Hermopolis - History

History

The city was the capital of the Hermopolite 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 Thebaïd 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 the river craft from the upper country paid toll (Ἑρμοπολιτάνη φυλακή, Strabo xvii. p. 813; Ptol. loc. cit.; the Bahr Jusuf in Arabic). The grottos of Beni Hasan, near Antinopolis, upon the opposite bank of the Nile, were the common cemetery of the Hermopolitans, for, although the river divided the city from its necropolis, yet, 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. The principal deities worshipped at Hermopolis were Typhôn and Thoth. Typhon was represented by a hippopotamus, on which sat a hawk fighting with a serpent. (Plut. Is. et Osir, p. 371, D.) Thoth, who the Ancient Greeks associated with Hermes because they were both gods of magic and writing, was represented by the Ibis.

Hermopolis comparatively escaped the frequent wars which, in the decline both of the Pharaonic and Roman eras, devastated the Heptanomis; but, on the other hand, its structures have undergone severe changes under its Muslim rulers, who have burned its stones for lime or carried them away for building materials. A surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyrus of the 3rd century AD indicates that high-rise buildings with seven stories existed in the town.

The city is still a titular diocese in the Roman Catholic Church. and in the Coptic Orthodox Church.