Canopus ( , , ; , ), also known as Canobus (, ), was an
ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
ian coastal town, located in the
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta (, or simply , ) is the River delta, delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's larger deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the eas ...
. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day
Alexandria
Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
, around from the center of that city. Canopus was located on the western bank at the mouth of the westernmost branch of the Delta – known as the Canopic or Heracleotic branch. It belonged to the seventh Egyptian
Nome, known as ''Menelaites'', and later as ''Canopites'', after it. It was the principal port in Egypt for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria, along with
Naucratis
Naucratis or Naukratis (Ancient Greek: , "Naval Command"; Egyptian: , , , Coptic: ) was a city and trading-post in ancient Egypt, located on the Canopic (western-most) branch of the Nile river, south-east of the Mediterranean sea and the city ...
and
Heracleion
Heracleion (Ancient Greek: ), also known as Thonis (Ancient Greek: ; from the Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ; ) and sometimes called Thonis-Heracleion, was an ancient Egyptian port city located near the Canopic Mouth of the Nile, abo ...
. Its ruins lie near the present Egyptian town of
Abu Qir.
Land in the area of Canopus was subject to rising sea levels, earthquakes, tsunamis, and large parts of it seem to have succumbed to liquefaction sometime at the end of the 2nd century BC. The eastern suburbs of Canopus collapsed,
their remains being today submerged in the sea, with the western suburbs being buried beneath the modern coastal city of
Abu Qir.
Name
The settlement's
Egyptian
''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...
name was written in
Demotic
Demotic may refer to:
* Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language
* Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language
* Chữ Nôm
Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used t ...
as

(, sometimes romanized Peguat or Pikuat). The Greeks called it Canopus (, ''Kánōpos'') after a
legendary commander of the era of the
Trojan War
The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...
supposedly buried there. The English form of the name derives from the
Latinized form used under
Roman rule.
History
Ancient Egypt
Canopus was the site of a temple to the
Egyptian god Serapis
Serapis or Sarapis is a Egyptian Greeks, Graeco-Egyptian god. A Religious syncretism, syncretic deity derived from the worship of the Egyptian Osiris and Apis (deity), Apis, Serapis was extensively popularized in the third century BC on the ord ...
.
The name of Canopus appears in the first half of the 6th century BC in a poem by
Solon
Solon (; ; BC) was an Archaic Greece#Athens, archaic History of Athens, Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy. ...
. Early
Egyptological excavations some 2 or 3 km from the area known today as
Abu Qir have revealed extensive traces of the city with its quays, and granite monuments with the name of
Ramesses II
Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...
, but they may have been brought in for the adornment of the place at a later date. The exact date of the foundation of Canopus is unknown, but
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
refers to it as an ancient port. Homeric myth claims that it was founded by
Menelaus
In Greek mythology, Menelaus (; ) was a Greek king of Mycenaean (pre- Dorian) Sparta. According to the ''Iliad'', the Trojan war began as a result of Menelaus's wife, Helen, fleeing to Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. Menelaus was a central ...
, and named after
Canopus
Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina (constellation), Carina and the list of brightest stars, second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also Bayer designation, designated α Carinae, which is Rom ...
, the pilot of his ship, who died there after being bitten by a serpent. Legend describes how Menelaus built a monument to his memory on the shore, around which the town later grew up. There is unlikely to be any connection with "
canopy". A temple to
Osiris
Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wikt:wsjr, wsjr'') was the ancient Egyptian deities, god of fertility, agriculture, the Ancient Egyptian religion#Afterlife, afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was ...
was built by king
Ptolemy III Euergetes
Ptolemy III Euergetes (, "Ptolemy the Euergetes, Benefactor"; c. 280 – November/December 222 BC) was the third pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt from 246 to 222 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom reached the height of its military and economic ...
, but according to Herodotus, very near to Canopus was an older shrine, a temple of
Heracles
Heracles ( ; ), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a Divinity, divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of ZeusApollodorus1.9.16/ref> and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through ...
that served as an asylum for fugitive slaves. Osiris was worshipped at Canopus under a peculiar form: that of a vase with a human head. Through an old misunderstanding, the name "
canopic jar
Canopic jars are funerary vessels that were used by the Ancient Egypt, ancient Egyptians to house embalmed organs that were removed during the mummification process. They also served to store and preserve the viscera of their soul for the afterl ...
s" was applied by early
Egyptologists to the vases with human and animal heads in which the internal organs were placed by the Egyptians after embalming.
