Mendes
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- For information about the Portuguese language surname Mendes, see the article Mendez.
History
Mendes was a famous city in ancient times, attracting notice of most ancient geographers and historians, including Herodotus (ii. 42, 46. 166); Diodorus (i. 84); Strabo (xvii. p. 802); Mela (i. 9 § 9); Pliny the Elder (v. 10. s. 12); Ptolemy (iv. 5. § 51); and Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.). The city was the capital of the Mendesian nome, situated at the point where the Mendesian arm of the Nile (Μενδήσιον στόμα, Scylax, p. 43; Ptol. iv, 5. § 10; Mendesium ostium, Pliny, Mela, ll. cc.) flows into the lake of Tanis. Mendes was, under the Pharaohs, a considerable town. The nome it governed was one of the nomes assigned to that division of the native army which was called the Calasirii, and the city was celebrated for the manufacture of a perfume designated as the Mendesium unguentum. (Plin. xiii. 1. s. 2.) Mendes, however, declined early, and disappears in the first century AD; since both Ptolemy (l. c.) and P. Aelius Aristides (iii. p. 160) mention Thmuis as the only town of note in the Mendesian nome. From its position at the junction of the river and the lake, it was probably encroached upon by their waters, after the canals fell into neglect under the Macedonian kings, and when they were repaired by Augustus (Sueton. Aug. 18, 63) Thmuis had attracted its trade and population.
Ruins
The site is today the largest surviving tell in the Nile delta, and consists of both Tell al-Rubˁ (the site of the main temple enclosure) and Tell Timai (the settlement site to the south). Overall, Mendes is about three kilometres long from north to south and averages about 900 metres east to west. An Old Kingdom necropolis is estimated to contain over 9,000 interments. Several campaigns of 20th-century excavations have ben led by North American institutions, the University of Toronto and a Pennsylvania State University team led by Donald Redford.
Religion
The chief deities of Mendes were the ram deity Banebdjed (lit. Ba of the lord of djed, and titled "the Lord of Mendes"), who was the Ba of Osiris, and his consort, the fish goddess Hatmehit. With their child Har-pa-khered ("Horus the Child"), they formed the triad of Mendes.
The ram deity of Mendes was described by Herodotus in his History (Book II) as being represented with the face and legs of a goat, rather than a ram, and being considered by Egyptians as analogous to the Greek Pan. According to Herodotus, the sacrifice of goats was forbidden at his temples, and sheep were slaughtered instead. Presumably following Herodotus' description, the occultist Eliphas Levi in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) called his goat-headed conception of Baphomet the "Baphomet of Mendes", thus popularising and perpetuating this incorrect attribution, which has given rise to a flood of spurious connections, such as "The Goat of Mendes" by the black metal band Akercocke.
References
- Redford, Donald Bruce. 2001. "Mendes". In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, edited by Donald Bruce Redford. Vol. 2 of 3 vols. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. 376–377.
- ———. 2004. Excavations at Mendes. Volume 1: The Royal Necropolis. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 20. Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill. ISBN 90-04-13674-6
- ———. 2005. "Mendes: City of the Ram God." Egyptian Archaeology: The Bulletin of the Egyptian Exploration Society 26:8–12.
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography by William Smith (1857).
External links
- [The Great Mendes Stela]
- [Monroe Edgar, " Minor Temple and Other Ruins of the Nile Delta in Egypt, Part III"]
- [http://www.egyptsites.co.uk/lower/delta/eastern/ruba.html Egyptian Monuments: Tell el-Rub'a
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