Thebes (), known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, was an ancient Egyptian city located along the Nile about south of the Mediterranean. Its ruins lie within the modern Egyptian city of Luxor. Thebes was the main city of the fourth Upper Egyptian nome (Sceptre nome) and was the capital of Egypt for long periods during the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom eras.
The city was close to Nubia and the Eastern Desert, with its valuable mineral resources and trade routes. It was a religious center and the most venerated city during many periods of ancient Egyptian history.
The site of Thebes includes areas on both the eastern bank of the Nile, where the temples of Karnak and Luxor stand and where the city was situated; and the western bank, where a necropolis of large private and royal cemeteries and funerary complexes can be found. In 1979, the ruins of ancient Thebes were classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
Toponymy
The Egyptian name for Thebes was wꜣs.t, "City of the wꜣs", the sceptre of the pharaohs, a long staff with an animal's head and a forked base. From the end of the New Kingdom, Thebes was known in Egyptian as , the "City of Amun", the chief of the Theban Triad of deities whose other members were Mut and Khonsu. This name of Thebes appears in the Tanakh as the () in the Book of NahumNahum 3:8. and also as "No" () mentioned in the Book of EzekielEzekiel 30:14–16. and Jeremiah.Jeremiah 46:25.Huddlestun, John R. “Nahum, Nineveh, and the Nile: The Description of Thebes in Nahum 3:8–9.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 62, no. 2, 2003, pp. 97–98.
"Thebes" is sometimes claimed to be the Latinised form of , the hellenized form of Demotic Egyptian tꜣ jpt ("the temple"), referring to jpt-swt. Today, the temple is known as Karnak, and is located on the northeast bank of the city. Since Homer refers to the metropolis by this name, and since Demotic script did not appear until a later date, the etymology is doubtful. As early as Homer's Iliad,Iliad, IV.406 and IX.383. the Greeks distinguished the Egyptian Thebes as (, Thēbai hekatómpyloi) or "Hundred-Gated Thebes", as opposed to the "Thebes of the Seven Gates" (, Thēbai heptápyloi) in Boeotia, Greece.
In the , Amun was rendered as Zeus Ammon. The name was therefore translated into Greek as Diospolis, "City of Zeus". To distinguish it from the numerous other cities by this name, it was known as the (, Diospolis Megálē; ). The Greek names came into wider use after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, when the country came to be ruled by the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty.
Characteristics Geography Thebes was located along the banks of the Nile River in the middle part of Upper Egypt about 800 km south of the Delta. It was built largely on the alluvial plains of the Nile Valley, which follows a great bend of the Nile. Approximately 4,000 years ago, a significant change in the geography of the Nile River occurred in the Theban region, involving an expansion of the floodplain that increased the availability of arable land. This environmental transformation likely contributed to the agricultural productivity that supported the prosperity and stability of ancient Egyptian civilization during the Second Intermediate Period and New Kingdom onward. As a natural consequence, the city was laid in a northeast–southwest axis parallel to the contemporary river channel. Thebes had an area of , which included parts of the Theban Hills in the west that culminates at the sacred al-Qurn. In the east lies the mountainous Eastern Desert with its wadis draining into the valley. Significant among these wadis is Wadi Hammamat near Thebes. It was used as an overland trade route going to the Red Sea coast. Wadi Hammamat was the primary trade route linking Egypt to the Red Sea since Pre-Dynastic times. During the 4th millennium BCE, elements of the Uruk civilization were transmitted to Egypt along this corridor. It is likely that Thinis, the capital of the First Dynasty, was located in the same region as Thebes for this reason. Both cities were at a crossroad region in Upper Egypt between the Nile in the north to south direction and Saharan caravan routes connecting to Red Sea maritime routes via Wadi Hammamat in the East West direction. The Wadi el-Hol is also located near Thebes; this valley connected Thebes to an oasis on the Western Desert. It is notable for the first Proto-Sinatic alphabet inscription, which appeared shortly after Thebes became the capital of Egypt.
Nearby towns in the fourth Upper Egyptian nome were Per-Hathor, Madu, Djerty, Iuny, Sumenu and Imiotru.Wilkinson, T. (2013). "The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt".
Demographics
According to George Modelski, Thebes had about 40,000 inhabitants in 2000 BC (compared to 60,000 in Memphis, the largest city in the world at the time). By 1800 BC, the population of Memphis was down to about 30,000, making Thebes the largest city in Egypt at the time.George Modelski, "Cities of the Ancient World: An Inventory (−3500 to −1200) "; see also list of largest cities throughout history. Historian Ian Morris has estimated that by 1500 BC, Thebes may have grown to be the largest city in the world, with a population of about 75,000, a position it held until about 900 BC, when it was surpassed by Nimrud (among others).Ian Morris, "Social Development "; see also list of largest cities throughout history.
Shomarka Keita reported that a 2005 study on mummified remains found that "some Theban nobles had a histology which indicated notably dark skin".
Economy The archaeological remains of Thebes offer a striking testimony to Egyptian civilization at its height. The Greek poet Homer extolled the wealth of Thebes in the Iliad, Book 9 (): "... in Egyptian Thebes the heaps of precious ingots gleam, the hundred-gated Thebes."
Culture More than sixty annual festivals were celebrated in Thebes. The major festivals among these, according to the Edfu Geographical Text, were: the Beautiful Feast of Opet, the Khoiak (Festival), Festival of I Shemu, and Festival of II Shemu. Another popular festivity was the halloween-like Beautiful Festival of the Valley.
