AḪMĪM (PANOPOLIS)
Egyptian | Ḫnty-Mỉn | Šmn | Ỉpw |
Greek | Πανὸς πόλις | Χεμμις |
Coptic | ¥min | a¥min | e¥min | yhin | ymin |
Arabic | أخميم |
English | Akhmim |
French | Akhmîm | Achmim |
DEChriM ID | 25 |
Trismegistos GeoID | 1589 |
Pleiades ID | 756613 | PAThs ID | 24 |
Ancient name | Panopolis |
Modern name | Aḫmīm |
Latitude | 26.5648875 |
Longitude | 31.7451755 |
Date from | - |
Date to | - |
Typology | City |
Dating criteria | - |
Description | The site of Aḫmīm, ancient Panopolis, is c. 350km south of Cairo. From the Roman period onwards, the Panopolite nome was subdivided into six sub-districts (toparchies), with the area of Min-Gaus extending over both banks of the Nile, the two most important urban centers being Aḫmīm on the east bank, and Athribis on the west (El-Sayed et al. 2021: 15). Capital of the 9th nome of Upper Egypt, the city has seen an extensive history of occupation, with a large township having been established from at least the Old Kingdom (Kuhlmann 1983: 5). The area of inhabitation has not particularly interested archaeologists, rather it is the numerous cemeteries that served the city that have captured their attention. The use of these burial grounds span from the predynastic period, until the c. ninth century (with at least one item dated to the tenth century CE), with majority of the burials belonging to the Greco-Roman period (Forrer 1895a: 58; Kulhmann 1983: 50). From north to south, the cemeteries on the west bank comprise al-Haǧarsa, Athribis, al-Dayr al-Abyaḍ, Awlād ʿAzzāz and al-Ǧuhayna, and on the east bank Ǧabal Harīdī, Nagʿ al-Kulaybāt, al-Sawāmiʿa, al-Salāmūnī (‘Necropolis C’), al-Ḥawāwīš (‘Necropolis A’), Bayt al-Madīna, or simply ‘Madīna’ (‘Necropolis B’), and the urban Necropolis D on the north-eastern outskirts of Aḫmīm (El-Sayed et al. 2021: 126-127, 129). The main cemeteries, and those which will be the focus here, are A, B and C. The vastness of the site, and the rather non-methodological approaches of the earliest excavators, have resulted in a great deal of uncertainty with regards to which of the cemeteries the masses of material derive, heavily impacting the scientific value of many objects as well as our understandings of the site itself (Kulhmann 1983: 52; Depauw 2002; El-Sayed 2018; El Sayed et al. 2016). This messiness of excavations in addition to the sheer number of them conducted means that compiling a summary work was a daunting task but was made possible largely thanks to the clarifying summaries offered by K. P. Kuhlmann, which remain the most comprehensive synopses for the funerary areas (i.e., Kuhlmann 1983). Necropolis A (near al-Ḥawāwīš) Necropolis B (Bayt al-Madīna) Necropolis C (al-Salāmūnī) Christianity In addition to the renowned Christian funerary material deriving from Aḫmīm, a great majority of the attestations of the Christianness of the region are present in the remnants of monasticism, both formal and informal. Alongside the famed monasteries of Pachomius and Shenoute, situated on the east and west banks respectively, were numerous smaller-scale monastic communities, in addition to innumerable anchoritic communities established in the rock-cut tombs of the various burial areas, as can be seen at Ǧabal Harīdī and Necropolis C (al-Salāmūnī) on the east bank, and al-Haǧarsa, Awlād ʿAzzāz and Athribis on the west bank (Geens 2007: 398-400, 421-424; El-Sayed, et al 2021: 84-89). |
Archaeological research | A remarkable sum of archaeological work has been conducted at Aḫmīm. The vastness of the archaeological area has meant that it has understandably been divided into smaller sites, with archaeological teams concentrating on specific sectors within the greater area of Aḫmīm (referred to by their individual name, rather than ‘Aḫmīm’). This work has varied in quality and quantity between the different areas. Though it has come to be the case that certain teams concentrate on specific areas, the earliest excavators approached the material rather haphazardly, unsystematically digging into numerous areas. This is an attempt at summarizing the fieldword undertaken by the main excavators and teams in the region of Aḫmīm, with specific focus on Necropolises A, B and C. Necropolis A Necropolis B Necropolis C Other Areas Al-Sawāmiʿa was briefly explored in 1914 by a mission of the American department of the Egypt Exploration Society, directed by T. Whittemore and G. A. Wainwright, with 161 graves examined revealing material dating from the 17th and 18th Dynasties, with possible presence of predynastic burials as well (Whittemore 1914; El-Sayed et al. 2021: 122). The cemetery of Athribis or Tripheion, on the west bank of the Nile near the temple of Athribis, was excavated by N. L’Hôte in 1839, followed by Lepsius, resulting in the retrieval of thousands of mummy labels, which were obtained by Bouriant, Schmidt and Forrer in the late 19th century. Petrie conducted excavations here in 1908, followed by the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation in 1981-5 (Farouk 2020: 5; El-Sayed 2021: 142). The mortuary area of Awlād ʿAzzāz, situated on the west bank, was investigated by B. Ockinga from 1988 to 1990 (El-Sayed et al. 2021: 123-124). An American mission, directed by S. McNally of the University of Minnesota, was initiated in 1978 (‘The Minnesota Akhmim Project’). The excavations, of which there were three seasons (1978, 1981 and 1982) were conducted in a number of area in the modern city. The mission was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, private donations and by grants from the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota and the University Computer Center (See: McNally 1978/1979; id 1981/1982; McNally and Dvorzak Schrunk; McNally and Walsh 1984). This was some of the only work to have been conducted in the residential area of the town, with other work including that of the SCA. Occurring from 1979 until 2003, this work was directed by El-Masry who, in 1981, initiated a joint project with the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Abteilung Kairo (DAIK) dedicated to the archaeological study of Athribis. This joint Egyptian-German project ceased in 2002 (El-Sayed et al. 2021: 142-143). In 2015, a chapel dedicated to the god Atum was found during illegal excavations beneath a local house. The chapel is understood to date from the late Ptolemaic or early Roman Period. The exact location of this is unclear but it is said to have been in the ancient city (Nasser et. al. 2020: 3). In 2012, R. El-Sayed initiated the multidisciplinary research project ‘The Archaeology of Religious Change. The Cultic Topography of the AkhmÎm District (Upper Egypt) in Late Antiquity’, based at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and funded by Dilthey-Fellowship 2012-2017 by Volkswagenstifftung. Utilising the masses of archaeological material deriving from the site and associated archival material, the project was developed to study the archaeology of religious change and to develop upon understandings of agents of religious change in antiquity. This information, comprising archaeological finds, photographs, maps, plans and associated texts (including travelogues and archaeological reports), was intended to be accessible in the form of a database. As of yet, however, its publication is yet to be finalised (El Sayed et al. 2016; El-Sayed, in-press; Wegener, in press; Hussein-Yosef, in press). Until the database is made public, Kuhlmann’s publications remain the best summary works providing comprehensive overviews of the site of Aḫmīm and the archaeological work that has been conducted there, alongside the newly published exhibition catalogue of the Staatliche Museeun zu Berlin (El-Sayed et al. 2021). |
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