Akoris ; Egyptian: Mer-nefer, Per-Imen-mat-khent, or Dehenet is the Greek name for the modern Egyptian village of Ṭihnā al-Ǧabal, located about 12 km north of Al Minya. The ancient site is situated in the southeast of the modern village.
Location
Akoris is located on the east bank of the Nile, at and below the limestone cliffs about 12 km north of Al Minya. The limestone cliffs at the east side of the place are divided here by a valley, the al-Wādī aṭ-Ṭihnāwī. The southern rock looks like a lying lion. Anciently, it lay in the Cynopolite Nome, north of Antinoopolis.
Names of the site
The site was named with several names. In the Old and Middle KingdomsMer-nefer was used. In the New Kingdom the site was named Per-Imen-m3t-khent. In the Late period it was named T3-dehenet. In Greek times the names of Ἄκωρις or Τῆνις were given. The name of Akoris can be found in the third line of the rock stele of Ptolemy V Epiphanes at this site. Akoris is also mentioned by the geographer Ptolemy, and the town appears in the Tabula Peutingeriana.
History
The site was settled since the Old Kingdom. It was an important administrative town in the 17th upper-Egyptian nome in all ancient Egyptian times. It is the site of many rock-cut tombs, which belonged to officials of the Old Kingdom and the priests of the Late Period. Archaeological remains came only from the New Kingdom and earlier times. In the New Kingdom the Temple of Amun was established in a former Old Kingdom tomb by Ramesses II and enlarged by Ramesses III. It is assumed that a fortress was established at this site in Persian times because of the strategic location of the town but no part of the fortress remains. Akoris became an important town during the Greek and Roman periods, and its name was changed to Akoris. The today's settlement traces came from the Roman and Coptic times.
Monuments
Akoris is home to several archaeological sites, including a number of rock-cut tombs from the Old Kingdom period, known as Fraser Tombs. Akoris comprises also two temples from early Egyptian history, a rock chapel, a Greek funeral chapel, two rock stelae of Ramesses III, a rock stele of Ptolemy V Epiphanes, a stele of Diana and the Gemini twinsCastor and Pollux and a necropolis from the Greek and Roman periods. These monuments are scattered for about 3 km along the desert and the limestone rocks.
Gods
The gods are related to the site location and shape of the rocks. The earliest goddess of this site is maybe a lion goddess. From the Fraser Tombs the goddessHathor, mistress of the valley entrance, is known. Starting from the 18th Dynasty the god Amun the foremost lion is adored. The god Sobek, Lord of Behet, was added at the 26th Dynasty and became later the main god of the site. Other gods like Thoth, Isis and/or Mut, Osiris, Horus and Khonsu were adored from Greek-Roman times.
Records of the site were made during Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. A more comprehensive investigation was made by the German expedition conducted by Karl Richard Lepsius in the 1850s. At the beginning of the 20th century further investigations were made by Ahmed Kamal and Gustave Lefebvre. Since 1981 new comprehensive excavations have been carried out by a Japanese team under H. Kawanishi. They uncovered a fine but fragmentary Middle Kingdom model of a wooden boat. Since 2002, the team has investigated the southern part of the site and uncovered the TIP town. The so-called Fraser Tombs were firstly discovered by the German Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch in 1853 and firstly described by the British civil engineerGeorge Willoughby Fraser half a century later.
