Hermopolis Magna Cosmogony
Cosmogony and Theology of Hermopolis Magna. Tuna el-Gebel as part of a ritual landscape from the Late to the Roman Period (about 600 BC – 400 AD)
A project by the Roemer- and Pelizaeus-Museum (RPM) in Hildesheim together with the Joint mission of the Institute for Egyptology and Coptology of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and the Faculty of Archaeology of Cairo University.
The interdisciplinary project aims to reconstruct the cosmogony and theology of Hermopolis Magna (HM), one of the main religious centers of ancient Egypt and ritual place of Thoth, god of wisdom. The main sources of the project are the mostly unpublished findings of Guenther Roeder’s (former director of the RPM) excavations from 1929–1939 in HM, which came by official find division to Hildesheim as well as his excavation records. They will be compared with the material excavated and documented by Sami Gabra (former professor at the University of Cairo), who worked from 1931–1952 in the necropolis of HM Tuna el-Gebel (TeG), as well as by the joint Mission of Munich and Cairo University since 1989. Beside the archaeological and documentary material, relevant ancient texts will be included and several specialists from other institutions have agreed to participate in the project. …show more content…
The findings and results of the longstanding excavations in TeG provide a framework for comparison and revealing the cultic connection between the settlement, the ritual places and the necropolis. The main questions of the project are: What can be discovered about the Egyptian cosmogony and theology of HM based on archaeological, pictorial and textual evidence? What was the function of the excavated objects from HM and TeG and what can be said about the rituals in which they were
A project by the Roemer- and Pelizaeus-Museum (RPM) in Hildesheim together with the Joint mission of the Institute for Egyptology and Coptology of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and the Faculty of Archaeology of Cairo University.
The interdisciplinary project aims to reconstruct the cosmogony and theology of Hermopolis Magna (HM), one of the main religious centers of ancient Egypt and ritual place of Thoth, god of wisdom. The main sources of the project are the mostly unpublished findings of Guenther Roeder’s (former director of the RPM) excavations from 1929–1939 in HM, which came by official find division to Hildesheim as well as his excavation records. They will be compared with the material excavated and documented by Sami Gabra (former professor at the University of Cairo), who worked from 1931–1952 in the necropolis of HM Tuna el-Gebel (TeG), as well as by the joint Mission of Munich and Cairo University since 1989. Beside the archaeological and documentary material, relevant ancient texts will be included and several specialists from other institutions have agreed to participate in the project. …show more content…
The findings and results of the longstanding excavations in TeG provide a framework for comparison and revealing the cultic connection between the settlement, the ritual places and the necropolis. The main questions of the project are: What can be discovered about the Egyptian cosmogony and theology of HM based on archaeological, pictorial and textual evidence? What was the function of the excavated objects from HM and TeG and what can be said about the rituals in which they were