Djedet (d.

t)
in hieroglyphs
Mendes
An object unearthed in Mendes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mendes (), 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: ).
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, lying on
the Mendesian branch of the Nile (now silted up), about
35 km east of al-Mansurah.
1 History
2 Religion
3 Ruins
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links
In ancient times, Mendes was a famous city that attracted
the 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 ( , 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 Calasires, and the city was celebrated for
the manufacture of a perfume designated as the
305730N 313057E
Coordinates: 305730N 313057E
Mendes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendes
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Location in Egypt
Coordinates: 305730N 313057E
Country Egypt
Governorate Dakahlia Governorate
Time zone EST (UTC+2)
Summer (DST) +3 (UTC)
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.
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 consort, 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
[1]
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 rams head, is why rams are sacred to the
Thebans, and they do not use them as sacrificial animals. However there is just one day of the yearthe 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.
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
3 km 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.
Mendes
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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 acting as pylons
and their foundations . 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,
[2]
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 Middle Kingdom down to the First Dynasty. Coring
results suggest that future excavations in that sondage should expect to take the stratification down into the
Buto-Maadi Period. The material excavated so far is already the longest uninterrupted stratification for all of the
Nile Delta, and possibly for all of Egypt.
[3]
^ herodotus, History, Book II, 42, [Robin Waterfield translation] 1.
^ Redford, Donald (2004). Excavations at Mendes (http://books.google.com/books?id=tlpiAAAACAAJ&
dq=delta+reports). Brill. p. 34. ISBN 90-04-13674-6.
2.
^ Matthew J. Adams, An Interim Report on the Naqada III First Intermediate Period Stratification at Mendes,
Delta Reports [1] (http://books.google.com/books?id=tlpiAAAACAAJ&dq=delta+reports&lr=) 1 (2009) 121206.
3.
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. 376377.
. 2004. Excavations at Mendes. Volume 1: The Royal Necropolis. Culture and History of the
Ancient Near East 20. Leiden, Boston, Kln: Brill. ISBN 90-04-13674-6
. 2005. "Mendes: City of the Ram God." Egyptian Archaeology: The Bulletin of the Egyptian
Exploration Society 26:812.
Baines & Malek 2000: Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt, Checkmarks Books. ISBN 0-8160-4036-2
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed.
(18541857). "
article name needed
". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/b/dbr3/mendes.html
Adams, Matthew J. 2009. An Interim Report on the Naqada III First Intermediate Period Stratification
at Mendes, Delta Reports 1 (2009) 121206.
The Great Mendes Stela (http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/great_mendes_stela.htm)
Mendes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendes
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Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Mendes,
Egypt.
Egyptian Monuments: Tell el-Rub'a (http://www.egyptsites.co.uk
/lower/delta/eastern/ruba.html)
Djed
Preceded by
Sais
Capital of Egypt
399 380 BC
Succeeded by
Sebennytos
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Populated places in Dakahlia Governorate Roman sites in Egypt Ancient cities
Former populated places in Egypt Nile River Delta
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