Heliopolis (ancient)

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The Al-Masalla obelisk, the largest surviving monument from Heliopolis

Heliopolis (/hiliˈɒpɵlʌs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡλιούπολις, "City of the Sun" or "City of Helios"; Egyptian: ỉwnw; Arabic: عين شمس, Ain Shams, "Eye of the Sun") was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, the capital of the 13th Lower Egyptian nome that was located five miles (8 km) east of the Nile to the north of the apex of the Nile Delta. Heliopolis has been occupied since the Predynastic Period,^[1] with extensive building campaigns during the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Today it is mostly destroyed; its temples and other buildings were used for the construction of medieval Cairo; most information about the ancient city comes from textual sources.

Beneath a maze of busy narrow streets of a middle and lower-class district, lie vast hidden remains of ancient Heliopolis about fifteen to twenty metres down. This ancient Egyptian site lies predominantly in the northern Cairo suburb of Al-Matariyyah,^[1] and also covers the districts of Ain Shams and Tel Al-Hisn east of the Nile.^[2] It also straddles the Cairo Metro line 1–2 km west of the edge of the 20th century modern Heliopolis,^[1] a suburb in the district Masr al-Gidedah (Arabic: مصر الجديدة, "New Egypt").

The site of Heliopolis has now been brought for the most part under cultivation and suburbanization, but some ancient city walls of crude brick can be seen in the fields, a few granite blocks bearing the name of Ramesses II remain, and the position of the great Temple of Re-Atum is marked by the Al-Masalla obelisk. Archaeological sites below including recent tomb discoveries.^[3]

The only surviving remnant of Heliopolis is the Temple of Re-Atum obelisk located in Al-Masalla of the Al-Matariyyah district. It was erected by Senusret I of the Twelfth dynasty, and still stands in its original position.^[4] The 68 ft (20.73 m) high red granite obelisk weighs 120 tons (240,000 lbs).

Etymology

Iunu
in hieroglyphs

The name Heliopolis is of ancient Greek origin, Ἡλιούπολις, meaning city of the sun as it was the principal seat of sun worship to Re-Atum or Atum-Re, "the evening sun". Originally, this ancient city was known by the Egyptians as Iunu, from the transliteration ỉwnw,^[5] probably pronounced *Āwanu, and means "(Place of) Pillars". In biblical Hebrew Heliopolis was referred to as, Ôn ( אן ) or Āwen ( און ), Greek: Ὂν.

History

Egyptian Heliopolis

The Egyptian god Atum, was the chief deity of the city Iunu (Heliopolis), who was worshipped in the primary temple, known as Per-Aat (*Par-ʻĀʼat, written pr-ꜥꜣt, 'Great House') and Per-Atum (*Par-ʼAtāma, written pr-ỉtmw 'Temple [lit. 'House'] of Atum"'; Hebrew: פתם‎ Pithom). Iunu was also the original source of the worship of the Ennead pantheon. Although in later times, as Horus gained in prominence, worship focused on the syncretic solar deity Ra-harakhty (literally Ra, [who is] Horus of the Two Horizons).

The main cult of Ra—(or Re) was in Heliopolis, however the High Priests of Ra are not as well documented as the high priests of other deities. The Al-Masalla area of the Al-Matariyyah district contains the underground tombs of High Priests of Ra of the Sixth Dynasty (c. 2345 BCE—2181 BCE), which were found in the southeast corner of the great Temple of Ra—Atum archaeological site.^[6]

During the Amarna Period, Pharaoh Akhenaten introduced monotheistic worship of Aton, the deified solar disc, built here a temple named Wetjes Aton (wṯs ỉtn "Elevating the Sun-disc"). Blocks from this temple were later used to build the city walls of medieval Cairo and can be seen in some of the city gates. The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of the god Ra, had its centre here, and possessed a formal burial ground north of the city.

Egyptian mythology, and later Greco—Roman mythology, said that the phoenix (Bennu), after rising from the ashes of its predecessor, would bring the ashes to the altar of the sun god in Heliopolis.

