Everything about Mendes totally explained
Mendes (Μένδης), the
Greek name of the
Ancient Egyptian city of
Djedet, also known in
Ancient Egypt as
Per-
Banebdjedet ("The Domain of the Ram Lord of Djedet") and
Anpet, is known today as
Tell El-Ruba (
Arabic: تل الربع).
The
city is located in the eastern
Nile delta and was the
capital of the 16th
Lower Egyptian
nome of
Kha, until it was replaced by
Thmuis in Greco-
Roman Egypt. The two cities are only several hundred meters apart. During the
29th dynasty, Mendes was also the capital of Ancient Egypt, which lies on the Mendesian branch of the
Nile (now silted up), about 35 km east of
al-Mansurah.
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 existence of the
town at least as far back as the
Naqada II period. Under the first
Pharaohs, Mendes quickly became a strong seat of
provincial government and remained so throughout the Ancient Egyptian 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.
Religion
The chief
deities of Mendes were the
ram deity
Banebdjedet (lit.
Ba of the Lord of Djedet), who was the
Ba of
Osiris, and his, the fish goddess
Hatmehit. With their child
Har-pa-khered ("
Horus the Child"), they formed the triad of Mendes.
The
ram deity of Mendes was described by
Herodotus in his
History (Book II, 42)[RobinWaterfield translation] as being represented with the head and
fleece of a
goat: “...whereas anyone with a sanctuary of Mendes or who comes from the province of Mendes, will have nothing to do with (
sacrificing) goats, but uses
sheep as his sacrificial animals... They say that Heracles’ overriding desire was to see
Zeus, but Zeus was refusing to let him do so. Eventually, as a result of Heracles’ pleading, Zeus came up with a plan. He skinned a ram and cut off his head, then he held the head in front of himself, wore the fleece, and showed himself to Heracles like that. That is why the Egyptian statues of Zeus have a ram’s head, is why rams are sacred to the Thebans, and they don't use them as sacrificial animals. However there's just one day of the year--the day of the
festival of Zeus--when they chop up a single ram, skin it, dress the statue of Zeus in the way mentioned, and then bring the statue of Heracles up close to the statue of Zeus. Then everyone around the
sanctuary mourns the death of the ram and finally they bury it in a sacred tomb.”
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 popularizing and perpetuating this incorrect attribution, which has given rise to a flood of spurious connections, such as "The Goat of Mendes" by the
blackened death metal band
Akercocke.
Ruins
The site is today the largest surviving
tell in the Nile delta, and consists of both Tell El-Ruba (the site of the main temple enclosure) and
Tell El-Timai (the settlement site of Thmuis to the south). Overall, Mendes is about 3km long from north to south and averages about 900m 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, as well as 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 processional-style temple has recently uncovered foundation deposits of
Merenptah below the second
pylon. It is thought that four separate pylons or gates existed for each of the
avatars of the main deity worshiped here. Evidence has suggested that their construction dates from at least the
Middle Kingdom, as
foundation deposits were uncovered. The original structures were buried, added to, or incorporated into later ones over time by later rulers.
Billy Morin, recently at
University of Cambridge in
England and now at Leiden University in the Netherlands led a team that investigated these further and uncovered several mud-brick walls. Over thirty of the bricks were stamped with the
cartouche of
Menkheperre, the pre-nomen of
Thutmose III. A
cemetery of sacred rams was discovered in the northwest corner of Tell El-Ruba.
Monuments bearing the names of
Ramesses II,
Merneptah. and
Ramesses III were also found. A temple attested by its foundation deposits was built by
Amasis. The tomb of
Nepherites I, which Donald Reford concluded was destroyed by the
Persians, was discovered by a joint team from the
University of Washington and the
University of Toronto in
1992-
1993. On the edge of the
temple mound, a
sondage supervised by
Matthew J. Adams has revealed uninterrupted
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
Naqada 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 unprecedented sequence is currently in progress.
Further Information
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