Brugsch, Heinrich: Egypt under the pharaohs: a history derived entirely from the monuments (London, 1891)

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CHAPTER II.

DYNASTIES I.-IV.1
THE PHARAOHS OF THE FIRST THREE DYNASTIES.

-LN Upper Egypt, west of the river, stood a small town
called Tini, a name which the Greeks converted into
This or Thinis. It was the ancient metropolis of the
eighth nome, and lying near to Abydos, it formed only
a separate quarter of that celebrated city. It chose
ior its tutelary deity the warlike god Anhur, while at
Abydos Osiris was worshipped. Both cities have now
vanished, but their memory is preserved by the necro-
polis and the splendid sanctuaries which the pious faith
of the Egyptians raised on the border of the desert at
the place which the modern inhabitants of the country
call by the Arabic name of Harabat-el-Madfuneh
(Harabat the sunken).

Tini, which in the Roman times enjoyed a certain
repute for its purple dyes, must anciently have been
held in special honour by the inhabitants of the land,
for, under the sovereigns of the Nineteenth Dynasty,
the highest servants of the state, of Pharaoh's own
race, were denoted by the title of ' King's son of Tini,'
a distinction which elsewhere occurs only in the titles
' King's son of Cush,' or of the land of the Ethiopians,
and ' King's son of Hineb,' that is, the city of the Moon,
Eileithyiapolis.

The high fame of this town rested, beyond doubt, on

1 For Table of Kings see pp. xix, xx.