The website of the German-Egyptian joint mission in Heliopolis launched a few days ago, so I decided to compile some useful information on this particular ancient Egyptian city.
Introducing Heliopolis
The remains of the ancient city are situated under the modern district el-Matariya in the north-eastern part of Egypt’s capital Cairo.
The original name for the city was Junu, which means “Pillar” (or “City of Pillars”) and during the Greco-roman times it was also called pet net Kemet, the “heaven of Egypt”. The modern name Heliopolis derives from Greek and translates to “City of the Sun”, a very appropriate name for a place where the sun was worshiped for more than two and a half millennia. It was also the capital of the 13th lower Egyptian nome (or province) and one of the most important religious centres of the country. The temples of the sun-god Re-Horakhty and of Atum stood there within an enclosure wall 1100 m long and 475 m wide, but the city also consisted of administrative and residential buildings as well as a necropolis for the officials and servants of the temple and city and a sanctuary of the sacred bull of Heliopolis called Mer-wer or Mnevis (you know, the one from the movie Gods of Egypt, albeit with lots of artistic freedom). The cemetery of these bulls is located to the north of Heliopolis, in El-Khusus, with two of their tombs discovered in 1902 and 1918 respectively.
Short History of the Site
The place’s history began as early as the third dynasty when king Djoser (ca. 2600 BC) erected a chapel there for the Great Ennead of Heliopolis, a consortium of nine Egyptian gods that are featured in one of the most prominent creation myths of the realm. Fragments of this chapel were found by Ernesto Schiaparelli and are now housed at the Egyptian Museum in Turin.
Building activities continued through the Old Kingdom. King Teti (ca. 2340 BC) erected an obelisk there that was very small (around 3 m) compared to the two over 20 m tall obelisks provided by pharaoh Senusret I. some 370 years later. Senusret erected them alongside a new temple for the sun god to mark his heb sed jubilee, i.e. his 30-year-long reign. One of those obelisks is still standing and forms the central part of the open air museum. Many other famous pharaohs raised obelisks at the temple proper in worship of the sun god – Thutmosis III., the nephew of Queen Hatshepsut, Sety I., the father of Ramesses II., and his son Ramesses as well. Even the Amarna king Akhenaten was active in Heliopolis. He built a temple there made of small limestone blocks measuring 52.5 x 25 x 22 cm. These blocks were only used during his reign and are called talatat. They were later reused in the medieval architecture of Cairo. Many of the obelisks were dismantled as well during Ptolemaic and Roman times and are now scattered around the globe.
The temple was furbished with statues and shrines of kings and gods over more than 600 years after the reign of Ramesses the Great. One of the latest addition to the sacred area was a temple of Atum built by Nectanebo I. in the first half of the fourth century BC. Basalt blocks of this temple were excavated by the German-Egyptian joint mission in 2012. They showed a geographical procession of fertility gods representing the nomes of Egypt. The fourth century also marked the last time of prosperity for the temple. After that the site was neglected according to archaeological finds and the records of the Greek geographer and historian Strabo (64/63 BC – c. 24 AD).
Archaeological Missions
Scientific clearance of the site started early in the 20th century. Italian archaeologist Ernesto Schiaparelli excavated parts of the so-called “High Sand” between 1903 and 1906, a flat hill, which formed the centre of the cult area. Shortly after that Belgian Egyptologist Jean Capart undertook work there on behalf of the founder and financier of modern day Heliopolis Édouard Louis Joseph Empain. At this time Heliopolis consisted largely of fields and some small villages with the remains of the pharaonic city scattered about the countryside.
Capart’s famous teacher Flinders Petrie investigated the temple area and its ring wall in 1911/1912. Also in 1912, another Belgian team under the leadership of Albert Daninos and financed by industrialist and collector Raoul Warocqué continued earlier excavations by Jean Capart. Old reports and letters of these early investigations often speak of “finding nothing”, which is not true. This term translates to “finding nothing of import aka worth buying”. They found architectural remains, burial pits, and much more. In one of Daninos’ letters to his financier he wrote: “Unfortunately, all of the funeral pits that I have explored up to now (...), have produced nothing of interest, with the exception of broken human mummies, and the bones of sacred animals and birds, as well as some fragments of Roman and Arabic vases and pottery.” The construction of modern Heliopolis was well under way by then.
Further work was done in the second half of the 20th century by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and the Cairo University in the administrative quarters of the temple and the necropolis of the high officials. Since 2012 the German-Egyptian joint mission is working at Heliopolis under direction of Dr. Aiman Ashmawy (Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities) and PD Dr. Dietrich Raue (University of Leipzig, curator of the Egyptian Museum Leipzig), although a first season was already undertaken in 2005 by the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the German Archaeological Institute Cairo. In march 2017 the mission discovered a giant over-life-sized statue of pharaoh Psametik I. (7th century BC) made from silicified sandstone, a very hard metamorphic rock from the Gebel el-Ahmar stone quarry in Cairo. Shortly after the discovery the three statue fragments were transferred to the Egyptian Museum at Tahrir Square. They are now at display at the museum's garden.