History Old Kingdom
Thebes was inhabited from around 3200 BC.Karnak (Thebes), Egypt. Ancient-wisdom.co.uk. Retrieved on 2013-07-29. It was the eponymous capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian nome. At this time it was still a small trading post, while Memphis served as the royal residence of the Old Kingdom pharaohs. Although no buildings survive in Thebes older than portions of the Karnak temple complex that may date from the Middle Kingdom, the lower part of a statue of Pharaoh Nyuserre of the 5th Dynasty has been found in Karnak. Another statue dedicated by the 12th Dynasty king Senusret may have been usurped and re-used, since the statue bears a cartouche of Nyuserre on its belt. Since seven rulers of the 4th to 6th Dynasties appear on the Karnak king list, perhaps at the least there was a temple in the Theban area that dated to the Old Kingdom.
First Intermediate Period By 2160 BC, a new line of pharaohs (the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties) consolidated control over Lower Egypt and northern parts of Upper Egypt from their capital in Herakleopolis Magna. A rival line (the Eleventh Dynasty), based at Thebes, ruled the remaining part of Upper Egypt. The Theban rulers were apparently descendants of the prince of Thebes, Intef the Elder. His probable grandson Intef I was the first of the family to claim in life a partial pharaonic titulary, though his power did not extend much further than the general Theban region.
Middle Kingdom
Finally by , Intef III's son Mentuhotep II (meaning "Montu is satisfied"), took the Herakleopolitans by force and reunited Egypt once again under one ruler, thereby starting the period now known as the Middle Kingdom. Mentuhotep II ruled for 51 years and built the first mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, which most likely served as the inspiration for the later and larger temple built next to it by Hatshepsut in the 18th Dynasty. After these events, the 11th Dynasty was short-lived, as less than twenty years had elapsed between the death of Mentuhotep II and that of Mentuhotep IV, in mysterious circumstances.
During the 12th Dynasty, Amenemhat I moved the seat of power North to Itjtawy. Thebes continued to thrive as a religious center as the local god Amun was becoming increasingly prominent throughout Egypt. The oldest remains of a temple dedicated to Amun date to the reign of Senusret I. Thebes was already, in the Middle Kingdom, a town of considerable size. Excavations around the Karnak temple show that the Middle Kingdom town had a layout with a grid pattern. The city was roughly 250 hectares in area. Remains of two palatial buildings were also detected.Barry J. Kemp: Ancient Egypt, Anatomy of a Civilization, 3rd ed., New York: Routledge, 2018, , pp. 224-227.
Starting in the later part of the 12th Dynasty, a group of Canaanite people began settling in the eastern Nile Delta. They eventually founded the 14th Dynasty at Avaris in or . By doing so, the Asiatics established hegemony over the majority of the Delta region, subtracting these territories from the influence of the 13th Dynasty that had meanwhile succeeded the 12th., pp. 183-187
Second Intermediate Period
A second wave of Asiatics called Hyksos (from Heqa-khasut, "rulers of foreign lands" as Egyptians called their leaders) immigrated into Egypt and overran the Canaanite center of power at Avaris, starting the 15th Dynasty there. The Hyksos kings gained the upper hand over Lower Egypt early into the Second Intermediate Period (1657–1549 BC).Wilkinson (2011), pp. 188 ff. When the Hyksos took Memphis during or shortly after Merneferre Ay's reign (), the rulers of the 13th Dynasty fled south to Thebes, which was restored as capital.Daphna Ben Tor: Sequences and chronology of Second Intermediate Period royal-name scarabs, based on excavated series from Egypt and the Levant, in: The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties), Current Research, Future Prospects edited by Marcel Maree, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 192, 2010, p. 91
Theban princes (now known as the 16th Dynasty) stood firmly over their immediate region as the Hyksos advanced from the Delta southwards to Middle Egypt. The Thebans resisted the Hyksos' further advance by making an agreement for a peaceful concurrent rule between them. The Hyksos were able to sail upstream past Thebes to trade with the Nubians and the Thebans brought their herds to the Delta without adversaries. The status quo continued until Hyksos ruler Apophis (15th Dynasty) insulted Seqenenre Tao (17th Dynasty) of Thebes. Soon the armies of Thebes marched on the Hyksos-ruled lands. Tao died in battle and his son Kamose took charge of the campaign. After Kamose's death, his brother Ahmose I continued until he captured Avaris, the Hyksos capital. Ahmose I drove the Hyksos out of Egypt and the Levant and reclaimed the lands formerly ruled by them.Margaret Bunson, "Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt"
New Kingdom and the height of Thebes
Ahmose I founded a new age for a unified Egypt with Thebes as its capital. The city remained as capital during most of the 18th Dynasty (New Kingdom). It also became the center for a newly established professional civil service, where there was a greater demand for scribes and the literate as the royal archives began to fill with accounts and reports.Tyldesley, Joyce. Egypt's Golden Empire: The Age of the New Kingdom, pp. 18–19. Headline Book Publishing Ltd., 2001. At the city the favored few of Nubia were reeducated with Egyptian culture, to serve as administrators of the colony.Draper, R. (2008). "The Black Pharaohs". National Geographic Magazine. Retrieved 2016-02-24, from