Gebelein (

Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and ...

: , Two Mountains; Egyptian: Inerty or Per-Hathor;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

: or ;

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

: ''Pathyris'' or ''Aphroditopolis'') was a town in

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 ...

. It is located on the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest riv ...

, about 40 km south of Thebes, in the

New Valley Governorate New Valley Governorate or El Wadi El Gedid Governorate ( ar, محافظة الوادي الجديد , ) is one of the governorates of Egypt. It is in the southwestern part of the country, in the south of Egypt Western Desert (part of the Saha ...

. The modern geographic area is known as Naga el-Gherira (

: ).

Archaeology

Gebelein is known for its cemetery, where archeological finds stretching from the Predynastic Period to the Middle Kingdom have been made. Archaeological interest in the town started in the early 18th century AD and was included in

Benoît de Maillet Benoît de Maillet (Saint-Mihiel, 12 April 1656 – Marseille, 30 January 1738) was a well-travelled French diplomat and natural historian. He was French consul general at Cairo, and overseer in the Levant. He formulated an evolutionary hypothesi ...

's ''Description de l'Egypte''. As well as official excavations, many artifacts from the site were traded on the antiquities market and can be found in the museums of Turin, Cairo, Berlin, Lyons, and the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

Predynastic mummies

The Gebelein predynastic mummies are six naturally mummified bodies, dating to approximately 3400 BC from the Late Predynastic period of Egypt, and were the first complete pre-dynastic bodies to be discovered. The well-preserved bodies were excavated at the end of the nineteenth century by Wallis Budge, the British Museum Keeper for Egyptology, from shallow sand graves near Gebelein (modern name Naga el-Gherira) in the Egyptian desert. A Pre-dynastic mummified body dated to 3400 BC, excavated from this site, has been on display in the British Museum since 1901.

Temple of Hathor

The site includes the remains from a temple to

Hathor Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...

with a number of

cartouches In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fe ...

on mud bricks and a royal

stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), wh ...

from the

Second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ea ...

Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * Hi ...

Dynasties.Porter, Bertha and Moss, Rosalind. ''Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings, V Upper Egypt: Sites (Volume 5)''. Griffith Institute. 2004. The temple is located on the east hill of the site. Items of several

Second Intermediate Period The Second Intermediate Period marks a period when ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a "Second Intermediate Period" was coined in 1942 b ...

rulers include a stele of

Dedumose II Djedneferre Dedumose II was a native ancient Egyptian pharaoh during the Second Intermediate Period. According to egyptologists Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker, he was a ruler of the Theban 16th Dynasty.Ryholt, K. S. B. (1997). ''The Political Sit ...

, a block of Djedankhre Montemsaf, and a stela of a ruler named Sekhemtawy.

Hyksos Hyksos (; Egyptian '' ḥqꜣ(w)- ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''hekau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands") is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC). T ...

rulers mentioned are Apophis (on a lintel) and

Khyan Seuserenre Khyan (also Khayan or Khian and Apachnan from the West Semitic Apaq-khyran) was an Hyksos king of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt, ruling over Lower Egypt in the second half of the 17th century BCE. His royal name Seuserenre translates ...

(on a black granite block). Later period finds include a brick naming the

High Priest of Amun The High Priest of Amun or First Prophet of Amun ('' ḥm nṯr tpj n jmn'') was the highest-ranking priest in the priesthood of the ancient Egyptian god Amun. The first high priests of Amun appear in the New Kingdom of Egypt, at the beginning ...

Menkheperre and his wife Isetemkheb. The brick likely came from the Fort that enclosed the temple. From the Ptolemaic period came fragments of a statue of

Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II Tryphon ( gr, Πτολεμαῖος Εὐεργέτης Τρύφων, ''Ptolemaĩos Euergétēs Tryphon'' "Ptolemy the Benefactor; c. 184 BC – 28 June 116 BC), nicknamed Physcon ( "Fatty"), was a king of the Ptolemai ...

Limestone fragments from the shrine that would have held the statue were also found.

Ptolemaic period military camp

During the reign of

Ptolemy VI Philometor Ptolemy VI Philometor ( gr, Πτολεμαῖος Φιλομήτωρ, ''Ptolemaĩos Philomḗtōr'';"Ptolemy, lover of his Mother". 186–145 BC) was a Greek king of Ptolemaic Egypt who reigned from 180 to 164 BC and from 163 to 145 BC. Ptolemy ...

, a military camp was established at Gebelein after the Theban rebellion of 186 B.C.J. G. Manning, Land and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Structure of Land Tenure, Cambridge University Press, May 29, 2003 (Via Google books) The camp was destroyed by rebel forces 88 BC and the site was never again inhabited on a larger scale. Several hundred Demotic and Greek papyri and

ostraca An ostracon ( Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of ...

pertaining to the soldiers and the local temple were found at the ruins between 1890 and 1930. These including the archive of the mercenary Horos son of Nechoutes and the Dryton and Apollonia Archive.

External links

Egyptian artefacts at the Musée de Confluences, LyonEgyptian artefacts from Gebelein at the British Museum, London

References

{{coord, 25, 29, N, 32, 29, E, source:eswiki_region:EG_scale:10000, display=title Archaeological sites in Egypt Populated places in Qena Governorate