Sources:
M. Abd el-Gelil/R. Suleiman/G. Faris/D. Raue, Preliminary Report on the work of the Egyptian-German Mission at Matariya / Heliopolis in Autumn 2005
A. Ashmawy/D. Raue, Report on the work of the Egyptian-German Mission at Matariya / Heliopolis in Spring 2012
A. Ashmavy/M. Beiersdorf/D. Raue, The Thirtieth Dynasty in the temple of Heliopolis, in: Egyptian Archaeology 47
J.-M. Bruffaerts/M-C. Bruwier, Belgian archaeological excavations at Heliopolis. 1907 campaign (Jean Capart), 1912 campaign (Albert Daninos) (2010), pp. 35-38
Georges Daressy, La tombe d'un Mnévis de Ramsès II, in: ASAE 18 (1918) pp. 196-210
Georges Daressy, La tombe d'un Mnévis de Ramsès VII, in: ASAE 18 (1918) pp. 211-217 W. R. Dawson/E. P. Uphill, Who was Who in Egyptology (London 1995) L. Kákosy, Heliopolis, in: LÄ II, col. 1111-1113
H. Bonnet, Lexikon der Ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte (Berlin 2000) pp. 468-470; 543-545
Introducing Heliopolis
The remains of the ancient city are situated under the modern district el-Matariya in the north-eastern part of Egypt’s capital Cairo.
The original name for the city was Junu, which means “Pillar” (or “City of Pillars”) and during the Greco-roman times it was also called pet net Kemet, the “heaven of Egypt”. The modern name Heliopolis derives from Greek and translates to “City of the Sun”, a very appropriate name for a place where the sun was worshiped for more than two and a half millennia. It was also the capital of the 13th lower Egyptian nome (or province) and one of the most important religious centres of the country. The temples of the sun-god Re-Horakhty and of Atum stood there within an enclosure wall 1100 m long and 475 m wide, but the city also consisted of administrative and residential buildings as well as a necropolis for the officials and servants of the temple and city and a sanctuary of the sacred bull of Heliopolis called Mer-wer or Mnevis (you know, the one from the movie Gods of Egypt, albeit with lots of artistic freedom). The cemetery of these bulls is located to the north of Heliopolis, in El-Khusus, with two of their tombs discovered in 1902 and 1918 respectively.
Short History of the Site
The place’s history began as early as the third dynasty when king Djoser (ca. 2600 BC) erected a chapel there for the Great Ennead of Heliopolis, a consortium of nine Egyptian gods that are featured in one of the most prominent creation myths of the realm. Fragments of this chapel were found by Ernesto Schiaparelli and are now housed at the Egyptian Museum in Turin.
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Model of a Votive Temple Gateway at Heliopolis (Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, Inv.-Nr. 66.228 |
The temple was furbished with statues and shrines of kings and gods over more than 600 years after the reign of Ramesses the Great. One of the latest addition to the sacred area was a temple of Atum built by Nectanebo I. in the first half of the fourth century BC. Basalt blocks of this temple were excavated by the German-Egyptian joint mission in 2012. They showed a geographical procession of fertility gods representing the nomes of Egypt. The fourth century also marked the last time of prosperity for the temple. After that the site was neglected according to archaeological finds and the records of the Greek geographer and historian Strabo (64/63 BC – c. 24 AD).
Archaeological Missions
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| The obelisk at Heliopolis, ca. 1900-1920 (Library of Congress) |
Capart’s famous teacher Flinders Petrie investigated the temple area and its ring wall in 1911/1912. Also in 1912, another Belgian team under the leadership of Albert Daninos and financed by industrialist and collector Raoul Warocqué continued earlier excavations by Jean Capart. Old reports and letters of these early investigations often speak of “finding nothing”, which is not true. This term translates to “finding nothing of import aka worth buying”. They found architectural remains, burial pits, and much more. In one of Daninos’ letters to his financier he wrote: “Unfortunately, all of the funeral pits that I have explored up to now (...), have produced nothing of interest, with the exception of broken human mummies, and the bones of sacred animals and birds, as well as some fragments of Roman and Arabic vases and pottery.” The construction of modern Heliopolis was well under way by then.
Further work was done in the second half of the 20th century by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and the Cairo University in the administrative quarters of the temple and the necropolis of the high officials. Since 2012 the German-Egyptian joint mission is working at Heliopolis under direction of Dr. Aiman Ashmawy (Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities) and PD Dr. Dietrich Raue (University of Leipzig, curator of the Egyptian Museum Leipzig), although a first season was already undertaken in 2005 by the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the German Archaeological Institute Cairo. In march 2017 the mission discovered a giant over-life-sized statue of pharaoh Psametik I. (7th century BC) made from silicified sandstone, a very hard metamorphic rock from the Gebel el-Ahmar stone quarry in Cairo. Shortly after the discovery the three statue fragments were transferred to the Egyptian Museum at Tahrir Square. They are now at display at the museum's garden.
Sources:
M. Abd el-Gelil/R. Suleiman/G. Faris/D. Raue, Preliminary Report on the work of the Egyptian-German Mission at Matariya / Heliopolis in Autumn 2005
A. Ashmawy/D. Raue, Report on the work of the Egyptian-German Mission at Matariya / Heliopolis in Spring 2012
A. Ashmavy/M. Beiersdorf/D. Raue, The Thirtieth Dynasty in the temple of Heliopolis, in: Egyptian Archaeology 47
J.-M. Bruffaerts/M-C. Bruwier, Belgian archaeological excavations at Heliopolis. 1907 campaign (Jean Capart), 1912 campaign (Albert Daninos) (2010), pp. 35-38
Georges Daressy, La tombe d'un Mnévis de Ramsès II, in: ASAE 18 (1918) pp. 196-210
Georges Daressy, La tombe d'un Mnévis de Ramsès VII, in: ASAE 18 (1918) pp. 211-217 W. R. Dawson/E. P. Uphill, Who was Who in Egyptology (London 1995) L. Kákosy, Heliopolis, in: LÄ II, col. 1111-1113
H. Bonnet, Lexikon der Ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte (Berlin 2000) pp. 468-470; 543-545
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