Heliopolis (ancient Egypt)

Coordinates: 30°07′45.6″N 31°18′27.1″E / 30.129333°N 31.307528°E / 30.129333; 31.307528
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Heliopolis
Jwnw or Iunu
Al-Masalla obelisk, the largest surviving monument from Heliopolis, pictured in 2001.
Heliopolis (ancient Egypt) is located in Egypt
Heliopolis (ancient Egypt)
Shown within Egypt
LocationEgypt
RegionCairo Governorate
Coordinates30°07′46″N 31°18′27″E / 30.129333°N 31.307528°E / 30.129333; 31.307528

Heliopolis (Jwnw, Iunu;

Ayn Shams, a northeastern district of Cairo
.

Heliopolis was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, occupied since prehistoric Egypt.[1] It greatly expanded under the Old and Middle Kingdoms but is today mostly destroyed, its temples and other buildings having been scavenged for the construction of medieval Cairo. Most information about the ancient city comes from surviving records.

The major surviving remnant of Heliopolis is the

Dynasty XII. It still stands in its original position, now within Al-Masalla in El Matareya, Cairo.[2] The 21 m (69 ft) high red granite obelisk weighs 120 tons (240,000 lbs) and is believed to be the oldest surviving obelisk in the world.[3] Under Augustus, the Romans took the Obelisk of Montecitorio from Heliopolis to Rome, where it remains. The two smaller obelisks called Cleopatra's Needles
, in London and New York, also came from the city.

Names

iwnnw
niwt
Heliopolis
iwnw[a]
in hieroglyphs

Heliopolis is the

Ra and Atum
, whose principal cult was located in the city.

Its

native name
was iwnw ("The Pillars"), whose exact pronunciation is uncertain because ancient Egyptian recorded only consonantal values. Arabic : Iwan إيوان.
[5]

Its traditional

biblical Hebrew as ʾŌn (אֹן‎,[6] אוֹן[7]), and ʾĀwen (אָוֶן[8]). Some scholars to reconstruct its pronunciation in earlier Egyptian as *ʔa:wnu, perhaps from older /ja:wunaw/. Variant transcriptions include Awnu and Annu. The name survived as Coptic ⲱⲛ ŌN.[9]

The city also appears in the

Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts as the "House of Ra".[10]

History

Map of ancient Lower Egypt showing Heliopolis

Ancient

In

predynastic times
.

Dynasty XIX[11]

It was principally notable as the cult center of the

Dynasty VI (c. 2345 – c. 2181 BC) have been discovered and excavated.[13]

During the

Dynasty XVIII, Pharaoh Akhenaten introduced a kind of henotheistic worship of Aten, the deified solar disc. As part of his construction projects, he built a Heliopolitan temple named "Elevating Aten" (Wṯs I͗tn or Wetjes Aten), whose stones can still be seen in some of the gates of Cairo's medieval city wall. The cult of the Mnevis
bull, another embodiment of the Sun, had its altar here as well. The bulls' formal burial ground was situated north of the city.

The store-city

Bible (Exodus 1:11), and according to one theory, this was Heliopolis.[14]

Hellenistic

Alexander the Great, on his march from Pelusium to Memphis, halted at this city.[15]

The temple of Ra was said to have been, to a special degree, a depository for royal records, and Herodotus states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in matters of history of all the Egyptians. Heliopolis flourished as a seat of learning during the Greek period; the schools of philosophy and astronomy are claimed to have been frequented by

Ptolemies, probably took little interest in their "father" Ra as Greeks were never much of sun worshipers and the Ptolemies favored the cult of Serapis, and Alexandria had eclipsed the learning of Heliopolis; thus with the withdrawal of royal favour Heliopolis quickly dwindled, and the students of native lore deserted it for other temples supported by a wealthy population of pious citizens. By the first century BC, in fact, Strabo
found the temples deserted, and the town itself almost uninhabited, although priests were still present.

Heliopolis was well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, being noted by most major geographers of the period, including Ptolemy, Herodotus, and others, down to the Byzantine geographer Stephanus of Byzantium.[17]

Roman

In

Cleopatra's Needle and its twin in New York's Central Park
.

Battle of Heliopolis during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1800

Islamic

During the Middle Ages, the growth of Fustat and Cairo only a few kilometres away caused its ruins to be massively scavenged for building materials, including for their city walls. The site became known as the "Eye of the Sun" (Ayn Shams) and ʻArab al-Ḥiṣn.

