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86-741: Theban Tomb TT2 is the burial place of the ancient Egyptian official Khabekhnet and his family in Deir el-Medina , part of the Theban Necropolis , on the west bank of the Nile , opposite to Luxor . Khabekhnet was a Servant in the Place of Truth during the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II during the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt . Khabekhnet was the son of Sennedjem and Iyneferti, who were buried in TT1 . His wife

172-507: A 2005 study on mummified remains found that "some Theban nobles had a histology which indicated notably dark skin ". The archaeological remains of Thebes offer a striking testimony to Egyptian civilization at its height. The Greek poet Homer extolled the wealth of Thebes in the Iliad , Book 9 ( c.  8th Century BC ): "... in Egyptian Thebes the heaps of precious ingots gleam,

258-615: A celebration of the Opet Festival . In spite of his welcoming visit, Thebes became a center for dissent. Towards the end of the third century BC, Hugronaphor (Horwennefer), possibly of Nubian origin, led a revolt against the Ptolemies in Upper Egypt. His successor, Ankhmakis , held large parts of Upper Egypt until 185 BC. This revolt was supported by the Theban priesthood. After the suppression of

344-417: A decorated rectangular hall and a pair of statues of Khabekhnet and his wife flanking the doorway to a smaller inner chamber. A burial shaft was cut in the southeastern corner which leads to an undecorated burial suite. The inner room is also decorated and has life-size statues carved from the rock of the rear wall. At the centre is a life-size head of a cow emerging from the wall, flanked by Osiris and Hathor on

430-401: A god's wife Sit-ir-bau, a god's wife Ta-khered-qa, and a god's wife (name lost). In the three lower registers, Khabekhnet appears with his family before gods. The first register of another scene on the same wall again depicts Khabekhnet before a statue of Amenhotep I and Amun; a lower register depicts Khabekhnet and his wife being led by Anubis and Horus before Osiris and Isis. The right side of

516-486: A joint project between Khabekhnet and his brother Khonsu, as the decoration depicts both men. Khonsu never used TT2, as he had a chapel built in the TT1 complex and was buried there. He may have died before his own tomb was completed, or abandoned the project due to the unstable rock below the southern chapel. The burial chamber, TT2B, belongs to the northern chapel and its decoration only mentions Khabekhnet. The burial chamber TT2B

602-454: A king's sister, mother of the god Kaesmut, king's sister Sitamun , a king's son (name lost), Royal Lady (name lost), Great king's wife Henuttamehu , king's wife Tures, king's wife Ahmose, king's son Sipair . In the lower row are Nebhepetre Mentuhotep (II), Nebpehtyre Ahmose, King Sekhentnebre, Wadjkheperre Kamose , a king's son Binpu, king's son Wadjmose , king's son Ramose , king's son Nebenkhurru (?), king's son Ahmose, God's wife Kamose,

688-630: A later date, the etymology is doubtful. As early as Homer 's Iliad , the Greeks distinguished the Egyptian Thebes as "Thebes of the Hundred Gates" ( Θῆβαι ἑκατόμπυλοι , Thēbai hekatómpyloi ) or "Hundred-Gated Thebes", as opposed to the " Thebes of the Seven Gates " ( Θῆβαι ἑπτάπυλοι , Thēbai heptápyloi ) in Boeotia , Greece. In the interpretatio graeca , Amun was rendered as Zeus Ammon . The name

774-474: A pilgrimage to Abydos and Khonsu and his wife before the god Osiris . A heart-weighing scene shows Khonsu being led by Horus and Khonsu's wife by Anubis and a funeral procession accompanied by male mourners. The left end wall has four registers depicting Sennedjem and relatives adoring the Hathor-cow within a shrine, a banqueting scene, and the lowest register shows a funeral procession. The left side of

860-458: A priestly leopard-skin, burns incense and pours libations before Amenhotep I (represented twice) and his deified mother, Ahmose-Nefertari. In the following scene, Khabekhnet adores Ptah-Sokar and a goddess, possibly Tefnut ; Sahti stands behind her husband, presenting an offering of onions. The lintel of the door, leading to the further undecorated rooms, is damaged but preserves the names of Amenhotep I, Ahmose-Nefertari, Meritamen, Mentuhotep II, and

