Beni Suef

Main article: Egypt

Economy

Beni Sueif is the administrative center of the province and an important transport hub between Cairo and Luxor, as well as the Red Sea and Fayyum.

From antiquity and at least until the 16th century, it was famous for its flax. In the 19th century, it was still important enough (at least in the textile trade) to have an American consulate.

Cities

Beni Suef

Museum

The museum, located next to the regional administration building, behind the zoo, is the main attraction of Beni Sueif.

It features a small but valuable collection of art from the Old Kingdom to the Muhammad Ali period, including fine Ptolemy carvings, Coptic weaving and 19th-century cutlery.

Ihnasya el Madina (Hensu, Herakleopol)

Herakleopol (Heracleopolіs magna, dr.-egip. Hensu, Coptic. Hnes, Arab Ahnas, modern Ihnasya al-Madina) was located on the western bank of the Nile, east of Bahr al-Yusuf.

The main local god here was Hershef, which means "being on his lake." The god was depicted as a man with the head of an oval. The Greeks identified him with their Heracles. Hershef was revered as a demiurge. One of the texts about him says: "When he rises, the earth is illuminated, his right eye is the sun, his left eye is the moon, his soul is the light, a blow comes out of his nose to revive everything."

Herakleopol was told as a place where the creator of the world first set foot on land that came out of the primitive ocean (cf. Heliopol, Memphis, Hermopol, Thebes). In Herakleopol, the "mottling of the earth" was especially solemnly celebrated - the first act of agriculture, in which the main role was assigned to the pharaoh.

During the VІ and X dynasties, that is, during the first transitional period, Herakleopol played a leading role in the cultural life of Egypt. It was then that a wonderful teaching of the unknown tsar to his son Merikar was created (both options are stored in Russia, (in St. Petersburg in the State Hermitage, and in Moscow, in the Museum of Fine Arts) and the famous speeches of a peasant from Wadi Natrun. The most remarkable chapters of the "Book of the Dead" - the 17th and 125th undoubtedly go back to Herakleopol, as well as a number of interesting "Sarcophagus Texts."

The interbreeding of the doctrine of Ra, inherited from the time of the Old Kingdom, with the growing teaching of Osiris took place precisely on the basis of Herakleopol in the First Transitional Period.

The clash of these two directions of theological thought (the Ra line and the Osiris line) laid an imprint on the idea of ​ ​ Hershef - hence his epithets "king of the gods" and "lord of Both Lands."

Temple in Herakleopol. The columned courtyard, pictured at the bottom of the drawing, leads to a luxuriously decorated portico that serves as an entrance to the sanctuary's covered spaces. The building is inside a fence that is visible in the background. Reconstruction of Jean-Claude Golvin

According to the cultopographic list, the right leg of Osiris was buried in the temple in Herakleopol, and some other parts of the body of the murdered god were buried according to one of the texts.