Legacy

The importance of the solar cult at Heliopolis is reflected in both ancient pagan and current monotheistic beliefs. Classical mythology held that the Egyptian bennu, renamed phoenix, brought the remains of its predecessor to the altar of the sun god at Heliopolis each time it was reborn. In the Hebrew Bible, Heliopolis is referenced directly and obliquely, usually in reference to its prominent pagan cult. In his prophesies against Egypt, Isaiah claimed the "City of the Sun" (Hebrew: עיר החרס) would be one of the five Egyptian cities to follow the Lord of Heaven's army and speak Hebrew.[19][b] Jeremiah and Ezekiel mention the House or Temple of the Sun (Hebrew: בֵּית שֶׁמֶשׁ, romanizedbêṯ šemeš) and Ôn, claiming Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire would shatter its obelisks and burn its temple[20] and that its "young men of Folly" (Aven) would "fall by the sword".[21]

José recibido en Heliópolis, by Francisco Gutiérrez (currently held in the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla)

The "Syrian Heliopolis" Baalbek has been claimed to have gained its solar cult from a priest colony emigrating from Egypt.[22]

The Titular Episcopal See of Heliopolis in Augustamnica remains a titular see of both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Present site

Heliopolis map published in 1809, in the Description de l'Égypte

The ancient city is currently located about 15–20 meters (49–66 ft) below the streets of the middle- and lower-class suburbs of

modern suburb which bears its name.[1]

Some ancient city walls of crude brick can be seen in the fields, a few granite blocks bearing the name of Ramesses II remain, and the position of the great Temple of Ra-Atum is marked by the Al-Masalla obelisk. Archaeologists excavated some of its tombs in 2004.[24] In 2017, parts of a colossal statue of Psamtik I were found and excavated.[25]

Gallery

A selection of old maps showing Heliopolis are below:

  • 1743 map
    1743 map
  • 1799 map
    1799 map
  • 1882 map
    1882 map

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Variant representations of Iunu include
    iwn
    .[4]
  2. ^ Variant texts read "City of Destruction" (עיר ההרס) instead.

References

Citations

  1. ^ .
  2. ^ Griffith, Francis Llewellyn (1911). "Obelisk" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 945..
  3. ^ "obelisk". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2021-08-25.
  4. ^ Collier & Manley 1998, p. 29.
  5. .
  6. ^ Gen. 41:45
  7. ^ Gen. 41:50
  8. ^ Ezekiel 30:17; prp. Amos 1:5 (apparently Baalbek). This last would be the expected form in pausa, but perhaps a play on awen "idolatry."
  9. ^ TLA lemma no. C5494 (ⲱⲛ), in: Coptic Dictionary Online, ed. by the Koptische/Coptic Electronic Language and Literature International Alliance (KELLIA), https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C5494
  10. ^ Bonnet, Hans, Reallexikon der Ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte. (in German)
  11. ^ "Model of a Votive Temple Gateway at Heliopolis (49.183)", Official site, Brooklyn Museum, retrieved 8 July 2014.
  12. .
  13. ^ Planetware: Priests of Ra tombs, Heliopolis—Al-Matariyyah. accessed 01.28.2011 Archived 2010-12-23 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ "Pithom | ancient city, Egypt | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  15. ^ Arrian, iii. 1.
  16. ^ The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus, Book I, ch VI.
  17. Diogenes Laërtius, xviii. 8. § 6; Josephus, Ant. Jud. xiii. 3, C. Apion. i. 26; Cicero, De Natura Deorum iii. 21; Pliny the Elder, v. 9. § 11; Tacitus, Ann. vi. 28; Pomponius Mela, iii. 8. Byzantine geographer Stephanus of Byzantium
    , s. v. Ἡλίουπόλις.
  18. Nat. Hist.
    , vi, 34.
  19. ^ Isaiah 19:18.
  20. ^ Jeremiah 43:13 NASB; Compare NIV
  21. ^ Ezekiel 30:17 NIV
  22. ^ Macrobius, Saturn., i. 23.
  23. ^ "Al-Ahram Weekly | Features | City of the sun". Weekly.ahram.org.eg. 2005-06-01. Archived from the original on 2013-03-25. Retrieved 2013-03-26.
  24. ^ "Pharonic tomb uncovered in Cairo, suburbs of Matariya", Egiptomania, 26 August 2004.
  25. ^ "Colossal statue of 'forgotten' pharaoh brought to life in 3D images". 20 April 2018.

Bibliography

External links

30°07′45.6″N 31°18′27.1″E / 30.129333°N 31.307528°E / 30.129333; 31.307528

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