The ancient city of Canopus is attested to, in part, by the
Decree of Canopus. The decree mentions the temple of Canopus and an important rite in which, once a year,
n effigy ofOsiris is transported from
Heracleium to Canopus. Specifically, the decree says, "...to consecrate the same goddess like Osiris, in the temple of Canopus,...we shall draw along Osiris during the drawing along of the barge to the same temple, at the season of the year, from the temple which is in Heracleium, on the twenty-ninth of the month of Choac".
Hellenistic period
In
Ptolemy III Euergetes
Ptolemy III Euergetes (, "Ptolemy the Euergetes, Benefactor"; c. 280 – November/December 222 BC) was the third pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt from 246 to 222 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom reached the height of its military and economic ...
' ninth regnal year (239 BC), a great assembly of priests at Canopus passed an honorific decree (the "
Decree of Canopus") that, ''inter alia,'' conferred various new titles on the king and his consort,
Berenice. Three examples of this decree are now known (plus some fragments), inscribed in
Egyptian
''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...
(in both
hieroglyphic
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...
and
demotic
Demotic may refer to:
* Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language
* Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language
* Chữ Nôm
Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used t ...
) and in classical
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
, and they were second only to the more famous
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt, Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts ...
in providing the key to deciphering the ancient Egyptian language. This was the earliest of the series of
bilingual
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...
inscriptions of the "Rosetta Stone Series", also known as the
Ptolemaic Decrees. There are three such Decrees altogether.
The town had a large trade in
henna (a plant-based dye).
Roman period
In
Roman times
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingd ...
, the town was notorious for its dissoluteness.
Seneca wrote of the luxury and vice of Canopus, though he also mentioned that "Canopus does not keep any man from living simply".
Juvenal
Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people f ...
's ''
Satire VI'' referred to the "debauchery" that prevailed there. The emperor
Hadrian
Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...
built a
villa
A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house that provided an escape from urban life. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the f ...
at
Tivoli, 18 miles away from Rome, where he replicated for his enjoyment architectural patterns from all parts of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
. One of these (and the most excavated and studied today) was borrowed from Canopus.
Modern town
The Egyptian town of
Abu Qir ("Father Cyrus"), honoring two Christian martyrs, is located a few kilometres away from the ruins of Canopus. It is a town (around 1900 with 1000 inhabitants), at the end of a little peninsula north-east of Alexandria. It has a trade in
quail
Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy.
Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New ...
s, which are caught in nets hung along the shore. Off Aboukir on 1 August 1798, the French Mediterranean fleet was destroyed within the roads by British Admiral
Horatio Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte ( – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer whose leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French ...
. On 25 July 1799,
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
destroyed there a Turkish army 18,000 strong; and on 8 March 1801, the French garrison of 1,800 me
was defeatedby 20,000 English and Ottoman Turks commanded by
Abercromby.
See of Canopus
Egypt had many martyrs in the
Diocletianic Persecution, among others St.
Athanasia with her three daughters, and St.
Cyrus and John. There was here a monastery called Metanoia, founded by monks from
Tabennisi
Tabenna is a Christian community founded in Upper Egypt around 320 by Saint Pachomius. It was the motherhouse of a federation of monasteries known as the ''Koinonia''. At the time of Pachomius's death in 346, there were nine establishments for men ...
, where many a
patriarch of Alexandria
The Patriarch of Alexandria is the archbishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Historically, this office has included the designation "pope" (etymologically "Father", like "Abbot").
The Alexandrian episcopate was revered as one of the three major epi ...
took shelter during the religious quarrels of the 5th century. east of Canopus was the famous Pharaonic temple of Manouthin, afterwards destroyed by monks, and a church on the same spot dedicated to the
Four Evangelists
In Christian tradition, the Four Evangelists are Matthew the Apostle, Matthew, Mark the Evangelist, Mark, Luke the Evangelist, Luke, and John the Evangelist, John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four canonical Gospel accounts ...
. St.
Cyril of Alexandria
Cyril of Alexandria (; or ⲡⲓ̀ⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ Ⲕⲓⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲥ; 376–444) was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He was enthroned when the city was at the height of its influence and power within the Roman Empire ...
solemnly transported the relics of the holy martyrs Cyrus and John into the church, which became an important place of
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...
. It was here that St.
Sophronius of Jerusalem
Sophronius (; ; c. 560 – March 11, 638), called Sophronius the Sophist, was the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of the city known as Aelia Capitolina and then Jerusalem from 634 until his death. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and ...
was healed of an
ophthalmy that had been declared incurable by the physicians (610–619), whereupon he wrote the
panegyric
A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens.
