Terenuthis
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Tarrana ( ar, الطرانة ', cop, ⲧⲉⲣⲉⲛⲟⲩⲑⲓ '), known in
classical antiquity Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
as Terenuthis, is a town in
Monufia Governorate Monufia Governorate ( ar, محافظة المنوفية ' ) is one of the governorates of Egypt. It is located in the northern part of the country in the Nile Delta, to the south of Gharbia Governorate and to the north of Cairo. The governora ...
of
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
. It is located in the western Nile Delta, circa 70 km north-west of
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
, between the southern prehistoric site of Merimde Beni-salame and the northern town of
Kom el-Hisn Kom el-Hisn ( ar, كوم الحصن ') is a Nile Delta settlement dating back to the Old Kingdom of Egypt with parts dating to the Middle Kingdom. Its location in the 3rd nome of Lower Egypt, or "House of the Lord of Ships (pr nb jmu)", focus ...
. Hawass, Zahi, ''Kom Abu Bello'', in Bard, Kathryn A. (ed.), "Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt". Routledge, London & New York, 1999, , pp. 498–500 The ruins of ancient Terenuthis are found at Kom Abu Billo, northwest of the modern city.


Names

Tarrana was known to the ancient Egyptians as Mefket, meaning "
turquoise Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula . It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of year ...
" in
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
, itself an epithet of the goddess
Hathor Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sk ...
who was object of local veneration as "Hathor, Mistress of Turquoises". It was during the Graeco-Roman period that the town became known as Terenuthis, from the Egyptian ''*Ta-Renenût'' ("the domain of the goddess
Renenutet Renenūtet (also transliterated Ernūtet, Renen-wetet, Renenet) was a goddess of nourishment and the harvest in the ancient Egyptian religion. The importance of the harvest caused people to make many offerings to Renenutet during harvest time. In ...
") which in turn became the Coptic Terenouti, as well as ''Tarrana'' or ''Tarana'', the modern town. The toponym Kom Abu Billo (or Kom Abu Bello) refers to a small modern village lying on Terenuthis’ necropolis, in the northwestern part of the whole site; it probably takes the name from the ancient temple of
Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...
that once stood here.


Geography

The modern town of El-Tarrana is on the
Rosetta Rosetta or Rashid (; ar, رشيد ' ; french: Rosette  ; cop, ϯⲣⲁϣⲓⲧ ''ti-Rashit'', Ancient Greek: Βολβιτίνη ''Bolbitinē'') is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Ro ...
branch of the Nile, on the fringes of the
Libyan Desert The Libyan Desert (not to be confused with the Libyan Sahara) is a geographical region filling the north-eastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval maps, its use predates t ...
. The ancient necropolis of Kom Abu Billo is a short distance west of El-Tarrana, and is now bisected by the El-Nasseri Canal, a 40-meter-wide irrigation canal.


Excavations

The site was first excavated in 1887–88 by
Francis Llewellyn Griffith Francis Llewellyn Griffith (27 May 1862 – 14 March 1934) was an eminent British Egyptologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Early life and education F. Ll. Griffith was born in Brighton on 27 May 1862 where his father, Rev. Dr. ...
, who rediscovered the temple of Hathor, then again in 1935 by an expedition organized by the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
. The most consistent excavation campaign was led by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, and took place between 1969 and 1974 due to the imminent construction of a canal which would have crossed the site. Nowadays, Terenuthis is poorly preserved partly because of these extensive excavations, partly due to the enlargement of the modern city of Tarrana and its crops.


