Heracleopolis Magna (Greek: Μεγάλη Ἡρακλέους πόλις, Megálē Herakléous pólis) and Heracleopolis (Ἡρακλεόπολις, Herakleópolis) and Herakleoupolis (Ἡρακλεούπολις), is the Roman name of the capital of the 20th nome of ancient Upper Egypt, known in Ancient Egyptian as Het-Nesut. The site is approximately 15 km (9.3 mi) west of the modern city of Beni Suef, in the Beni Suef Governorate of Egypt.
Location of Heracleopolis Magna
Heracleopolis Magna or Heracleopolis is the Roman name of the capital of the 20th nome of ancient Egypt. The town was already in existence by the mid-First Dynasty, 2970 BC. It is located west of the modern city of Beni Suef.
Etymology
In Ancient Egypt, Heracleopolis Magna was called nn nswt Child of the King (appearing as hnn nswt or hwt nn nswt; also transcribed Henen-Nesut or Hut-Nen-Nesut). This later developed into Coptic: Ϩⲛⲏⲥ or ϩⲛⲉⲥ (/ǝhnes/), which was borrowed into early Egyptian Arabic: اهناس Ahnās. The site is now known as Ihnasiyyah Umm al-Kimam, “Ihnasiyyah, Mother of the Shards”, and Ihnasiyyah al-Madinah “, The City of Ihnasiyyah”.
The Roman Empire used a Latinised form of the Greek name. The Greek word meaning “The City of Heracles”; the epithet “great” was added to distinguish it from other towns. The Greek form became more common during the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which came to power after the death of Alexander the Great.
Some Egyptologists and Biblical scholars connect the biblical city of Hanes (Hebrew: חָנֵס Ḥānês) mentioned in Isaiah 30:4 with Heracleopolis Magna.
Chronology of important occupations
Early Dynastic Period
The date of the earliest settlements on the site of Herakleopolis is unknown. Still, an entry on the Palermo Stone reporting King Den‘s visit to the sacred lake of Heryshef at Nenj-neswt, the city’s ancient name, suggests that it existed by the mid-First Dynasty, c. 2970 BC.
First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC)
Partial view of the bas-relief from the north wall of a funerary chapel containing the tombs of district governor Neferkhau -(Nfr-khau) and a woman named Sat-Bahetep (probably his wife) -(Sa-t, Ba-htp), dated between 9th and 11th Dynasties. It shows a funerary food offering ritual for Sat-Baheteps’s ka (between 2160 and 1990 BC).
Herakleopolis became prominent and reached its apogee of power during the First Intermediate Period, between 2181 and 2055 BC. Eventually, after the collapse of the Old Kingdom, Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower Egypt. Herakleopolis became the principal city of Lower Egypt and was able to exercise its control over much of the region. Herakleopolis exerted such great control over Lower Egypt during this time that Egyptologists and Egyptian archaeologists sometimes refer to the period between the 9th and 10th Dynasties (2160–2025 BC) as the Herakleopolitan Period. During this period, Herakleopolis often conflicted with the de facto capital of Upper Egypt, the ancient Thebes.
Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 BC)
Between the latter part of the First Intermediate Period and the early Middle Kingdom, the city became the religious centre of the cult of Heryshaf, and the Temple of Heryshaf was constructed. Mentuhotep II defeated Heracleopolis Magna and its Dynasty in c. 2055–2004 BC, which ushered in the Middle Kingdom period.
Third Intermediate Period (1069–664 BC)
By the Third Intermediate Period (1069–664 BC), Herakleopolis again rose in importance. Many renovations and new constructions of the temple and mortuary centres existed in the city, and it again became an important religious and political centre.
Ptolemaic Egypt (322–30 BC)
By the Ptolemaic Kingdom (332–30 BC), Herakleopolis was still an important religious and cultural centre in Egypt. To find connections and comparisons between their gods and the gods of the land they were now ruling, the Greek rulers of this period associated Haryshef with Heracles in the interpretatio graeca. Thus, the name is often used by modern scholars for Herakleopolis.
Roman Egypt (30 BC–390 AD)
The site of Herakleopolis was occupied even in Roman times. Near the Necropolis of Sedmet el-Gebel, houses dating to this period were found, which in and of itself implies a continued occupation of the area.
Notable people
The first to undertake an extensive excavation at Herakleopolis was the Swiss Egyptologist Edouard Naville. After excavating what he believed to be the entirety of the Temple of Heryshef, Naville concluded that he had found all that Herakleopolis had to offer.
On the other hand, his friend Sir Flinders Petrie, “…in 1879 suspected that the region already cleared was only a part of the temple.” Thus, Herakleopolis (or Ehnasya as he called it, a name harking back to the site’s Roman occupation) had much to be unearthed.
Petrie discovered a great deal that Naville had not believed existed. He completed the excavation of the temple of Heryshef and attempted to find other remains in an area around the temple. In so doing, Petrie discovered previously unknown features such as house remains from the Roman period of occupation. He also identified another temple that he attributed to the 19th Dynasty, and the additions to the Temple of Heryshef mentioned above were associated with Ramesses the Great.
Other than archaeological features, the artefacts found by Petrie during his excavation are numerous and span the entire chronological range of the settlement. Relating specifically to artefacts from the end of the First Intermediate Period and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, Petrie uncovered numerous potsherds he associated with the 11th Dynasty. Petrie found many objects from the later Roman periods associated with many mortuary sites he unearthed, including iron tools, pottery, and icons.
Recent excavations
While other excavations are not numerous and are naturally overshadowed by Flinders Petrie and his famous expedition, several recent excavations have also increased knowledge of the site. During the 1980s, a Spanish team excavated and uncovered such artefacts as a libation altar and a pair of decorated eyes, presumably from a statue, all attributed to a temple dated to the Third Intermediate Period.
A Spanish team also conducted excavations as recently as 2008 under the direction of María del Carmen Pérez-Die of the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, Spain. Their efforts revealed a previously unknown tomb with several false doors dating to the First Intermediate Period and funeral offerings, which had not been vandalized. Other finds include the funeral chapel of senior official Neferjau and his wife Sat-Bahetep and the remains of the tomb of Jety I.