946-609: A public procession and presentation of offerings. His other associations include the eastern desert and links to the god Horus . Flinders Petrie excavated two large statues of Min at Qift which are now in the Ashmolean Museum and it is thought by some that they are pre-dynastic. Although not mentioned by name, a reference to "he whose arm is raised in the East" in the Pyramid Texts is thought to refer to Min. His importance grew in

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1032-484: A seated Anubis. Only the lintel and doorway of the inner room are decorated. The lintel depicts a double scene of Khabekhnet and his wife offering to the Theban Triad; the boat of the god Ra is above the lintel. The door jambs depict Khonsu and Tamaket on the left and Khabekhnet and Sahte on the right. Decoration is preserved only on the left side of the doorway thickness, which focuses on Khonsu and hymns to Ra. Each of

1118-469: A vaulted ceiling 2.70 m (8.9 ft) high and is orientated north-south along its length. A doorway in the centre of the long western wall of the burial chamber leads to two further parallel rooms, both of which have vaulted ceilings but are not plastered or decorated. The later, neighbouring tomb TT299, one of the two tombs of Inherkhau, collided with the southwest corners of these undecorated rooms. In Bruyère's 1927 clearance, he found only fragments of

1204-564: Is also located near Thebes; this valley connected Thebes to an oasis on the Western Desert. It is notable for the first Proto-Sinatic alphabet inscription, which appeared shortly after Thebes became the capital of Egypt. Nearby towns in the fourth Upper Egyptian nome were Per-Hathor , Madu , Djerty , Iuny , Sumenu and Imiotru . According to George Modelski , Thebes had about 40,000 inhabitants in 2000 BC (compared to 60,000 in Memphis ,

1290-551: Is depicted as an anthropomorphic male deity with a masculine body, covered in shrouds, wearing a crown with feathers , and often holding his erect penis in his left hand and a "flail" that is possibly a stylised form of flail (referring to his authority, or rather that of the Pharaohs) in his upward facing right hand. Around his forehead, Min wears a red ribbon that trails to the ground, claimed by some to represent sexual energy. The legs are bandaged because of his chthonic force, in

1376-436: Is depicted holding a tray of offerings and vases from which water pours. To the right of the door are three scenes. In the first, the goddesses Serket and Neith offer water to Horus of Behdet as a falcon wearing the double crown . In the second, Khabekhnet and Sahti advance towards Ptah and Maat, seated inside a shrine. In the third, at the northern end of the wall, the couple offer braziers to Anubis and Hathor as Mistress of

1462-461: Is painted in the monochrome style, with yellow figures outlined in black or red on a white background. The scenes are relatively small in scale, leaving the lower 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) of the walls white. The eastern wall has six small scenes. At the southern end, to the left of the entrance door, Khabekhnet and Sahti offer an eye of Horus to Thoth as a baboon. Above the doorway, the Nile god Hapi

1548-529: Is satisfied"), took the Herakleopolitans by force and reunited Egypt once again under one ruler, thereby starting the period now known as the Middle Kingdom . Mentuhotep II ruled for 51 years and built the first mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri , which most likely served as the inspiration for the later and larger temple built next to it by Hatshepsut in the 18th Dynasty. After these events, the 11th Dynasty

1634-416: Is the falcon-headed funerary god Ptah-Sokar seated in a barque; Anubis leading Khabekhnet to his pyramid-chapel with his winged ba -soul hovering over the chapel's door; the sky goddess Mehet-Weret as a cow facing Khabekhnet's shadow across a pond; Sahti adoring Anubis. The western half depicts, from right to left: Khabekhnet adoring the ibis-headed god Thoth; Khabekhnet adoring the gods Hu and Ka seated on

1720-825: The 12th Dynasty king Senusret may have been usurped and re-used, since the statue bears a cartouche of Nyuserre on its belt. Since seven rulers of the 4th to 6th Dynasties appear on the Karnak king list, perhaps at the least there was a temple in the Theban area that dated to the Old Kingdom. By 2160 BC, a new line of pharaohs (the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties) consolidated control over Lower Egypt and northern parts of Upper Egypt from their capital in Herakleopolis Magna . A rival line (the Eleventh Dynasty ), based at Thebes, ruled

1806-767: The 16th Dynasty ) stood firmly over their immediate region as the Hyksos advanced from the Delta southwards to Middle Egypt . The Thebans resisted the Hyksos' further advance by making an agreement for a peaceful concurrent rule between them. The Hyksos were able to sail upstream past Thebes to trade with the Nubians and the Thebans brought their herds to the Delta without adversaries. The status quo continued until Hyksos ruler Apophis ( 15th Dynasty ) insulted Seqenenre Tao ( 17th Dynasty ) of Thebes. Soon