Greco-Roman Heliopolis

Heliopolis was well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, being noted by most major geographers of the period, including: Ptolemy, iv. 5. § 54; Herodotus, ii. 3, 7, 59; Strabo, xvii. p. 805; Diodorus, i. 84, v. 57; Arrian, Exp. Alex. iii. 1; Aelian, H. A. vi. 58, xii. 7; Plutarch, Solon. 26, Is. et Osir. 33; Diogenes Laertius, xviii. 8. § 6; Josephus, Ant. Jud. xiii. 3, C. Apion. i. 26; Cicero, De Natura Deorum iii. 21; Pliny the Elder, v. 9. § 11; Tacitus, Ann. vi. 28; Pomponius Mela, iii. 8. The city also merits attention by the Byzantine geographer Stephanus of Byzantium, s. v. Ἡλίουπόλις.

Greek era

Alexander the Great, on his march from Pelusium to Memphis, halted at this city (Arrian, iii. 1); and, according to Macrobius (Saturn. i. 23), Baalbek, or the Syrian Heliopolis, was a priest-colony from its Egyptian namesake.

The temple of Ra was said to have been, to a special degree, a depository for royal records, and Herodotus states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in matters of history of all the Egyptians. Heliopolis flourished as a seat of learning during the Greek period; the schools of philosophy and astronomy are claimed to have been frequented by Orpheus, Homer,^[7] Pythagoras, Plato, Solon, and other Greek philosophers. From Ichonuphys, who was lecturing there in 308 BC, and who numbered Eudoxus among his pupils, the Greek mathematician learned the true length of the year and month, upon which he formed his octaeterid, or period of eight years or ninety-nine months. Ptolemy II had Manethon, the chief priest of Heliopolis, collect his history of the ancient kings of Egypt from its archives. The later Ptolemies probably took little interest in their "father" Ra, and Alexandria had eclipsed the learning of Heliopolis; thus with the withdrawal of royal favour Heliopolis quickly dwindled, and the students of native lore deserted it for other temples supported by a wealthy population of pious citizens. By the 1st century BC, in fact, Strabo found the temples deserted, and the town itself almost uninhabited, although priests were still present.

Roman era

In Roman times Heliopolis belonged to the Augustamnica province. Its population probably contained a considerable Arabic element. (Plin. vi. 34.) In Roman times obelisks were taken from its temples to adorn the northern cities of the Delta, and even across the Mediterranean to Rome, including the famed Cleopatra's Needle that now resides on the Thames embankment, London (this obelisk was part of a pair, the other being located in Central Park, New York). Finally the growth of Fustat and Cairo, only 6 miles (9.7 km) to the southwest, caused the ruins to be ransacked for building materials. The site was known to the Arabs as ʻAyn Šams ("the well of the sun"), more recently as ʻArab al-Ḥiṣn.

Biblical Heliopolis

Heliopolis was the capital of the Province of Goshen, country that comprised much of the northern Egyptian territory of the Nile Delta. This was one of three main store-city locations that grain was kept during the winter months and during the seven year famine discussed in the Joseph narrative of the Book of Genesis. The city gained recognition as place of bread.

In the time of the major prophets, Isaiah made a reference to the City of the Sun as one of the five cities of Egypt that would come to speak Hebrew. However he made a wordplay on "city of the sun" (’ir hašemeš) by writing ’ir haheres which literally means "city of destruction".^[8] These play of words were a prophetic description later reinforced by both Jeremiah and Ezekiel.^[9] The Hebrew name, Beth-shemesh, where Beth means "house" and shemesh means "Sun" was also used to describe Heliopolis by Jeremiah. He prophesied this city's fate specifically when he declared that the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, would shatter the obelisks of Heliopolis and burn the temple of the sun in fire.^[10] Jeremiah’s contemporary Ezekiel, reinforced this message by saying that the "young men of Aven (or Beth-Aven) would fall by the sword". Like Isaiah, Ezekiel also made a word play on the original Hebrew name of Heliopolis that was used in the time of Joseph, the city of On. The Hebrew word aven means "folly" or "iniquity", so that his reference implied "temple of folly" or "temple of iniquity".^[11]