Canopus, Egypt

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This article is about the ancient Egyptian seaport. For other uses, see Canopus (disambiguation).

Peguat — Canopus
(Şân-Stele)
in hieroglyphs

Q3:W11-Aa18-U33-X1:O49

Canopus (also: Canobus) was an Ancient Egyptian coastal town, located in the Nile Delta. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria, around 25 kilometres from the centre of that city.

Canopus stood on the western bank at the mouth of the westernmost branch of the River Nile – known as the Canopic or Heracleotic branch. It was the principal port in Egypt for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. 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. Homer describes how Menelaus built a monument to his memory on the shore, around which the town later grew up.

The real origin of the name Canopus is said to be Ancient Egyptian Kah Nub = "golden floor", referring likely to the profits made by merchants trading through the port. There is unlikely to be any connection with "canopy".

A temple to Osiris was built by Pharaoh Ptolemy Euergetes (the third ruler of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty), but, according to Herodotus, very near to Canopus was an older shrine, a temple of Heracles that served as an asylum for fugitive slaves (the Decree shows that Heracles here stands for Amun). 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.

Canopus, under Hellenistic Egypt

Canopus:
Genp – Gauti (?)
in hieroglyphs

W11:W24-N1:O49-.-or-.-W11-G1-Z7*X1:Z4-O49

In Ptolemy Euergetes' ninth regnal year (239 BC), a great assembly of priests at Canopus passed an honorific decree (the "Decree of Canopus") that, inter alia, conferred various new titles on the king and his consort, Berenice. Two examples of this decree are known, inscribed in Egyptian (in both hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts) and in Greek, and they were second only to the more famous Rosetta Stone in providing the key to decyphering the ancient Egyptian language. The bilingual decrees for the Three-Stela Series are: Ptolemy III, Ptolemy IV, Ptolemy V, the Decree of Canopus(also named the "Şân Stele"), the Decree of Memphis (Ptolemy IV), and the famous "Stele of Rosetta" (Decree of Memphis (Ptolemy V)), the Rosetta Stone, (grandfather, son, and grandson). The documents are bilingual as a result of the Greek domination of Egypt that followed Alexander the Great's ascendency to the role of pharaoh. (At Rosetta Stone topic can be found the listing of the 3-Stone Series. It includes 6 separate, and "named" stelae (plural of stela/stele), and some partials.)

In Roman times, the town was notorious for its dissoluteness. Juvenal, in his Satire VI, referred to the "debauchery" that prevailed there.

External link

[The Canopus Decree]

References

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