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1892-553: The 18th Dynasty ( New Kingdom ). It also became the center for a newly established professional civil service , where there was a greater demand for scribes and the literate as the royal archives began to fill with accounts and reports. At the city the favored few of Nubia were reeducated with Egyptian culture, to serve as administrators of the colony. With Egypt stabilized again, religion and religious centers flourished and none more so than Thebes. For instance, Amenhotep III poured much of his vast wealth from foreign tribute into

1978-505: The Book of Ezekiel and Jeremiah . "Thebes" is sometimes claimed to be the Latinised form of Ancient Greek : Θῆβαι , the hellenized form of Demotic Egyptian tꜣ jpt ("the temple"), referring to jpt-swt . Today, the temple is known as Karnak , and is located on the northeast bank of the city. Since Homer refers to the metropolis by this name, and since Demotic script did not appear until

2064-596: The Delta . Thebes maintained its revenues and prestige through the reigns of Seti I (1290–1279 BC) and Ramesses II (1279–1213 BC), who still resided for part of every year in Thebes. Ramesses II carried out extensive building projects in the city, such as statues and obelisks, the third enclosure wall of Karnak temple, additions to the Luxor temple , and the Ramesseum , his grand mortuary temple . The constructions were bankrolled by

2150-571: The Late Period . By around 750 BC, the Kushites (Nubians) were growing their influence over Thebes and Upper Egypt. In 721 BC, King Shabaka of the Kushites defeated the combined forces of Osorkon IV ( 22nd Dynasty ), Peftjauawybast ( 23rd Dynasty ) Bakenranef ( 24th Dynasty ) and reunified Egypt yet again. His reign saw a significant amount of building work undertaken throughout Egypt, especially at

2236-622: The Roman occupation (30 BC–641 AD), the remaining communities clustered around the pylon of the Luxor temple. Thebes became part of the Roman province of Thebais , which later split into Thebais Superior , centered at the city, and Thebais Inferior , centered at Ptolemais Hermiou . A Roman legion was headquartered in Luxor temple at the time of Roman campaigns in Nubia . Building did not come to an abrupt stop, but

2322-562: The coronation rites of the New Kingdom , when the Pharaoh was expected to sow his seed—generally thought to have been plant seeds. At the beginning of the harvest season, his image was taken out of the temple and brought to the fields in the festival of the departure of Min , the Min Festival , when they blessed the harvest, and played games naked in his honour, the most important of these being

2408-531: The Canaanite center of power at Avaris, starting the 15th Dynasty there. The Hyksos kings gained the upper hand over Lower Egypt early into the Second Intermediate Period (1657–1549 BC). When the Hyksos took Memphis during or shortly after Merneferre Ay 's reign ( c.  1700 BC ), the rulers of the 13th Dynasty fled south to Thebes, which was restored as capital. Theban princes (now known as

2494-564: The Middle Kingdom when he became even more closely linked with Horus as the deity Min-Horus . By the New Kingdom he was also fused with Amun in the form of Min-Amun , who was also the serpent Irta , a kamutef (the "bull of his mother" - a god who fathers himself with his own mother. The kamutf name is also used in reference to Horus-Min ). Min as an independent deity was also a kamutef of Isis. One of Isis's many places of cult throughout

2580-587: The Theban Hills in the west that culminates at the sacred 420-meter (1,380-foot) al-Qurn . In the east lies the mountainous Eastern Desert with its wadis draining into the valley. Significant among these wadis is Wadi Hammamat near Thebes. It was used as an overland trade route going to the Red Sea coast. Wadi Hammamat was the primary trade route linking Egypt to the Red Sea since Pre-Dynastic times. Uruk civilization

2666-407: The Theban economy flourish by renewing trade networks, primarily the Red Sea trade between Thebes' Red Sea port of Al-Qusayr , Elat and the land of Punt . Her successor Thutmose III brought to Thebes a great deal of his war booty that originated from as far away as Mittani . The 18th Dynasty reached its peak during his great-grandson Amenhotep III 's reign (1388–1350 BC). Aside from embellishing

