Minya

Main article: Egypt

Minya region is indicated by the number 20

El Ashmunein (Khmun, Shmun, Hermopol)

In the city, which is now called El Ashmunein, during the time of Ancient Egypt, a large religious center Khmun was located, which the Greeks called Hermopolis.

The modern Arabic name El-Ashmunein comes from the Coptic Shmun, dating back to the Egyptian Khmun "eight," which denotes the eight local gods, or ogdoad. The Greeks called this city Hermopolis, as they identified the main god of the city, the god Thoth, with their Hermes.

There is nothing left of ancient Hermopolis. The city was located on the west bank of the Nile, not far from the place where the Bahr el-Yusuf canal branches off from the Nile channel to the west.

The necropolis of Hermopolis was located in the area called Tune Tonge-el-Gebel in our time. Hermopol was the metropolis of the Hare Nome, whose rulers were buried in nearby El Bersch.

Excavations of the German archaeological expedition in 1928-1933 gave an idea of ​ ​ the Hermopolis plan: in the northern part of the city there was a large sacred square surrounded by a thick stone wall, behind which the population hid in the event of an enemy invasion. Immediately there was a temple of the god Thoth. Ramesses ІІ built here the temple of Amun. In the Hermopolitan section of the papyrus, Harris І tells about the deductions in favor of Thoth established by Ramesses І, and about the renewal of the wall surrounding the sacred square.

Cult of Thoth in the era of ancient Egypt

Main article: History of Ancient Egypt

Thoth's sacred animal was the ibis bird, and in later times the baboon.

He himself was depicted as a zoomorphic god with the head of an ibis, led the local ogdoad (eight) of gods, with the help of which he created the whole world.

"Eight" as the name of Hermopolis in the "Texts of the Pyramids" is not found at all, but since the time of the Middle Kingdom it has appeared in different texts. After the fall of the centralized monarchy of the Old Kingdom, the rulers of Hermopolis felt independent: they dated their inscriptions not for years of ruling pharaohs, but for years of their own rule.

"They rarely call pharaohs by name, though they speak of themselves as their grandees. These Ahanakhts, Ihi, Neheri, Totnakhts, etc., owned the famous Khatnub spears, in which many long cursive inscriptions came to us outlining the circumstances of expeditions to develop them during the construction of the temple of Totu. They independently dispose of this state property and already during the VІ of the dynasty deliver the alabaster to the king as a gift rather than as a service. Here, the nomarchs talk about their merits in relation to the inhabitants of their nome and his patron god Tot. These inscriptions are extremely interesting for the idea of ​ ​ the development of the independence of the nomarchs and the history of this time. "

In the mythological history of Egypt, in the history of pharaohs-gods, Thoth has a certain place, he ruled after the god Chor and before the goddess Maat, and his reign accounts for 7726 years.

In myths and legends, Toth does not act as a pharaoh. He "did not evoke his own name in the Egyptians the idea of ​ ​ his role as a pharaoh, as we see with regard to the gods of the ennead Heliopolis; they saw him much more willingly not as a king, but as his adviser and vizier. The Egyptians could not imagine their country in other conditions than they saw it; the bureaucratic arrangement with Pharaoh in charge was to be modern to her and was raised to the gods. "

He was not only a local god, but also an all-Egyptian deity of writing, knowledge, magic, the patron saint of scribes. In this capacity, he appears in many texts of different designs. According to B. Turaev, he was among the Egyptians "the ideal of supreme wisdom and truth, the personification of the best aspects of human nature, the embodiment of the idea of ​ ​ revelation" and the personification of the mind.

The names of the pharaohs of the XVІІI dynasty contained in their theophoric part the names of the gods, namely: Amon, Tota and Yaha ("Yah" means "moon") - there were four Thutmoses, four Amenhoteps and one Ahmos (the founder of the dynasty). These names mean: "He gave birth to him," "Amon is satisfied," "Yah gave birth to him." Thus, these names indicated the divine origin of the pharaoh. It is significant that out of 16 pharaohs of the XVІІI dynasty, five had theophoric names associated with the names of the gods of the moon.

Along with Thoth, the god Shepsi and other gods, who are mentioned in one of the texts of the KhІKh dynasty, were worshiped in Hermopolis. Here we find Ra and Atum, Osiris and Min, Chor, Pta, Khnum, Anubis, etc., as well as an ancient goddess in the guise of a hare. When and how these cults entered Hermopol is unknown.