Athribis (Upper Egypt)
Athribis (Greek Ἀθριβις ) was a city of 9 Gaus of Upper Egypt in ancient Egypt.
Name
The ahistorical name Athribis occurs only in modern works and was formed in analogy to unterägyptischem Athribis. As excavation site, the place is also known under the name of the modern village Wannîna (al- Gharbiya ), which is located 3 km to the southeast. The Egyptian Antiquities (SCA ) leads the excavation site under the name of the neighboring village of Nag ' (al- Shaykh ) Hamad.
In medieval Arabic manuscripts Adrîba the city was called, which dates back to the Coptic Atripe. In Coptic sources are found occasionally also the name TRIFIU based on the name Graecized form Trifeion. Both Coptic name forms may turn to the ancient Egyptian Hwt-Rpwt/Hwt Rpyt "House of the Temple of (Goddess ) répit " lead back.
Location
The city lay on the west bank of the Nile, 7 km southwest of present-day Sohag, at the foot of the Western Mountains. Between the ruins and the eastern fields, the village of Nag 'al- Shaykh Silim, 500 m north of the site Nag ' al- Shaykh Hamad and 3 km north of the ruins of the Coptic White Monastery. In ancient Egypt Athribis belonged to the ninth nome of Upper Egypt, whose capital Akhmim was the temple district of Gaugottes Min on the east bank, opposite of Sohag. In Ptolemaic- Byzantine period (305 BC -640 AD) was known as Akhmim Panopolis and the 9th district as nomos panopolites.
City
The ancient city of plant Athribis extended south, south-east and north-east of the Temple District with their residential and commercial buildings from the Ptolemaic- Roman and Byzantine- early Arab period. Some excavated remains of buildings can be more accurately to the 3rd - 4th century AD date. In the 19th to 20th century adobe buildings were badly damaged, as it required the phosphate-containing clay as a fertilizer and for the production of gunpowder.
Temple District
The approximately three -acre temple precinct of the goddess répit ( Triphis ) was originally surrounded by an enclosure wall of sun-dried mud bricks and to the southeast by a stone Monumentaltor of Ptolemy IX. accessible. The temple house is now largely destroyed. From the towers of the 50 meter wide pylon is only obtained the first floor.
Apart from the main temple is an older granite temple of Apries and transverse to the axis of the temple of Ptolemy XII. , Which was built in honor of the gods family of Athribis. [A 1] This is 45 × 75 m [A 2] tall and had a pronaos 2 × 6 columns. The rear part of the pronaos was either surrounded by a colonnade or consisted of an open colonnaded courtyard with sanctuary and side rooms. The temple building was further embellished under Tiberius and Claudius and completed under Hadrian. End of the 4th century AD, the temple of Christian monks in an economy operating with a dyer workshop was converted. The building was destroyed in the high Middle Ages and burned the stone material to lime. Of the original structure, located approximately one-third received.
Necropolis
To the west of the city lies the steep plateau of the Libyan Desert, where ancient quarries and rock-cut tombs of the 1st to 3rd century AD are located. So far, 700 grave sites have been identified. In the center of the 1.7 km long necropolis is located on the mountainside a Ptolemaic- Roman rock temple with atrial, two rock rooms and a cult niche. On the facade of half-columns were mounted with Palmkapitellen. The rock temple was dedicated to the gods of Athribis. [A 3]
History and cults
The inscriptions of the temple are the most important source of the lion-headed goddess répit, on the far little is known, although it is already occupied since the Early Dynastic period. The oldest known cult building of Athribis dates from the 30th Dynasty and was of Pharaoh Nectanebo II (r. 360-343 BC) built. In spätptolemäisch -Roman times the temple precinct received two monumental temple of new buildings, one of which Ptolemy IX. (reigned 116-107; 88-81 BC) was built. The great temple of Ptolemy XII. for the divine trinity Min, répit and Kolanthes ( r. 81-96 AD ) was decorated even to the time of emperor Domitian.
In written sources a Roman palace for 298 AD is busy. At this time the Egyptian temple cults may have been already set. Beginning of the 4th century AD Christian hermits settled down on Nekropolenberg. In the first half of the 4th century AD, a convent was founded that has been connected under the abbot Pkjol the "White Monastery ". Under Shenoute of Atripe ( 385-465 AD), the convent expanded into the temple area and lasted at least until early Arab period. In the high Middle Ages, the monastery was abandoned and the limestone blocks of some temples for the construction of the nearby White Monastery used.
History of Research
1825 was a first clinical examination by John Gardner Wilkinson and a report in his work Modern Egypt and Thebes. Nestor l' Hote 1839 visited the excavation site and provided a brief description in his travel letters. Karl Richard Lepsius visited the Prussian expedition to find site in 1845 and published his results in IV LD 1906/ 07 Flinders Petrie began the first scientific excavations of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt and the results published in the 14th volume of the BSAE reports. 1983-96, there was a resumption of excavations by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and the exposure of large areas of the temple in 14 excavations.
Since 2003, under the direction of R. El -Sayed, Y. El -Masry and Christian Leitz, a German - Egyptian cooperation project, the University of Tübingen, the SCA as well as scientific institutions and personnel from Germany, Poland, England and France participated in the are. The aim of the project is to document and scientific study of the archaeological finds and the recording of the temple inscriptions. In addition, one would like to the reliefs and murals of the temple of Ptolemy XII. preserve.