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2752-474: The West. The short northern wall depicts the mummy of Khabekhnet on a bier, attended by Anubis and flanked at head and foot by Isis, Nephthys, and tree goddesses holding stelae. Above, separated by a band of text, is Nephthys with outstretched wings. On the western wall, Khonsu and his wife Tamaket appear in the first (northern-most) scene, presenting incense to Ra, Osiris, and Amenhotep I. Next, Khabekhnet, dressed in

2838-531: The adoption of his own daughter, Nitocris I , as heiress to God's Wife of Amun there. In 525 BC, Persian Cambyses II invaded Egypt and became pharaoh, subordinating the kingdom as a satrapy to the greater Achaemenid Empire . The good relationship of the Thebans with the central power in the North ended when the native Egyptian pharaohs were finally replaced by Greeks, led by Alexander the Great . He visited Thebes during

2924-557: The armies of Thebes marched on the Hyksos-ruled lands. Tao died in battle and his son Kamose took charge of the campaign. After Kamose's death, his brother Ahmose I continued until he captured Avaris , the Hyksos capital. Ahmose I drove the Hyksos out of Egypt and the Levant and reclaimed the lands formerly ruled by them. Ahmose I founded a new age for a unified Egypt with Thebes as its capital. The city remained as capital during most of

3010-568: The back of a calf; the horizon with sun disc (containing a scarab beetle) is held on each side by the arms of the goddess Nut and supported below by a djed-pillar with arms, which in turn adores the goddess Tefnut as a lioness; the final scene is the god Osiris standing in a boat, flanked by Isis and Nephthys as birds. [REDACTED] Media related to Tomb of Khabekhnet at Wikimedia Commons 25°44′00″N 32°36′00″E  /  25.7333°N 32.6000°E  / 25.7333; 32.6000 Thebes, Egypt The Egyptian name for Thebes

3096-461: The back of a large courtyard. The courtyard is terraced on the eastern side and cut back into the hillside on the northern, western, and eastern sides. The two chapels (northern and southern) were contained inside a single pyramid -shaped structure fronted by a peristyle porch. A stele was set into the front face of the pyramid; it is now in the British Museum , London. It has three registers:

3182-447: The burial suite below the northern chapel, is accessed via a staircase that occupies the floor of the first room. The stairs descend 4 m (13 ft) and open to the west onto a plastered rectangular room measuring 4.30 m × 2 m (14.1 ft × 6.6 ft). The decorated burial chamber is accessed to the west via a short staircase. The room measures 5.40 m × 2.60 m (17.7 ft × 8.5 ft) with

3268-471: The chapels had their own set of burial chambers cut beneath them. The southern chapel's chambers were accessed through a shaft cut in the southeastern corner of the first room. The subterranean rooms are in a poor state of preservation as the ceilings have collapsed. Kathrin Gabler and Anne-Claire Salmas suggest that the rooms were intended for Khonsu but went unused, abandoned by him due to the unstable rock. TT2B,

3354-607: The city continued to decline. In the first century AD, Strabo described Thebes as having been relegated to a mere village. Eastern Thebes: Western Thebes: The two great temples — Luxor Temple and Karnak —and the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens are among the greatest achievements of ancient Egypt. From 25 October 2018 to 27 January 2019, the Museum of Grenoble organized with

3440-851: The city of Thebes, which he made the capital of his kingdom. In Karnak he erected a pink granite statue of himself wearing the Pschent (the double crown of Egypt). Taharqa accomplished many notable projects at Thebes (i.e. the Kiosk in Karnak) and Nubia before the Assyrians started to wage war against Egypt. In 667 BC, attacked by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal 's army, Taharqa abandoned Lower Egypt and fled to Thebes. After his death three years later his nephew (or cousin) Tantamani seized Thebes, invaded Lower Egypt and laid siege to Memphis, but abandoned his attempts to conquer

3526-411: The city was abandoned by the court, and the worship of Amun was proscribed. The capital was moved to the new city of Akhetaten (Amarna in modern Egypt), midway between Thebes and Memphis. After his death, his son Tutankhamun returned the capital to Memphis, but renewed building projects at Thebes produced even more glorious temples and shrines. With the 19th Dynasty the seat of government moved to

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3612-486: The climbing of a huge (tent) pole. This four day festival is evident from the great festivals list at the temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu . Cult and worship in the predynastic period surrounding a fertility god was based upon the fetish of fossilized belemnite . Later symbols widely used were the white bull, a barbed arrow, and a bed of lettuce , that the Egyptians believed to be an aphrodisiac . Egyptian lettuce