Etymology
The word originated as a compound of - ' ...
of the two saints with a compilation of seventy miracles worked in their sanctuary (
Migne, ''
Patrologia Graeca'', LXXXVII, 3379–676) Canopus formed, with Menelaus and Schedia, a
suffragan
A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations.
In the Catholic Church, a suffragan bishop leads a diocese within an ecclesiastical province other than the principal diocese, the metropolitan archdiocese; the diocese led ...
see subject to Alexandria in the
Roman province
The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...
of
Aegyptus Prima; it is usually called Schedia in the ''
Notitiae episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church.
In the Roman Church (the mos ...
''. Two
titulars are mentioned by
Lequien
Michel Le Quien (8 October 1661, Boulogne-sur-Mer – 12 March 1733, Paris) was a French historian and theologian.
Biography
Le Quien studied at , Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made ...
(II, 415), one in 325, the other in 362.
Archaeology
Over time the land around Canopus was weakened by a combination of earthquakes, tsunamis and rising sea levels.
The eastern suburbs succumbed to liquefaction of the soil.
[ The western suburbs eventually became the present day Egyptian coastal city of Abu Qir.]
In 1933, a RAF commander who was flying over Abu Qir Bay thought he was seeing ruins in the bay and informed Egyptian scholar Prince Omar Toussoun who subsequently undertook archaeological investigations and with the help of fishermen found an archeological site 1,8 km from shore.
Since 1992, the IEASM led by French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio has been surveying the Abu Qir Bay. The undersea ruins were eventually identified as the lost city of Canopus after excavations.
Underwater archaeology at the eastern portion of Canopus, northeast of Alexandria in Abu Qir Bay, has provided numerous important discoveries including the following:
* A portion of a human-sized sphinx
A sphinx ( ; , ; or sphinges ) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle.
In Culture of Greece, Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, th ...
* The head of a four-to-five-meter-tall marble statue of the god Serapis
Serapis or Sarapis is a Egyptian Greeks, Graeco-Egyptian god. A Religious syncretism, syncretic deity derived from the worship of the Egyptian Osiris and Apis (deity), Apis, Serapis was extensively popularized in the third century BC on the ord ...
* A three-meter-wide, 103-meter-long masonry wall of a major building, almost certainly the Temple of Serapis, a Serapeum
A serapeum is a temple or other religious institution dedicated to the syncretism, syncretic Greeks in Egypt, Greco-Egyptian ancient Egyptian deities, deity Serapis, who combined aspects of Osiris and Apis (deity), Apis in a humanized form that w ...
* A nearly intact life-sized statue, in black granite
In the construction industry, black rocks that share the hardness and strength of granitic rocks are known as black granite. In geological terms, black granite might be gabbro, diabase, basalt, diorite, norite, or anorthosite
Anorthosite () ...
, of a Ptolemaic queen, in a transitional Greek-Egyptian style
* Remains of the ancient ceremonial canal which linked Heracleium eracleionand Canopus
* Offerings, in the form of small votive statues, which were tossed into the canal
* The nearly complete wooden remains of a ceremonial boat, or barge, in sycamore, a wood associated with the god Osiris. The canal and boat are believed to have been used to carry an effigy of Osiris in celebrating the sacred Mysteries of Osiris, a foundational ceremony for the ancient Egyptian religion.
* Parts of a nearly complete Naos of the Decades,[The Naos of the Decades Reconstituted,” Franck Goddio, pp. 181–187, 2014, Zenodo (CERN),
https://www.academia.edu/111746642/The_Naos_of_the_Decades_Reconstituted?uc-sb-sw=22962063] an ancient Egyptian stone monument providing a guide to the heavens and a portion of the Egyptian creation myths
* A imperial-period Roman statue of Nilus, the Nile personified
* Pagan statues with damage done in 391 CE by order of the Christian Emperor Theodosius I
Theodosius I ( ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene C ...
, i.e., acts of iconoclasm
* Artifacts such as coins and jewelry from the site's Christian era
* Fractured Christian-era masonry structures providing evidence of a massive earthquake
See also
*
Notes
References
*
Attribution:
* .
*
External links
The Canopus Decree
The Canopus at Villa Adriana
European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM)
Franck Goddio home page
Oxford Center for Maritime Archaeology (OCMA)
{{coord, 31, 18, N, 30, 5, E, type:city_region:EG_source:nlwiki, display=title
1933 archaeological discoveries
Archaeological sites in Egypt
Mediterranean port cities and towns in Egypt
Former populated places in Egypt
Nile Delta
Submerged places