DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6641#0038
24
SAMANOOD.
the names are apt to go in Egypt. The different
strata of populations modified the name not
according to its sense in its original form; they
did not translate it, they altered it just enough
to give it in their language a sense which has
nothing in common with the first. Thebnuter,
the original Egyptian, means 1 the divine calf;
KeumoYT, the mighty god; and Samanood, the
sky of Nood. The Arab name has given rise to a
legend which is current not only among the Arabs,
but also among the Christian inhabitants. Nood
was a great king who built a crystal sky over his
palace. My informants so fully believed this story
that they assured me that fragments of this crystal
were still found in the neighbouring Tell. The
large mound which is all that remains of the
ancient city lies to the westward of the present
town; the site of the temple is indicated by a
number of blocks which are nearly always stand-
ing in water. Several had been dragged towards
the city, and left on the spot where I saw them,
several feet deep in water.
Samanood is one of those places in Lower
Egypt where the greater number of interesting
fragments have been used for building materials
in walls and houses, to which I often had some
difficulty to obtain access, in consequence of the
superstitious fear of the inhabitants. The name
of the city, which in the lists of names is written
in different ways, always appeared in the same
form in all the monuments I saw : $2p Tliebnuter,
the divine calf. The god of the place is Anhur
Sim, son of Ra ^ ^ Q ^> a divinity who was
worshipped also in the city of Thinis near Abydos,
1 There is some uncertainty about the animal, which is
most often a calf, but which is often represented with a
long neck like a hind.
in Upper Egypt. The god is represented as a
man standing, wearing a head-dress of two, or more
frequently four feathers, and sometimes holding a
lance. The Greeks called him*Ovovpis, and trans-
lated his name by Ares, showing that he was con-
sidered as a warlike god. Another form of Anhur
was Hortlicma.2
No very early monuments are as yet known
to belong to Sebennytos.3 Barneses II. has not
yet been discovered. However, the city certainly
existed before his time, as its name is one of the
fifteen of Lower Egypt mentioned in the list
of Seti I. at Abydos. Under Piankhi, as we
shall see farther, it was the residence of one of the
petty princes who rebelled against the Ethiopian.
The oldest monument I saw was a stone, the
inscriptions of which are represented on Plate
V. It is a sitting statue in black granite, of
natural size. The face is destroyed, and all the
front of the figure is much defaced. It is lying
down with the back upwards before the door of
the police station, where it is used as a seat by
the soldiers. The text on the back gives us the
date of the monument; it is Saite, of the time of
Psammitichus I. The titles of the deceased are
erased in the vertical column; but they are
repeated in the horizontal line and on the sides.
He was the prince of the first order, the prophet of
Anhur Shu son of Ra, kg^i \ ] ^ .^Pj J^l ^
8 PI. VI. o. Cf. " Goshen," p. 6. It is 'Ovovpii Anhur
who is represented under the face of Mars on the coins of
Sebennytos. Cf. Tochon, " Recherches," p. 192 et ff. The
animal at the feet of the god, and called a deer (cervalus,
Zoega), I consider to be the same as in the hieroglyphieal
name Thebnuter. Cf. Rouge, " Quelques monnaies nou-
velles," p. 11.
3 Since this was written the inhabitants have come across
a stone bearing the names of two of the last kings of the
eighteenth dynasty, Khuenaten and Horemheb.
SAMANOOD.
the names are apt to go in Egypt. The different
strata of populations modified the name not
according to its sense in its original form; they
did not translate it, they altered it just enough
to give it in their language a sense which has
nothing in common with the first. Thebnuter,
the original Egyptian, means 1 the divine calf;
KeumoYT, the mighty god; and Samanood, the
sky of Nood. The Arab name has given rise to a
legend which is current not only among the Arabs,
but also among the Christian inhabitants. Nood
was a great king who built a crystal sky over his
palace. My informants so fully believed this story
that they assured me that fragments of this crystal
were still found in the neighbouring Tell. The
large mound which is all that remains of the
ancient city lies to the westward of the present
town; the site of the temple is indicated by a
number of blocks which are nearly always stand-
ing in water. Several had been dragged towards
the city, and left on the spot where I saw them,
several feet deep in water.
Samanood is one of those places in Lower
Egypt where the greater number of interesting
fragments have been used for building materials
in walls and houses, to which I often had some
difficulty to obtain access, in consequence of the
superstitious fear of the inhabitants. The name
of the city, which in the lists of names is written
in different ways, always appeared in the same
form in all the monuments I saw : $2p Tliebnuter,
the divine calf. The god of the place is Anhur
Sim, son of Ra ^ ^ Q ^> a divinity who was
worshipped also in the city of Thinis near Abydos,
1 There is some uncertainty about the animal, which is
most often a calf, but which is often represented with a
long neck like a hind.
in Upper Egypt. The god is represented as a
man standing, wearing a head-dress of two, or more
frequently four feathers, and sometimes holding a
lance. The Greeks called him*Ovovpis, and trans-
lated his name by Ares, showing that he was con-
sidered as a warlike god. Another form of Anhur
was Hortlicma.2
No very early monuments are as yet known
to belong to Sebennytos.3 Barneses II. has not
yet been discovered. However, the city certainly
existed before his time, as its name is one of the
fifteen of Lower Egypt mentioned in the list
of Seti I. at Abydos. Under Piankhi, as we
shall see farther, it was the residence of one of the
petty princes who rebelled against the Ethiopian.
The oldest monument I saw was a stone, the
inscriptions of which are represented on Plate
V. It is a sitting statue in black granite, of
natural size. The face is destroyed, and all the
front of the figure is much defaced. It is lying
down with the back upwards before the door of
the police station, where it is used as a seat by
the soldiers. The text on the back gives us the
date of the monument; it is Saite, of the time of
Psammitichus I. The titles of the deceased are
erased in the vertical column; but they are
repeated in the horizontal line and on the sides.
He was the prince of the first order, the prophet of
Anhur Shu son of Ra, kg^i \ ] ^ .^Pj J^l ^
8 PI. VI. o. Cf. " Goshen," p. 6. It is 'Ovovpii Anhur
who is represented under the face of Mars on the coins of
Sebennytos. Cf. Tochon, " Recherches," p. 192 et ff. The
animal at the feet of the god, and called a deer (cervalus,
Zoega), I consider to be the same as in the hieroglyphieal
name Thebnuter. Cf. Rouge, " Quelques monnaies nou-
velles," p. 11.
3 Since this was written the inhabitants have come across
a stone bearing the names of two of the last kings of the
eighteenth dynasty, Khuenaten and Horemheb.