3698-473: The country in 663 BC and retreated southwards. The Assyrians pursued him and took Thebes , whose name was added to a long list of cities plundered and destroyed by the Assyrians, as Ashurbanipal wrote: This city, the whole of it, I conquered it with the help of Ashur and Ishtar. Silver, gold, precious stones, all the wealth of the palace, rich cloth, precious linen, great horses, supervising men and women, two obelisks of splendid electrum, weighing 2,500 talents,

3784-447: The courtyard. One depicts Khabekhnet and his father Sennedjem kneeling. The text includes hymns to the sun god Ra . Another stela shows the barque of Ra adored by baboons , while in another register Khabekhnet's father and family appear before the deities Horus and Satet . Yet another register depicts Khabekhnet and his wife Sahte before Ahmose I and Queen Ahmose-Nefertari . The chapels each have two rooms. The southern chapel has

3870-424: The cult of Min paid homage to the god as sterility was an unfavorable condition looked upon with sorrow. Concubine figurines, ithyphallic statuettes, and ex-voto phalluses were placed at entrances to the houses of Deir el-Medina to honor the god in hopes of curing the disability. Egyptian women would touch the penises of statues of Min in hopes of pregnancy, a practice still continued today. In Egyptian art , Min

3956-446: The doors of temples I tore from their bases and carried them off to Assyria. With this weighty booty I left Thebes. Against Egypt and Kush I have lifted my spear and shown my power. With full hands I have returned to Nineveh, in good health. Thebes never regained its former political significance, but it remained an important religious centre. Assyrians installed Psamtik I (664–610 BC), who ascended to Thebes in 656 BC and brought about

4042-541: The eastern Nile Delta. They eventually founded the 14th Dynasty at Avaris in c.  1805 BC or c.  1710 BC . By doing so, the Asiatics established hegemony over the majority of the Delta region, subtracting these territories from the influence of the 13th Dynasty that had meanwhile succeeded the 12th. A second wave of Asiatics called Hyksos (from Heqa-khasut , "rulers of foreign lands" as Egyptians called their leaders) immigrated into Egypt and overran

4128-404: The emergence of widespread agriculture. Male Egyptians would work in agriculture, making bountiful harvests a male-centered occasion. Thus, male gods of virility such as Osiris and Min were more developed during this time. Fertility was not associated with solely women, but with men as well, even increasing the role of the male in childbirth. As a god of male sexual potency, he was honoured during

4214-426: The executions of many conspirators, including Theban officials and women. Under the later Ramessids, Thebes began to decline as the government fell into grave economic difficulties. During the reign of Ramesses IX (1129–1111 BC), about 1114 BC, a series of investigations into the plundering of royal tombs in the necropolis of western Thebes uncovered proof of corruption in high places, following an accusation made by

4300-458: The first depicts the solar god Ra-Horakhty in a barque ; the second depicts Khabekhnet adoring a statue of a king and the goddess Hathor as a cow emerging from the Western Mountain; in the lowest register, Khabekhnet and his wife Sahti kneel accompanied by a hymn to Hathor. Two further stelae were set either side of the door of the southern chapel, while a third was set into the north wall of

4386-456: The first room is occupied by a staircase 4 m (13 ft) deep which leads to the burial chambers. Only the southern chapel is decorated. It has incised decoration on a background of pinkish plaster. The scenes are divided equally on an east-west axis between Khabekhnet and his brother Khonsu, with the northern section featuring Khabekhnet and the southern featuring Khonsu. On the left door thickness, Khabekhnet's father Sennedjem kneels before

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4472-509: The god Min and a goddess; in a lower register, Khonsu and his wife are shown making an offering to his parents Senendjem and Iyneferti, accompanied by a hymn to Ra. On the right door thickness, the deceased offers candles to Min and Isis , and to their parents. The wall to the left of the entrance focuses on Khonsu and shows ceremonies in the Temple of Mut at Karnak ; these scenes include images of barques and criosphinxes . Another register shows

4558-504: The god Amun; the lower registers depict Khabekhet's son Mosi buring incense before his parents, accompanied by family. On the short northern wall is a scene showing Khabekhnet offering before two rows of seated kings and queens; this is now in the Berlin Museum (1625). In the upper row, the cartouches identify them as (from right to left) Djeserkare ( Amenhotep I ), Ahmose-Nefertari , Seqenenre Tao , Ahhotep , king's sister Meritamun ,

