Saft el-Hinna
Saft el-Hinna
صفط الحنة | |
|---|---|
  Saft el-Hinna Location in Egypt  Saft el-Hinna Saft el-Hinna (Egypt)  Saft el-Hinna Saft el-Hinna (Northeast Africa) | |
| Coordinates:30°33′20″N31°36′35″E/ 30.55556°N 31.60972°E | |
| Country |  Egypt |
| Governorate | Sharqia |
| Time zone | UTC+2(EST) |
Saft el-Hinna(Arabic:صفط الحنا,romanized:Ṣafṭ al-Ḥinnā), also written asSaft el-Hinneh,Saft el-Henna,Saft el-Henneh,is a village and anarchaeological siteinEgypt.It is located in the modernAl Sharqia Governorate,in theNile Delta,about 7 km southeast ofZagazig.[1]
The1885 Census of Egyptrecorded Saft el-Hinna as anahiyahin the district ofBilbeisinSharqia Governorate;at that time, the population of the town was 664 (306 men and 358 women).[2]
Name
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| spd(t)[3] inhieroglyphs | ||||
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| Era:Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC) | ||||
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| Era:Late Period (664–332 BC) | ||||||||||
The modern village of Saft el-Hinna lies on theancient Egyptiantown ofPer-SopduorPi-Sopt,meaning "House of Sopdu", which was the capital of the 20thnomeofLower Egyptand one of the most important cult centers during theLate Period of ancient Egypt.As the ancient name implies, the town was consecrated toSopdu,god of the eastern borders of Egypt.[5][1]
During the lateThird Intermediate Period,Per-Sopdu – calledPishaptuorPisapti,inAkkadian,by theNeo-Assyrianinvaders – was the seat of one of the fourGreat chiefdom of theMeshwesh,along withMendes,SebennytosandBusiris.[6]
The medieval name of the city wasTiarabya(Coptic:ϯⲁⲣⲁⲃⲓⲁ,Arabic:طرابية) as it was a major city in the eastern part of theNile Deltawhich bore the same name.[7]
Excavations
[edit]In December 1884, SwissEgyptologistÉdouard Navillewas performing a survey in theWadi Tumilaton behalf of theEgypt Exploration Fund.He went to Saft el-Hinna, a village ofhinnafarmers, and there he found traces of the ancient city under the modern settlement. He believed he had found the ancient city ofPhacusain the BiblicalLand of Goshen,although it is nowadays assumed that Phacusa lies under the modern town ofFaqus.Even though the archaeological site was threatened by urban development and the expansion of crops, Naville managed to discover several monuments of pharaohNectanebo Iof the30th Dynasty,the perimeter walls of a temple, and other attestations dating to thePtolemaicandRoman periods.Unfortunately, he never published a comprehensive excavation report.[8][9]
Among the findings dated to Nectanebo I, Naville found anaosdedicated to Sopdu. It was later discovered that thenaoswas one of four that were meant to be in the temple whose walls were found by Naville under Saft el-Hinna. The other threenaoiwere discovered as well, though in other places in the Delta and notin situ.One was dedicated toShu;parts of it were found atAbukirand it is commonly called the "Naos of the Decades". Another was dedicated toTefnut,and a poorly preserved one was discovered atArish.All but the last one (due to its poor conservation) are thought to be attributable to Nectanebo I.[10]
In 1906,Flinders Petriewent to Saft el-Hinna to conduct an excavation aimed at discovering evidence of aHebrewpresence in ancient Egypt. He soon found that the condition of the site was even worse than at the time of Naville. He decided to dig in two undisturbed neighboring areas, Kafr Sheikh Zikr and Suwa, which turned out to be two ancientnecropolisesof Per-Sopdu. However, like Naville before him, Petrie never published a comprehensive report of these excavations.[11]
Saft el-Hinna was later involved in two surface surveys, theWadi Tumilat Projectbegun in 1977, and the Liverpool University Delta Survey (1983–85). The latter was led by Steven Snape, who commented that of the ruins described by Naville a century earlier, almost nothing was left.[12]
By combining archaeological andphilologicalevidence, it is now known that the sacred area of Per-Sopdu was divided into two parts, calledHut-nebesandIat-nebes,which were connected by adromos.[13]
Gallery
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Characteristic Indian etchedcarnelianbead, found in Ptolemaic Period excavations at Saft el-Hinna,Ptolemaic Egypt.Petrie Museum. -
The reassembled “Naos of the Decades”, originally placed in the temple at Saft el-Hinna.
See also
[edit]- List of ancient Egyptian sites,including sites of temples
References
[edit]- ^abTiribilli 2012,p. 125.
- ^Egypt min. of finance, census dept (1885).Recensement général de l'Égypte.p. 279.Retrieved21 June2020.
- ^Gauthier, Henri (1928).Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 5.p. 32.
- ^Gauthier, Henri (1925).Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 2.pp. 127–128.
- ^Shaw & Nicholson 1995,p. 276.
- ^Kitchen 1996,p. Table 22.
- ^Peust, Carsten.Die Toponyme vorarabischen Ursprungs im modernen Ägypten.
- ^Tiribilli 2012,p. 129.
- ^Tiribilli 2012,pp. 127–9.
- ^Tiribilli 2012,p. 130.
- ^Tiribilli 2012,p. 131.
- ^Tiribilli 2012,pp. 135–6.
Bibliography
[edit]- Kitchen, Kenneth(1996).The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC)(3rd ed.). Warminster: Aris & Phillips Limited.ISBN0-85668-298-5.
- Naville, Édouard(1887).The shrine of Saft el Henneh and the land of Goshen (1885).London: The Egypt Exploration Fund. pp. 1–13.
- Shaw, Ian;Nicholson, Paul (1995).The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt.The American University in Cairo Press. p. 276.
- Tiribilli, Elena (2012). "Una ricostruzione topografica del distretto templare di Saft el-Henna tra filologia e archeologia".Egitto e Vicino Oriente(in Italian).35:125–142.
Further reading
[edit]- Davoli, Paola (2001).Saft el-Henna: archeologia e storia di una città del Delta orientale(in Italian). Imola: La Mandragora.ISBN8888108386.
- Snape, Steven R. (1986).Liverpool University Delta Survey. Six Archaeological Sites in Sharqiye Province.Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. pp. 29–35.ISBN0853234051.
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