Naville, Edouard; Tylor, J. J. [Editor]; Griffith, Francis Ll. [Editor]: Ahnas el Medineh: (Heracleopolis Magna) ; with chapters on Mendes, the nome of Thoth, and Leontopolis; [beigefügtes Werk]: The tomb of Paheri : at el Kab / by J. J. Tylor and F. L. Griffith (London, 1894)

HEKACLEOPOLIS:

have resided there is also given. We might
therefore have reasonably expected that our
excavations would throw some light on those
dark times, and help us to fill up this great
historical gap in our present knowledge.
Mariette entertained great hopes as to excava-
tions in the mounds of Ahnas. He reverts
to the subject several times in his last memoir,
published in J 879, and which has justly been
called his Archaeological Will.1 " C'est a Ahnas
el Medineh, representee aujourd'hui par des
mines assez etendues, qui n'ont ete jusqu'ici
l'objet d'aucune investigation serieuse, que
nous devrons essayer de faire revivre des
souvenirs des IXe et Xe dynasties." But these
hopes, in which I also shared, have been com-
pletely disappointed; the oldest remains which
I found in the mounds of Ahnas belong to the
Xllth Dynasty.

One of the most ancient references to the city
of Heracleopolis exists in a tale, whose origin
may be assigned to the Xllth or Xlllth
Dynasty,2 although the events which it relates
are supposed to take place much earlier, under
the reign of Nebkara of the Illrd Dynasty.
It describes a quarrel between a peasant and a
huntsman who had robbed him. The matter
was referred to the head of the officials, the

high steward, Merutensa )k n ra V\ c ' I (

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at Heracleopolis, who declares himself that he
will have to report the litigation to the king.
If we could rely on the information derived
from this tale, it would appear that at that
remote epoch Hunensu was not yet a great
city, but rather a village belonging to the royal
domains, and where the highest authority was
invested in the power of the steward or royal
agent, the Nazir as we should say now. But
we must not forget that this is a tale, a kind of

1 Questions relatives aux nouvelles fouilles a faire en
Egypte, p. 25.

2 Chabas, Pap. de Berlin, p. 5 ; Id., Melanges, p. 249;
Maspero, Contes, p. 35.

romance, and not an historical document. Its
description of the city in no way agrees with
the eminence of Heracleopolis in mythology, a
point which we shall have to consider later, nor
yet with the oldest historical text wherein the
city is mentioned, and which dates from the
Xllth Dynasty.

The Xllth Dynasty, which, as we may judge
from its important work in the Fayoom, had a
special liking for this district, could not well
neglect Ahnas, and we have proof that it did
not, in a stele engraved on the rocks of
Hamamat.3 It belongs to an officer called

_y>( I ^fi Khaui, who relates that in the

fourteenth year of his reign, | V a i] a

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His Majesty ordered him to go to Bohennu
{Hamamat), in order to bring the fine monu-
ments which Ibis Majesty erected to Hershef
(Arsaphes) the lord of Hunensuten. This in-
scription belongs to the reign of Usertesen III.,
but as the king erected statues at Hunensuten
to the god of the locality, it is clear that the
temple in which they were erected must have
existed before them. In fact, the architraves
raised bv Rameses II., for the construction of
the vestibule which he added to the temple, bear
the standards of Usertesen II. I am there-
fore quite unable to share Professor Flinders
Petrie's opinion,4 when he says that the blocks
with the name of Usertesen II. at Ahnas came
from the temple of Illahun, which Rameses II.
destroyed in order to build the temple of
Heracleopolis. Whatever changes Rameses II.
may have made in the sanctuary of Arsaphes,
he was not its founder. It is even probable
that for this event we must go much farther
back than the Xllth Dynasty, for if Hunen-

3 Lepsius, De?ik., ii. 136, a.

4 Kahun, Qurob and Hawara, p. 22.



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