Asyut

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Lycopolis and Lykopolis redirect here; for the ancient city bearing those names located in the delta of the Nile, see Lycopolis (Delta).

Asyūṭ (Arabic: أسيوط, derived from Ancient Egyptian Z3JW.TJ through Coptic Syowt) is a city in modern Asyūṭ Governorate, Egypt. Its modern name is one of many borrowings in Egyptian Arabic from Coptic, the last living phase of Ancient Egyptian. In Graeco-Roman times, it was called Lycopolis or Lykopolis (Greek: ἡ Λύκων πόλις, Ptol. iv. 5. § 63; Steph. B. s. v.; Strabo xvii. p. 813) or Lycon (Plin. v. 9. s. 11) or Lyco (Itin. Anton. p. 157). The modern population is 400,000

Ancient Asyūṭ

Ancient Asyūṭ (late Egyptian Səyáwt, Coptic Syowt) was the capital of the 13th Nome of Upper Egypt (Lycopolites Nome), southeast of Hermopolis, in latitude 27°10'14" North, seated on the western bank of the Nile. The two most prominent gods of pre-Christian Asyūṭ were Anubis and Wepwawet, both funerary deities.

The shield of a king named Recamai, who reigned in Upper Egypt, probably during the shepherd dynasty in the Lower Country, has been discovered here. (Rosellini, Mon. Civ. i. 81.) Lycopolis has no remarkable ruins, but in the excavated chambers of the adjacent rocks are found mummies of wolves, confirming the origin of its name, as well as a tradition preserved by Diodorus Siculus (ii. 88; comp. Aelian. Hist. An. x. 28), to the effect that an Aethiopian army, invading Egypt, was repelled beyond the city of Elephantine by herds of wolves. Osiris was worshipped under the symbol of a wolf at Lycopolis: he having, according to a myth, come from the shades under that form, to aid Isis and Horus in their combat with Typhon. (Champollion, Descript. de l'Egypte, vol. i. p. 276; Jollois, Egypte, vol. ii. ch. 13.)

In Graeco-Roman times, there was a distinct dialect of Coptic spoken here; it is known as Lycopolitan after the Greek name for the town. Lesser-used names for this dialect are Sub-Akhmimic and Assiutic.

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography by William Smith (1857).

Bibliography

Loprieno Antonio 1996: Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Oxford U Press. ISBN 0-521-44849-2

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