4644-724: The hands of the High Priests of Amun , so that during the Third Intermediate Period , the High Priest of Amun exerted absolute power over the South, a counterbalance to the 21st and 22nd Dynasty kings who ruled from the Delta. Intermarriage and adoption strengthened the ties between them, daughters of the Tanite kings being installed as God's Wife of Amun at Thebes, where they wielded greater power. Theban political influence receded only in

4730-627: The hundred-gated Thebes." More than sixty annual festivals were celebrated in Thebes. The major festivals among these, according to the Edfu Geographical Text, were: the Beautiful Feast of Opet , the Khoiak (Festival), Festival of I Shemu , and Festival of II Shemu. Another popular festivity was the halloween-like Beautiful Festival of the Valley . Thebes was inhabited from around 3200 BC. It

4816-633: The large granaries (built around the Ramesseum) that concentrated the taxes collected from Upper Egypt; and by the gold from expeditions to Nubia and the Eastern Desert. During Ramesses' long 66-year reign, Egypt and Thebes reached an overwhelming state of prosperity that equaled or even surpassed the earlier peak under Amenhotep III. The city continued to be well kept in the early 20th Dynasty . The Great Harris Papyrus states that Ramesses III (reigned 1187–56) donated 86,486 slaves and vast estates to

4902-478: The largest city in the world at the time). By 1800 BC, the population of Memphis was down to about 30,000, making Thebes the largest city in Egypt at the time. Historian Ian Morris has estimated that by 1500 BC, Thebes may have grown to be the largest city in the world, with a population of about 75,000, a position it held until about 900 BC, when it was surpassed by Nimrud (among others). Shomarka Keita reported that

4988-425: The left and Horus and Isis on the right. The northern chapel has a small square room and a larger vaulted chamber which is plastered but undecorated. Like the inner chamber of the southern chapel, the square room has statues carved from the rock. The head of a cow stands over a seated king; they are flanked on the left and right by a god wearing a solar disc and a figure thought to represent Osiris. The entire floor of

5074-416: The long western wall has four registers, partially obscured by the pair of statues against the doorway to the inner room. The uppermost depicts the deceased and his family before Osiris, Isis and Hathor; the other registers are offering scenes. The wall to the right of the entrance has two sets of scenes. The first is across three registers. The uppermost depicts a couple adoring the gods Ptah and Anubis. In

5160-482: The mayor of the east bank against his colleague on the west. The plundered royal mummies were moved from place to place and at last deposited by the priests of Amun in a tomb-shaft in Deir el-Bahri and in the tomb of Amenhotep II . (The finding of these two hiding places in 1881 and 1898, respectively, was one of the great events of modern archaeological discovery.) Such maladministration in Thebes led to unrest. Control of local affairs tended to come more and more into

5246-415: The original burial equipment, including a wooden pectoral, a fragmentary ushabti for Sahte, ushabti box lids inscribed for Khabekhnet, legs from a lion-shaped funerary bed, and jars containing meat and mummification refuse. Intrusive finds consisted of over 100 ushabti washed in from the adjoining TT299 , and Late Period footwear sized for adults and children. Only the burial chamber of TT2B is decorated. It

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5332-425: The reign of Senusret I . Thebes was already, in the Middle Kingdom, a town of considerable size. Excavations around the Karnak temple show that the Middle Kingdom town had a layout with a grid pattern . The city was at least one kilometre long and 50 hectares in area. Remains of two palatial buildings were also detected. Starting in the later part of the 12th Dynasty, a group of Canaanite people began settling in

5418-447: The remaining part of Upper Egypt. The Theban rulers were apparently descendants of the prince of Thebes, Intef the Elder . His probable grandson Intef I was the first of the family to claim in life a partial pharaonic titulary , though his power did not extend much further than the general Theban region. Finally by c.  2050 BC , Intef III 's son Mentuhotep II (meaning "Montu

5504-466: The revolt in 185 BC, Ptolemy V , in need of the support of the priesthood, pardoned them. Half a century later the Thebans rose again, elevating a certain Harsiesi to the throne in 132 BC. Harsiesi, having helped himself to the funds of the royal bank at Thebes, fled the following year. In 91 BC, another revolt broke out. In the following years, Thebes was subdued, and the city turned into rubble. During