History

The earliest tombs discovered in the site date back to the
Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...
, mostly to the
6th Dynasty The Sixth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty VI), along with the Third, Fourth and Fifth Dynasty, constitutes the Old Kingdom of Dynastic Egypt. Pharaohs Known pharaohs of the Sixth Dynasty are listed in the table below. Manetho acc ...
. Another cemetery was made during the Middle Kingdom, and another one in the New Kingdom, the latter being characterized by the use of large-faced ceramic coffins. At one point, a temple of Hathor was erected, of which some blocks depicting pharaoh Ptolemy I were found. The temple was accompanied by a dedicated cemetery where sacred cattle were buried. Another temple, dedicated to Apollo, was built at the northernmost border of the site: it was later completely destroyed to its foundations, leaving only a few blocks. The northeastern sector of the site hosted a very large necropolis dating to the Graeco- Roman and Coptic periods: a large amount of artefacts of various types has been recovered from these tombs, some of which suggests that during these times, Terenuthis flourished thanks to the trade of wine and salt with the Wadi el-Natrun. Many tombs have a square superstructure made from mudbricks, and an inner vaulted roof. From these tombs a large number of stelae were found. These are inscribed with either
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
or
Demotic Egyptian Demotic (from grc, δημοτικός ''dēmotikós'', 'popular') is the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Nile Delta, and the stage of the Egyptian language written in this script, following Late Egypt ...
texts, and provide glimpses of daily life of the period between 100-300 CE.
A smaller cemetery, dating to the 2nd century CE, was dedicated to
Aphrodite Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols inclu ...
. Two Roman ''
thermae In ancient Rome, (from Greek , "hot") and (from Greek ) were facilities for bathing. usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes, while were smaller-scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout ...
'' once stood south of the aforementioned temple of Apollo. Terenuthis became a bishopric that, being in the province of Aegyptus Prima was a suffragan of
Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
and is included in the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
's list of
titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbis ...
s.
Le Quien Michel Le Quien (8 October 1661, Boulogne-sur-Mer – 12 March 1733, Paris) was a French historian and theologian. He studied at Plessis College, Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made his p ...
mentions two of its bishops: Arsinthius in 404; Eulogius at the
First Council of Ephesus The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman Emperors, Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus deci ...
in 431. The monks sometimes sought refuge in Terenuthis during incursions of the Maziks.
John Moschus John Moschus ( el, Ἰωάννης Μόσχος, c. 550 – 619; name from the grc, ὁ τοῦ Μόσχου, o tou Moschou, (son) of Moschos, was a Byzantine monk and ascetical writer. Biography He was born about 550 probably at Damascus. He ...
went there at the beginning of the 7th century. There is frequent mention of Terenuthis in Christian
Coptic literature Coptic literature is the body of writings in the Coptic language of Egypt, the last stage of the indigenous Egyptian language. It is written in the Coptic alphabet. The study of the Coptic language and literature is called Coptology. Definition S ...
. Tarrana was the site of a minor battle during the
Muslim conquest of Egypt The Muslim conquest of Egypt, led by the army of 'Amr ibn al-'As, took place between 639 and 646 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long period of Roman reign over Egypt that began in 30 BC. Byzantine ru ...
. After capturing the fortress of Babylon near Cairo in April 641, the Muslim army, led by
Amr ibn al-As ( ar, عمرو بن العاص السهمي; 664) was the Arab commander who led the Muslim conquest of Egypt and served as its governor in 640–646 and 658–664. The son of a wealthy Qurayshite, Amr embraced Islam in and was assigned impo ...
, moved against the city of
Nikiou Zawyat Razin ( ar, زاوية رزين; cop, ⲡϣⲁϯ, lit=the saved, rescued one, Pashati), formerly Shubra al-Laun ( ar, شبرا اللون), known in Antiquity as Nikiû, Nikiou or Nikious (, la, Nicius), is a city in the Monufia Governora ...
in the Delta. The Muslims travelled north along with western bank of the Nile, in order to take advantage of the wide-open spaces along the fringes of the Libyan Desert, but had to cross back over to the east to reach Nikiou. Amr chose to cross the Nile at Tarranah, where he was met by a Roman cavalry force. The Muslims easily defeated the Romans and proceeded to reach Nikiou by 13 May. The name ''Tarrana'' dates from around the time of the Mamluk sultan Baibars; the earlier name was ''Tarnūṭ''. It was partially destroyed during the
Fatimid conquest of Egypt The Fatimid conquest of Egypt took place in 969, as the troops of the Fatimid Caliphate under the general Jawhar captured Egypt, then ruled by the autonomous Ikhshidid dynasty in the name of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Fatimids launched repeated ...
. Dimashqi spoke praises of it. It was a source of
natron Natron is a naturally occurring mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate ( Na2CO3·10H2O, a kind of soda ash) and around 17% sodium bicarbonate (also called baking soda, NaHCO3) along with small quantities of sodium chloride and sodium sulfate. ...
. In December 1293, the emir
Baydara Badr al-Din Baydara al-Mansuri was the ''na'ib al-saltana'' (viceroy) of the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Khalil () Early life Baydara was a toddler or younger when he arrived in Cairo with his mother as captives from the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. C ...
, who had assassinated the Mamluk sultan
al-Ashraf Khalil Al-Ashraf Salāh ad-Dīn Khalil ibn Qalawūn ( ar, الملك الأشرف صلاح الدين خليل بن قلاوون; c. 1260s – 14 December 1293) was the eighth Bahri Mamluk sultan, succeeding his father Qalawun. He served from 12 Novem ...
and now claimed the title of Sultan for himself, was captured and killed near Tarrana after most of his supporters fled. Shortly prior to the
Battle of Marj Dabiq The Battle of Marj Dābiq ( ar, مرج دابق, meaning "the meadow of Dābiq"; tr, Mercidabık Muharebesi), a decisive military engagement in Middle Eastern history, was fought on 24 August 1516, near the town of Dabiq, 44 km north of ...
, members of the '' qarānīṣa'', i.e. veteran
mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
s who had belonged to former sultans, were dispatched to fortify numerous localities throughout the
Mamluk Sultanate The Mamluk Sultanate ( ar, سلطنة المماليك, translit=Salṭanat al-Mamālīk), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz (western Arabia) from the mid-13th to early 16t ...
, including Tarrana. On October 27, 1660, a bloody massacre took place in Tarrana against members of the Faqariya political faction on the orders of the Ottoman governor, who was collaborating with the rival Qasimiya faction. This event was the main source of tension in Egyptian politics for at least 30 years thereafter, with the Faqari leader Ibrahim Bak Dhu al-Faqar vowing to annihilate the Qasimiya in revenge. The
1885 Census of Egypt Events January–March * January 3– 4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam. * January 4 &ndas ...
recorded Tarrana as a
nahiyah A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...
under the district of El Negaila in
Beheira Governorate Beheira Governorate ( ar, محافظة البحيرة ', , "the governorate of the Lake") is a coastal governorate in Egypt. Located in the northern part of the country in the Nile Delta, its capital is Damanhur. Overview Beheira Governorate ...
; at that time, the population of the town was 1,331 (693 men and 638 women).


