Hermopolis (other)

Hermopolis ( grc, Ἑρμούπολις ''Hermoúpolis'' "the City of Hermes", also ''Hermopolis Magna'', ''Hermoû pólis megálẽ'', egy, ḫmnw, Eight (reconstructed pronunciation), Egyptological pronunciation: "Khemenu"; cop, Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ ''Shmun'', and thus ar, الأشمونين, al-Ashmunayn, The Two Shmun) was a major city in antiquity, located near the boundary between Lower and Upper Egypt. Its name is derived from the Ogdoad, eight associated deities residing in Hermopolis.

A provincial capital since the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Hermopolis developed into a major city of Roman Egypt, and an early Christian center from the third century. It was abandoned after the Muslim conquest of Egypt but was restored as both a Latin Catholic (meanwhile suppressed) and a Coptic Orthodox titular see.

Its remains are located near the modern town of el-Ashmunein (from the Coptic name) in Mallawi, Minya Governorate, Egypt.

Name

''Khemenu'' ('), the Egyptian language name of the city, means "Eight-Town", after the Ogdoad, a group of eight "primordial" deities whose cult was situated there. The name survived as Coptic ''Shmun'', from which the modern name ''el Ashmunein'' ( ar, الأشمونين) is derived.G. Mussies in: Matthieu Sybrand Huibert, Gerard Heerma van Voss (eds.), ''Studies in Egyptian Religion: Dedicated to Professor Jan Zandee'' (1982),
p. 92

In Koine Greek, the city was called "The City of Hermes" since the Greeks identified Hermes with Thoth, because the city was the main cult centre of Thoth, the Pharaonic god of magic, healing, and wisdom and the patron of scribes. Thoth was associated in the same way with the Phoenician deity Eshmun. Inscriptions at the temple call the god "The Lord of Eshmun".

History

The city was the capital of the Hare nome (the fifteenth nome of Upper Egypt) in the Heptanomis. Hermopolis stood on the borders of Upper and Lower Egypt, and, for many ages, the Thebaid or upper country extended much further to the north than in more recent periods. As the border town, Hermopolis was a place of great resort and opulence, ranking second to Thebes alone. A little to south of the city was the castle of Hermopolis, at which point rivercraft from the Thebaid paid tolls (, the Bahr Yussef in Arabic). The grottos of Beni Hasan, near Antinoöpolis on the opposite bank of the Nile, were the common cemeteries of the Hermopolitans because although the river divided the city from its necropolis, from the wide curve of the western hills at this point, it was easier to ferry the dead over the water than to transport them by land to the hills.

Hermopolis became a significant city in the Roman province of Thebais Prima in the administrative diocese of Egypt.

The principal Egyptian deities worshipped at Hermopolis were Typhon ( Set) and Thoth. Typhon was represented by a hippopotamus, on which sat a hawk fighting with a serpent. Thoth, whom the ancient Greeks associated with Hermes because they were both gods of magic and writing, was represented by the ibis.

Ecclesiastical history

A Christian tradition holds it to be the place where the Holy Family found refuge during its exile in Egypt.

Hermopolis Maior was a suffragan diocese of the provincial capital's Metropolitan Archdiocese of Antinoe, in the sway of the Patriarchate of Alexandria. Like most, it faded under Islam.

List of bishops of Hermopolis:
* Conon (circa 250)
* Fasileus (in 325)
* Dios (circa 350)
* Plusianus (4th century)
* Andreas (in 431)
* Gennadius (circa 444 - after 449)
* Victor (circa 448/463)
* Ulpianus (6th century)
* Johannes I (6th century)
* Johannes II (6th-7th century)
* Isidorus (7th century)
* Eugenius (?)
* Paulus (?)

The city was a titular diocese in the Roman Catholic Church, and still is (?) in the Coptic Orthodox Church.
The diocese was nominally restored in the 18th century as Latin Titular bishopric of Hermopolis Maior (Latin; 1925-1929 renamed Hermopolis Magna) / Ermopoli Maggiore (Curiate Italian)
Its territory was reassigned in 1849 to the Coptic Catholic Eparchy of Mina, as a restoration of Hermopolis (as its Latin title attests).

In 1949 the titular see was suppressed, having had the following incumbents, all of the fitting Episcopal (lowest) rank :
* Luigi Antonio Valdina Cremona (1729.03.23 – death 1758.10.24) (Italian) no actual prelature recorded
* Dominik Józef Kiełczewski (1760.07.21 – death 1776.02.28) as Auxiliary Bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Chełm (Poland) (1760.07.21 – retired 1775.07.14) and on emeritate
* Bishop-elect? Bernardo Maria Serio (1802.08.09 – death ?) as Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Palermo

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases