Djedet (ḏd.t) in hieroglyphs

For information about the Portuguese language surname Mendes, see the article Mendez.

Mendes (Μένδης), the Greek name of ancient Djedet (modern تل الربع Tell el-Rubˁ), is a city in the eastern Nile delta (30°58′N 31°30′E). It was the capital of the 16th Lower Egyptian nome, and during the 29th dynasty, it was the capital of ancient Egypt. It lies on the Mendesian branch of the Nile (now silted up), about 35 kilometres east of al Mansurah. It has been suggested that Hieroglyph (French Wiki article) be merged into this article or section. ... Portuguese ( ) is a Romance language, of the Indo-European family. ... A family name, or surname, is that part of a persons name that indicates to what family he or she belongs. ... Miguel Abadia (Mendez) (1867 - 1947), Colombian political figure and president of Colombia 1926-1930. ... NASA satellite photograph of the Nile Delta (shown in false colour) The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. ... The nomes of Ancient Egypt A nome (Greek: district) is a subnational administrative division of Ancient Egypt. ... Nefaarud I, or Nepherites, founded the Twenty-ninth dynasty of Egypt (according to an account preserved in a papyrus in the Brooklyn Museum) by defeating Amyrtaeus in open battle, and later putting him to death at Memphis. ... Kufus Pyramid (4th dynasty) and Great Sphinx of Giza (c. ... The Nile (Arabic: النيل an-nÄ«l, Egyptian iteru) is a river in Africa, often regarded as the longest river on Earth, although some sources claim the Amazon in South America is longer. ... Al Mansurah (Arabic منصورة) is considered to be Egyptian fourth city after Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said. ...

History

Mendes was a famous city in ancient times, attracting notice of most ancient geographers and historians, including Herodotus (ii. 42, 46. 166); Diodorus (i. 84); Strabo (xvii. p. 802); Mela (i. 9 § 9); Pliny the Elder (v. 10. s. 12); Ptolemy (iv. 5. § 51); and Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.). The city was the capital of the Mendesian nome, situated at the point where the Mendesian arm of the Nile (Μενδήσιον στόμα, Scylax, p. 43; Ptol. iv, 5. § 10; Mendesium ostium, Pliny, Mela, ll. cc.) flows into the lake of Tanis. Archaeological evidence attests to the existance of the town at least as far back as the Naqqada II period. Under the first Pharaohs, Mendes quickly became a strong seat of provincial government and remained so throughout the Pharaonic period. In Classical times, the nome it governed was one of the nomes assigned to that division of the native army which was called the Calasirii, and the city was celebrated for the manufacture of a perfume designated as the Mendesium unguentum. (Plin. xiii. 1. s. 2.) Mendes, however, declined early, and disappears in the first century AD; since both Ptolemy (l. c.) and P. Aelius Aristides (iii. p. 160) mention Thmuis as the only town of note in the Mendesian nome. From its position at the junction of the river and the lake, it was probably encroached upon by their waters, after the canals fell into neglect under the Macedonian kings, and when they were repaired by Augustus (Sueton. Aug. 18, 63) Thmuis had attracted its trade and population. Bust of Herodotus at Naples Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: , Herodotos) was a historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. ... Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian, born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira, in the province of Enna). ... the Greek georgapher Strabo, in a 16th‑century engraving. ... Mela is a Sanskrit word meaning get together. ... Pliny the Elder: an imaginative 19c portrait. ... An artists rendition of Claudius Ptolemaeus This article is about the geographer and astronomer Ptolemy. ... Stephanus Byzantinus (Stephanus of Byzantium), the author of a geographical dictionary entitled Εθνικα (Ethnica), of which, apart from some fragments, we possess only the meagre epitome of one Hermolaus. ... For information about the Portuguese language surname Mendes, see the article Mendez. ... Scylax Of Caryanda, Carian explorer. ... (1st century BC - 1st century - 2nd century - other centuries) The 1st century was that century which lasted from 1 to 99. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Aelius Aristides. ... Thmuis (Greek: ; Arabic: Tell el-Timai) is a city of Lower Egypt, on the canal east of the Nile, between its Tanitic and Mendesian branches and former -now titular- episcopal see in the Roman province of Augustamnica Prima, suffragan of Pelusium. ... Ptolemy, one of Alexander the Greats generals, was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexanders death in 323 BC. In 305 BC he declared himself King Ptolemy I, later known as Soter (saviour). ... Augustus (Latin: IMP•CAESAR•DIVI•F•AVGVSTVS;[1] September 23, 63 BC – August 19, AD 14), known as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (in English Octavian, Latin: C•IVLIVS•C•F•CAESAR•OCTAVIANVS) for the period of his life prior to 27 BC, was the first and among the most important... This article is about the Roman historian. ...

