Heliopolis (ancient)
Heliopolis ( ancient Greek Ἡλιούπολις Sun City; ancient Egyptian Iunu; Old Testament On) was an ancient Egyptian town in Lower Egypt northeast of the modern-day Cairo, in which the significant Atum and Re - Harachte temples as well as the "House of Benu " stood since the early Old Kingdom. As "Lord of Heliopolis " of creation God Hu was worshiped.
From the Pyramid Text 477 shows that in the Princely House of Heliopolis in accordance with the Osiris myth took place those mythological trial, was accused in the murder of Osiris and Seth found by the divine judges guilty. Heliopolis is now a field of ruins and an archaeological site.
Background
Ancient Egyptian history
According to Egyptian mythology, the gods were created here. The sun god Re is archaeologically attested in Heliopolis before the 6th Dynasty. Although the fragments of the " Djoser Chapel " occupy an older temple, but it is the remains of a small shrine or box for the purpose of worship of a cult statue of Djoser. The accompanying text also does not apply to Re, but represents the gods of the pantheon of speech; probably the Ennead of Heliopolis as gods responsible for the awarding of royal Sedfesten.
From the 6th Dynasty the fragment of an obelisk, erected by King Teti II comes. From the first grave Meanwhile, some plants originate from the Middle Kingdom and the first standing today Obelisk (of Sesostris I ). Numerous remains dating from the New Kingdom, including some parts of temples and grave sites of important people are. A particularly large and richly furnished grave sites date from the late period.
With his theological concept of the Ennead of Heliopolis, the place belonged to the late period of the religious centers of the Egyptian empire, often in competition with the Upper Egyptian Thebes ( Upper Egyptian Iunu ).
According to Flavius Josephus pointed Pharaoh Jacob and his sons Heliopolis as the residence of, " where the shepherds of the King had pastures ".
Christianity
In late antiquity, the city was an early Christian diocese from which the titular Heliopolis was in Augustamnica the Roman Catholic Church. It belonged to the ecclesiastical province Leontopolis.
Archeology
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Heliopolis is currently a research focus of the DAI. The team of Egyptian and German archaeologists to Dietrich Raue the Department Cairo (ca. 1350 BC ) discovered numerous inscriptions and relief fragments of the Amarna period in the ruins of the Temple of the Sun 2006. This proves that the old Sun Temple from the Old Kingdom ( about 2650 BC) was still in the Amarna period in function.
Ramses II had even expand significantly the temple, used to the existing building material for its own purposes and had, inter alia, build the Sanktuarbau and numerous statues of gods. Since Alexander the Great tried the Greek rulers from Alexandria to support them strange cult, however, the city lost its importance. Under Cleopatra then began the removal of obelisks and sphinxes in a big way. Augustus was an obelisk from Heliopolis get and set him on the Campus Martius. In early Christian times the stones were misused for the fortification of Cairo.
Modern
Heliopolis is also the name of a district in present-day Cairo.
Others
From Heliopolis obelisk, which can be found today in St. Peter's Square in Rome comes from. He was first brought by Gaius Cornelius Gallus, the first Roman prefect of Egypt under Augustus to Alexandria and erected there. Later Emperor Caligula had him bring to Rome, where the obelisk was erected in the center of the Circus of Caligula, Caligula himself had built on the slope of the Vatican Hill. The obelisk is 25 meters long and 330 tons and consists of a single block of granite.