ha-Uar Dam, which was actually two dams that regulated the flow into the lake ...
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Alexander The Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to the throne in 336 BC at the age of 20, and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia and Egypt. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders. Until the age of 16, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle. In 335 BC, shortly after his assumption of kingship over Macedon, he campaigned in the Balkans and reasserted control over Thrace and Illyria before marching on the city of Thebes, which was subsequently destroyed in battle. Alexander then led the League of Corinth, and used his authori ...
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Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip of Palestine and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt, while Alexandria, the second-largest city, is an important industrial and tourist hub at the Mediterranean coast. At approximately 100 million inhabitants, Egypt is the 14th-most populated country in the world. Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage along the Nile Delta back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture ...
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Nome (Egypt)
A nome (, from grc, νομός, ''nomós'', "district") was a territorial division in ancient Egypt. Each nome was ruled by a nomarch ( egy, ḥrj tp ꜥꜣ Great Chief). The number of nomes changed through the various periods of the history of ancient Egypt. Etymology The term ''nome'' comes from Ancient Greek νομός, ''nomós'', meaning "district"; the Ancient Egyptian term was ''sepat'' or ''spAt''. Today's use of the Ancient Greek rather than the Ancient Egyptian term came about during the Ptolemaic period, when the use of Greek was widespread in Egypt. The availability of Greek records on Egypt influenced the adoption of Greek terms by later historians. History Dynastic Egypt The division of ancient Egypt into nomes can be traced back to prehistoric Egypt (before 3100 BC). These nomes originally existed as autonomous city-states, but later began to unify. According to ancient tradition, the ruler Menes completed the final unification. Not only did the divi ...
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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 Egypt, Upper Egypt was known as ''tꜣ šmꜣw'', literally "the Land of Reeds" or "the Sedgeland". It is believed to have been united by the rulers of the supposed Thinite Confederacy who absorbed their rival city states during the Naqada III period (c. 3200–3000 BC), and its subsequent unification with Lower Egypt ushered in the Early Dynastic period. Upper and Lower Egypt became intertwined in the symbolism of pharaonic sovereignty such as the Pschent double crown. Upper Egypt remained as a historical region even after the classical period. Geography Upper Egypt is between the Cataracts of the Nile beyond modern-day Aswan, downriver (northward) to the area of El-Ayait, which places modern-day Cairo in Lower Egypt. The northern (dow ...
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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 was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, and holding a symbolic crook and flail. He was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother, Set cut him up into pieces after killing him, Osiris' wife Isis found all the pieces and wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life. Osiris was widely worshipped until the decline of ancient Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Osiris was at times considered the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, as well as being brother and husband of Isis, and brother of Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder, with Horus the Yo ...
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Mormyridae
The Mormyridae, sometimes called "elephantfish" (more properly freshwater elephantfish), are a family of weakly electric freshwater fish in the order Osteoglossiformes native to Africa. It is by far the largest family in the order with around 200 species. Members of the family can be popular, if challenging, aquarium species. These fish are also known for having large brain size and unusually high intelligence. They are not to be confused with the marine and brackish-water callorhinchid elephantfish (family Callorhinchidae) of Southern Hemisphere oceans. Description and biology The elephantfish are a diverse family, with a wide range of different sizes and shapes. The smallest are just in adult length, while the largest reach up to . They do, however, have a number of unique features in common. Firstly, their cerebellum is greatly enlarged, enabling them to interpret complex bio-electrical signals. and to the large size of the valve, Secondly, an auditory vesicle (a small bl ...
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Pr (hieroglyph)
Pr (𓉐 Gardiner sign listed no. O1) is the hieroglyph for 'house', the floor-plan of a walled building with an open doorway. While its original pronunciation is not known with certainty, modern Egyptology assigns it the value of ''per'', but purely on the basis of a convention specific to the discipline. However, the Ancient Greek rendering of the title ''pr-`3'' as grc, φαραώ suggests the reconstruction of the historical ( Late Egyptian) pronunciation as *''par'', see Pharaoh#Etymology. Pr combined with an associated "personal name", god, or location becomes the ''"house of .... ."'' An example for pharaoh Setnakhte is the city of: Pr-Atum, (city of Pithom). Pr and ankh-(life) is a "combination hieroglyph" and is the "word" for ''house of life''. The "house of life" is a library for papyrus books-(scrolls), as well as a possible scriptorium. The shape of ''pr'' in beginning dynasties had variations in the shape of a square, with the opening. See Garrett Re ...
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