5590-617: The same manner as Ptah and Osiris. His skin was usually painted black, which symbolized the fertile soil of the Nile. In Hymn to Min it is said: Min, Lord of the Processions, God of the High Plumes, Son of Osiris and Isis , Venerated in Ipu... Min's wives were Iabet and Repyt (Repit). Isis is the mother of Min as well as his wife. There have been controversial suggestions, by authors such as British journalist Jonathan Margolis, that

5676-406: The second, a man presents offerings to Ramose (owner of TT7 ) and his wife, and to Sennedjem and Iyneferti. The third register shows Qaha (owner of TT360 ) and his wife receiving offerings. The second scene has four registers. The uppermost depicts Khabekhnet with his wife Sahte presenting lit braziers to a statue of the deified king Amenhotep I in a palanquin carried by priests, and to a statue of

5762-399: The snake goddess Wadjet . The fifth and final scene on this wall shows Sennedjem and Iyneferti giving offerings and libations to a form of the god Ptah, Ptah-neb-Maat, and the Theban cobra goddess Meretseger . On the short southern wall are two scenes side-by-side. On the right is the mummy of Khabekhnet as a fish, attended by Anubis, Isis, Nephthys and the four sons of Horus; on the left is

5848-407: The solar god Khepri (depicted with a falcon head) and Osiris with the emblem of the fish nome (region). Above, the goddess Isis spreads her wings. The vaulted ceiling is divided into eastern and western halves by a central inscription. Each side is further divided into four scenes by columns of text. The eastern half depicts, from right to left: Khabekhnet and Sahti adoring a stairway, atop which

5934-571: The southern chapel. In 1927, Bernard Bruyère re-cleared TT2B. Since the 2010s, Anne-Claire Salmas from the University of Oxford, and Alexandra Winkels from the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts have thoroughly studied and conserved the complex. TT2 is at the southern end of the cemetery of the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina . It sits on the slope above TT1 , where members of Khabekhnet's family were buried. The complex consists of two chapels at

6020-434: The story in the modern setting some 3000 years later. In "The Egyptian" by the author Mika Waltari, there are elaborate descriptions on how Thebes looked during the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Min (deity) Min ( Ancient Egyptian : mnw ), also called Menas , is an ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in the predynastic period (4th millennium BCE). He was represented in many different forms, but

6106-439: The support of the Louvre and the British Museum , a three-month exhibition on the city of Thebes and the role of women in the city at that time. In popular culture, Thebes is a setting in the films The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001). It is said to be the "Land of the Living". (In real history, there was no such name given to it.) The films feature scenes taking place in ancient Egypt in its prime, which affect

6192-472: The temples of Amun . The Theban god Amun became a principal state deity and every building project sought to outdo the last in proclaiming the glory of Amun and the pharaohs themselves. Thutmose I (reigned 1506–1493 BC) began the first great expansion of the Karnak temple. After this, colossal enlargements of the temple became the norm throughout the New Kingdom. Queen Hatshepsut (reigned 1479–1458 BC) helped

6278-547: The temples of Amun, Amenhotep increased construction in Thebes to unprecedented levels. On the west bank, he built the enormous mortuary temple and the equally massive Malkata palace-city, which fronted a 364-hectare artificial lake. In the city proper he built the Luxor temple and the Avenue of the Sphinxes leading to Karnak. For a brief period in the reign of Amenhotep III's son Akhenaten (1351–1334 BC), Thebes fell on hard times;

6364-551: The temples of Amun. Ramesses III received tributes from all subject peoples including the Sea Peoples and Meshwesh Libyans. The whole of Egypt was experiencing financial problems, however, exemplified in the events at Thebes' village of Deir el-Medina . In the 25th year of his reign, workers in Deir el-Medina began striking for pay and there arose a general unrest of all social classes. Subsequently, an unsuccessful Harem conspiracy led to

6450-734: The valley was at Min's temple in Koptos as his divine wife. Min's shrine was crowned with a pair of bull horns. As the central deity of fertility and possibly orgiastic rites, Min became identified by the Greeks with the god Pan . One feature of Min worship was the wild prickly lettuce Lactuca serriola – the domestic version of which is Lactuca sativa ( lettuce ) – which has aphrodisiac and opiate qualities and produces latex when cut, possibly identified with semen . He also had connections with Nubia. However, his main centers of worship remained at Coptos and Akhmim ( Khemmis ). Male deities as vehicles for fertility and potency rose to prevalence at