Gallery

File:Kom Abou Billou Terenouthis 004.JPG, The necropolis at Kom Abu Billo File:RelieveTemploPtolomeoI (44383388150).jpg, Ptolemy I (right) offering to Hathor; block from the temple of Hathor File:Kom Abou Billou Terenouthis 010.JPG, Tomb-chapel, Graeco–Roman period File:Kom Abou Billou Terenouthis 008.JPG, Vault of a Graeco–Roman tomb File:Roman funerary stele REM.JPG, Roman funerary stele, Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum


See also

*
List of ancient Egyptian sites This is a list of ancient Egyptian sites, throughout all of Egypt and Nubia. Sites are listed by their classical name whenever possible, if not by their modern name, and lastly with their ancient name if no other is available. Nomes A nom ...
, including sites of temples


References

Site and blog of the French Archaeological Mission: https://kab.huma-num.fr/ and https://aboubillou.hypotheses.org/ . ;Attribution *{{Catholic, wstitle=Terenuthis The entry cites: **''Georgii Cyprii Descriptio orb. rom.'', ed.
Heinrich Gelzer Heinrich Gelzer (1 July 1847, in Berlin – 11 July 1906, in Jena) was a German classical scholar. He wrote also on Armenian mythology. He was the son of the Swiss historian Johann Heinrich Gelzer (1813–1889). He became Professor of classical ...
, 125; **AMÉLINEAU, ''La géog. de l'Egypte a l'époque Copte'' (Paris, 1893), 493. 1887 archaeological discoveries Archaeological sites in Egypt Nile Delta Cities in ancient Egypt Catholic titular sees in Africa