Saft el-Hinna

Coordinates: 30°33′20″N 31°36′35″E / 30.55556°N 31.60972°E / 30.55556; 31.60972
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Saft el-Hinna
صفط الحنة
UTC+2 (EST
)

Saft el-Hinna (

Al Sharqia Governorate, in the Nile Delta, about 7 km southeast of Zagazig.[1]

The 1885 Census of Egypt recorded Saft el-Hinna as a nahiyah in the district of Bilbeis in Sharqia Governorate; at that time, the population of the town was 664 (306 men and 358 women).[2]

Name

M44G11t
niwt
spd(t)[3]
in hieroglyphs
Era: Ptolemaic dynasty
(305–30 BC)
pr
Z1		 sbd
M44
or
pr
Z1		 M44G13niwt
pr spd[4]
in hieroglyphs
Late Period

(664–332 BC)

The modern village of Saft el-Hinna lies on the

ancient Egyptian town of Per-Sopdu or Pi-Sopt, meaning "House of Sopdu", which was the capital of the 20th nome of Lower Egypt and one of the most important cult centers during the Late Period of ancient Egypt. As the ancient name implies, the town was consecrated to Sopdu, god of the eastern borders of Egypt.[5][1]

During the late

Busiris.[6]

The medieval name of the city was Tiarabya (

Arabic: طرابية) as it was a major city in the eastern part of the Nile Delta which bore the same name.[7]

Excavations

In December 1884, Swiss

30th Dynasty, the perimeter walls of a temple, and other attestations dating to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Unfortunately, he never published a comprehensive excavation report.[8][9]

Among the findings dated to Nectanebo I, Naville found a

Abukir and it is commonly called the "Naos of the Decades". Another was dedicated to Tefnut, and a poorly preserved one was discovered at Arish. All but the last one (due to its poor conservation) are thought to be attributable to Nectanebo I.[10]

In 1906, Flinders Petrie went to Saft el-Hinna to conduct an excavation aimed at discovering evidence of a Hebrew presence in ancient Egypt. He soon found that the condition of the site was even worse than at the time of Naville. He decided to dig in two undisturbed neighboring areas, Kafr Sheikh Zikr and Suwa, which turned out to be two ancient necropolises of Per-Sopdu. However, like Naville before him, Petrie never published a comprehensive report of these excavations.[11]

Saft el-Hinna was later involved in two surface surveys, the Wadi Tumilat Project begun in 1977, and the Liverpool University Delta Survey (1983–85). The latter was led by Steven Snape, who commented that of the ruins described by Naville a century earlier, almost nothing was left.[12]

By combining archaeological and philological evidence, it is now known that the sacred area of Per-Sopdu was divided into two parts, called Hut-nebes and Iat-nebes, which were connected by a dromos.[13]

Gallery

  • Characteristic Indian etched carnelian bead, found in Ptolemaic Period excavations at Saft el-Hinna, Ptolemaic Egypt. Petrie Museum.
    Characteristic Indian etched
    Petrie Museum
    .
  • The reassembled “Naos of the Decades”, originally placed in the temple at Saft el-Hinna.
    The reassembled “Naos of the Decades”, originally placed in the temple at Saft el-Hinna.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Tiribilli 2012, p. 125.
  2. ^ Egypt min. of finance, census dept (1885). Recensement général de l'Égypte. p. 279. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  3. ^ Gauthier, Henri (1928). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 5. p. 32.
  4. ^ Gauthier, Henri (1925). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 2. pp. 127–128.
  5. ^ Shaw & Nicholson 1995, p. 276.
  6. ^ Kitchen 1996, p. Table 22.
  7. ^ Peust, Carsten. Die Toponyme vorarabischen Ursprungs im modernen Ägypten.
  8. ^ Naville 1887, pp. 1–13.
  9. ^ Tiribilli 2012, p. 129.
  10. ^ Tiribilli 2012, pp. 127–9.
  11. ^ Tiribilli 2012, p. 130.
  12. ^ Tiribilli 2012, p. 131.
  13. ^ Tiribilli 2012, pp. 135–6.

Bibliography

Further reading

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