Ruins

The site is today the largest surviving tell in the Nile delta, and consists of both Tell al-Ruba (the site of the main temple enclosure) and Tell Timai (the settlement site to the south). Overall, Mendes is about three kilometres long from north to south and averages about 900 metres east to west. An Old Kingdom necropolis is estimated to contain over 9,000 interments. Several campaigns of 20th-century excavations have been led by North American institutions, including New York University and the University of Toronto and a Pennsylvania State University team led by Donald Redford. Under the direction of Prof. Redford, the current excavations are concentrating on a number of areas in and around the main temple. Work on the New Kingdom processual-style temple has recently uncovered foundation deposits of Merenptah below the second pylon. On the edge of the temple mound, a sondage supervised by Matthew J. Adams has revealed uninterupted stratification from the late Old Kingdom/First Intermediate Period down to the First Dynasty. Coring results suggest that future excavations in that sondage should expect to take the stratification down into the early Naqqada Period. The material excavated so far is already the longest uninterrupted stratification for all of the Nile Delta, and possibly for all of Egypt. An architectural and ceramic report on this unprecidented sequence is currently in progress. Tell Mar Elias, North Jordan in 2005 Tell or tall (Arabic: ‎, tall, and Hebrew: , tel), meaning hill or mound, is an archaeological site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by human occupation over long periods of time. ... The University of Toronto (U of T) is a non-denominational, provincially-supported, coeducational public research university located in Toronto, Ontario. ... The New Kingdom is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BCE and the 11th century BCE, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt. ... Merneptah (occasionally: Merenptah) was pharaoh of Ancient Egypt (1213 – 1203 BC), the fourth ruler of the 19th Dynasty. ... The Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to that period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization complexity and achievement - this was the first of three so-called Kingdom periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the Nile Valley (the... The First Intermediate Period is the name conventionally given by Egyptologists to that period in Ancient Egyptian history between the end of the Old Kingdom and the advent of the Middle Kingdom. ...

Religion

The chief deities of Mendes were the ram deity Banebdjedet (lit. Ba of the Lord of Mendes), who was the Ba of Osiris, and his consort, the fish goddess Hatmehit. With their child Har-pa-khered ("Horus the Child"), they formed the triad of Mendes. Species See text. ... In Egyptian mythology, the human soul is made up of seven parts: the Ren, Sekem, the Akh, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Sekhu. ... Osiris (Greek language, also Usiris; the Egyptian language name is variously transliterated Asar, Aser, Ausar, Wesir, or Ausare) is the Egyptian god of life, death and fertility. ... In Egyptian mythology, Hatmehit, or Hatmehyt was a fish-goddess, wife of Banebdjetet and mother of Har-pa-khered. ... This page is about the Egyptian deity. ... Horus is an ancient god of Egyptian mythology, whose cult survived so long that he evolved dramatically over time and gained many names. ...

The ram deity of Mendes was described by Herodotus in his History (Book II) as being represented with the face and legs of a goat, rather than a ram, and being considered by Egyptians as analogous to the Greek Pan. According to Herodotus, the sacrifice of goats was forbidden at his temples, and sheep were slaughtered instead. Presumably following Herodotus' description, the occultist Eliphas Levi in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) called his goat-headed conception of Baphomet the "Baphomet of Mendes", thus popularising and perpetuating this incorrect attribution, which has given rise to a flood of spurious connections, such as "The Goat of Mendes" by the black metal band Akercocke. Bust of Herodotus at Naples Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: , Herodotos) was a historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. ... Eliphas Lévi Eliphas Lévi, born Alphonse Louis Constant, (February 8, 1810 - May 31, 1875) was a French author and magician. ... 1855 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... This article or section needs additional references or sources. ... Black metal started in the early 1980s with bands such as Venom, Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. ... Akercocke is a British heavy metal band that, according to Allmusic, infuses black metal with some light electronic touches. They are famous for dressing in suits during concerts, their Satanic beliefs and having an extremely fast drummer. ...

References

• Redford, Donald Bruce. 2001. "Mendes". In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, edited by Donald Bruce Redford. Vol. 2 of 3 vols. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. 376–377.

• ———. 2004. Excavations at Mendes. Volume 1: The Royal Necropolis. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 20. Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill. ISBN 90-04-13674-6

• ———. 2005. "Mendes: City of the Ram God." Egyptian Archaeology: The Bulletin of the Egyptian Exploration Society 26:8–12.

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography by William Smith (1857).

• http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/b/dbr3/mendes.html

The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, published in 1854, was the last a series of classical dictionaries edited by the english scholar William Smith (1813–1893), which included as sister works the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. ... Sir William Smith (1813 - 1893), English lexicographer, was born at Enfield in 1813 of Nonconformist parents. ...

External links

• The Great Mendes Stela
• Monroe Edgar, " Minor Temple and Other Ruins of the Nile Delta in Egypt, Part III"
• [http://www.egyptsites.co.uk/lower/delta/eastern/ruba.html Egyptian Monuments: Tell el-Rub'a