Menouthis was a sacred city in ancient Egypt, devoted to the Egyptian goddess

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...

and god

Serapis Serapis or Sarapis is a Graeco-Egyptian deity. The cult of Serapis was promoted during the third century BC on the orders of Greek Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his r ...

. The city was probably submerged under the sea as a result of catastrophic natural causes:

earthquakes An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...

flood. Land in the bay area was subject to rising sea levels, earthquakes, and tsunamis, parts of it apparently becoming submerged after a process of soil liquefaction sometime at the end of the 2nd century BC.

Name

The city's name most probably comes from Isis's epithet ''mwt-nTr'', "Mother of God" (

Horus Horus or Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the P ...

Religious significance

Roman Egypt , conventional_long_name = Roman Egypt , common_name = Egypt , subdivision = Province , nation = the Roman Empire , era = Late antiquity , capital = Alexandria , title_leader = Praefectus Augustalis , image_map = Roman E ...

, Menouthis was widely known as an oracular and healing cult centre of the Ancient Egyptian goddess

and it drew devotees from a wide region. The temple of Isis in the city contained religious statues and was decorated with

hieroglyphs A hieroglyph (Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatonis ...

. In 391 AD the city's

Serapeum A serapeum is a temple or other religious institution dedicated to the syncretic Greco-Egyptian deity Serapis, who combined aspects of Osiris and Apis in a humanized form that was accepted by the Ptolemaic Greeks of Alexandria. There were seve ...

was demolished during the

persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church ...

, and in the following year the temple of Isis was closed and partially dismantled, with Christian Tabennesiote monks taking over the temple's country estates. In 413 AD, at a site opposite the temple,

Pope Theophilus of Alexandria Theophilus of Alexandria may refer to: * Theophilus I of Alexandria, ruled in 385–412 * Theophilus II (Coptic patriarch of Alexandria), ruled in 952–956 * Theophilus II (Greek patriarch of Alexandria), ruled in 1010–1020 * Theophilus III of ...

built a Christian shrine dedicated to the Four Evangelists. The shrine became home to the bones of the saints Cyrus and John, which were moved there from Alexandria by

Cyril of Alexandria Cyril of Alexandria ( grc, Κύριλλος Ἀλεξανδρείας; cop, Ⲡⲁⲡⲁ Ⲕⲩⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲩ ⲁ̅ also ⲡⲓ̀ⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ Ⲕⲓⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲥ; 376 – 444) was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444 ...

. During the 5th century the Isis temple continued to be used for clandestine sacrifices and incubation rites.

Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...

tradition says that the temple remained in use alongside the Christian shrine and the worship of Egyptian gods and their statues continued in the city. However, as time went by the traditional healing function of the temple was transferred to the Christian shrine. The temple was demolished in 484 AD and the statues of the classical gods in the city were removed or destroyed in 488–89 AD. By the end of the 5th century the Christian shrine had replaced the temple as a healing centre. At the height of its popularity in the 6th and 7th centuries the shrine was one of the two principal pilgrimage centres of Christian Egypt.

In popular culture

"Menouthis" is also the name of a song by E. S. Posthumus, inspired by the ancient city.

Name

Religious significance

In popular culture

See also

References

Further reading