Canopus, Egypt
ⲕⲁⲛⲱⲡⲟⲥ | |
Alternative name | ⲕⲁⲛⲱⲡⲟⲥ |
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Location | Alexandria Governorate, Egypt |
Region | Lower Egypt |
Canopus (
Land in the area of Canopus was subject to rising sea levels, earthquakes, tsunamis, and large parts of it seem to have succumbed to liquefaction sometime at the end of the 2nd century BC. The eastern suburbs of Canopus collapsed,[2] their remains being today submerged in the sea, with the western suburbs being buried beneath the modern coastal city of Abu Qir.
Name
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pgwꜣt — Canopus (Decree of Canopus)[3] in hieroglyphs | |||||
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Era: Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC) | |||||
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pngwꜣt — Canopus (Decree of Canopus)[4] in hieroglyphs | ||||||||
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Era: Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC) | ||||||||
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prgwꜣt — Canopus (Decree of Canopus)[4] in hieroglyphs | ||||||||
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Era: Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC) | ||||||||
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Genp — Canopus[5] in hieroglyphs | |||
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gꜣwtj — Canopus[6] in hieroglyphs | |||||
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The settlement's
History
Ancient Egypt
Canopus was the site of a temple to the
The name of Canopus appears in the first half of the 6th century BC in a poem by Solon.[9] Early Egyptological excavations some 2 or 3 km from the area known today as Abu Qir have revealed extensive traces of the city with its quays, and granite monuments with the name of Ramesses II, but they may have been brought in for the adornment of the place at a later date. The exact date of the foundation of Canopus is unknown, but Herodotus refers to it as an ancient port. Homeric myth claims that it was founded by Menelaus, and named after Canopus, the pilot of his ship, who died there after being bitten by a serpent.[n 1] Legend describes how Menelaus built a monument to his memory on the shore, around which the town later grew up. There is unlikely to be any connection with "canopy". A temple to Osiris was built by king Ptolemy III Euergetes, but according to Herodotus, very near to Canopus was an older shrine,[n 2] a temple of Heracles that served as an asylum for fugitive slaves. Osiris was worshipped at Canopus under a peculiar form: that of a vase with a human head. Through an old misunderstanding, the name "canopic jars" was applied by early Egyptologists to the vases with human and animal heads in which the internal organs were placed by the Egyptians after embalming.
Hellenistic period
In
The town had a large trade in henna.[1]
Roman period
In
Modern town
The Egyptian town of
See of Canopus
Egypt had many martyrs in the
Archaeology
Over time the land around Canopus was weakened by a combination of earthquakes, tsunamis and rising sea levels. Finds of pottery and coins appear to stop at the end of the 2nd century BC. At this point, probably after a severe flood, the eastern suburbs succumbed to liquefaction of the soil on which it was built. The hard clay turned rapidly into a liquid and the buildings collapsed.[2] The western suburbs eventually became the present day Egyptian coastal city of Abu Qir.
In 1933, a
Since 1992, the
See also
Notes
- ^ The first reference to Canopus as the helmsman of Menelaus seems to be by Hecataeus of Miletus.[citation needed]
- ^ This may have been a reference to the newly discovered Heracleion.[citation needed]
References
- ^ a b c d EB (1878).
- ^ a b Shenker, Jack (15 Aug 2016). "Lost cities #6: how Thonis-Heracleion resurfaced after 1,000 years under water". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 Feb 2018.
- ^ Gauthier, Henri (1920). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 2. p. 154.
- ^ a b Gauthier, Henri (1920). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 2. p. 49.
- ^ Budge, E. A. Wallis (1920). An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary: With an Index of English Words, King List and Geographical List with Indexes, List of Hieroglyphic Characters, Coptic and Semitic Alphabets, Volume 2. p. 1049.
- ^ Gauthier, Henri (1928). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 5. p. 211.
- ^ Erichsen, Wolja (1954). Demotisches Glossar. Copenhagen. p. 576.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b CE (1913).
- ^ PDF file Research by Franck Goddio
- ^ a b c EB (1911).
- ^ Seneca. "Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 51 - Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 2021-09-10.
- ^ Juvenal, Satires, vi.85
- ^ "Prince Omar Toussoun". In Magazine. Archived from the original on 27 June 2018. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
- ^ Omar Toussoun, 1934. Les ruines sous-marines de la Baie d'Aboukir. BSRAA
- ^ "Underwater Archaeological Research in Abu Qir Bay". Franck Goddio Underwater Archaeologist.
- ^ "Discovering Canopus". Franck Goddio - Underwater Archaeologist. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
- ^ Franck Goddio, The topography and Excavation of Heracleion-Thonis an East Canopus (1996-2006), Oxford, 2007
- ^ Egypt's Suken Treasures, Goddio, F, Fabre, D. München, 2008
- ^ Sunken Cities, Egypts Lost World, The BP exhibition at the British Museum, 2016
- ^ "The Naos of the Decades" (PDF).
- ^ Sophie v. Bomhard, The Decree of Saïs, Oxford 2012
- ^ "Marble Head of God Serapis" (PDF). Frank Goddio, Underwater Archaeologist. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
- Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 23 ,
Attribution:
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Vailhé, Siméon (1908). "Canopus". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company..
- Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1911), , in Chisholm, Hugh (ed.), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, p. 203