6536-503: The western wall has a double scene which is partly continued from the northern wall. In the first register, Khabekhnet appears before the Theban Triad of Amun, his consort Mut , and son Khonsu , and before Amenhotep I, Ahmose-Nefertari, and Meritamun. In the second register, Khabekhnet and Sahte, standing on the northern wall, worship Ra-Horakhty and Osiris, who are seated on the western wall. The lower registers depict offering scenes, and

6622-510: Was transmitted to Egypt along this corridor. It is the likely that Thinis , the capital of the First Dynasty, was located in the same region as Thebes for this reason. Both cities were at a crossroad region in Upper Egypt between the Nile in the north to south direction and Saharan caravan routes connecting to Red Sea maritime routes via Wadi Hammamat in the East West direction. The Wadi el-Hol

6708-553: Was wꜣs.t , "City of the wꜣs ", the sceptre of the pharaohs , a long staff with an animal's head and a forked base. From the end of the New Kingdom , Thebes was known in Egyptian as njw.t-jmn , the "City of Amun ", the chief of the Theban Triad of deities whose other members were Mut and Khonsu . This name of Thebes appears in the Tanakh as the "Nōʼ ʼĀmôn" ( נא אמון ) in the Book of Nahum and also as "No" ( נא ) mentioned in

6794-409: Was a woman named Sahte, and he was probably also married to his niece Isis, a daughter of his brother Khonsu. His family is mentioned in the tomb. Situated close to TT1, the family funerary complex, TT2 reused and expanded two earlier Eighteenth Dynasty tombs as chapels, with new burial chambers cut beneath them. The Egyptologists Kathrin Gabler and Anne-Claire Salmas suggest that the chapels were

6880-533: Was located along the banks of the Nile River in the middle part of Upper Egypt about 800 km south of the Delta . It was built largely on the alluvial plains of the Nile Valley, which follows a great bend of the Nile. As a natural consequence, the city was laid in a northeast–southwest axis parallel to the contemporary river channel. Thebes had an area of 93 km (36 sq mi), which included parts of

6966-440: Was most often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his right hand and an upheld left arm holding a flail . B C D F G H I K M N P Q R S T U W Min's cult began and was centered around Coptos (Koptos) and Akhmim (Panopolis) of upper Egypt , where in his honour great festivals were held celebrating his "coming forth" with

7052-621: Was reused in the Graeco-Roman era , and a wall was built across the court. A second wall was built to divide the court into two unequal halves during the Christian era, when the complex was used as a double hermitage by Coptic monks. In 1917, TT2B was found and excavated by Jacques Lecomte-Dunouy of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale (IFAO). In 1922, the IFAO excavated the chambers below

7138-418: Was short-lived, as less than twenty years had elapsed between the death of Mentuhotep II and that of Mentuhotep IV , in mysterious circumstances. During the 12th Dynasty , Amenemhat I moved the seat of power North to Itjtawy . Thebes continued to thrive as a religious center as the local god Amun was becoming increasingly prominent throughout Egypt. The oldest remains of a temple dedicated to Amun date to

7224-524: Was tall, straight, and released a milk-like sap when rubbed, characteristics superficially similar to the penis . Lettuce was sacrificially offered to the god, then eaten by men in an effort to achieve potency. Later pharaohs would offer the first fruits of harvest to the god to ensure plentiful harvest, with records of offerings of the first stems of sprouts of wheat being offered during the Ptolemaic period. Civilians who were not able to formally practice

7310-503: Was the eponymous capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian nome . At this time it was still a small trading post, while Memphis served as the royal residence of the Old Kingdom pharaohs. Although no buildings survive in Thebes older than portions of the Karnak temple complex that may date from the Middle Kingdom , the lower part of a statue of Pharaoh Nyuserre of the 5th Dynasty has been found in Karnak. Another statue dedicated by

7396-477: Was therefore translated into Greek as Diospolis, "City of Zeus". To distinguish it from the numerous other cities by this name, it was known as the "Great Diospolis" ( Διόσπολις Μεγάλη , Diospolis Megálē ; Latin : Diospolis Magna ). The Greek names came into wider use after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great , when the country came to be ruled by the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty . Thebes

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