- El-Kab -

"It is the only city of remote antiquity the walls of which still stand almost intact.
From the cliffs back of the town one may look down upon it, stretched out beneath one's feet, and almost see the majestic temple, surrounded by the beautiful villas of the feudal lords,
whose soldiery once manned the now silent walls."

James Henry Breasted

James Breasted

The town of El-Kab, in ancient times known as Nekheb, is located in the south of Egypt, on the right bank of the Nile, in 15 km north of Edfu, opposite to Kom-El-Ahmar (ancient Hierakonpolis), is one of the oldest settlements in Upper Egypt.

The name of the ancient city of Nekheb (Greek Eileithyiaspolis) is probably associated with the name of the goddess Nehbet, most often depicted as a vulture. Nehbet was not only the goddess of El-Kab, but also the deity-patroness of all the Upper Egypt. The name of the city was first discovered by the British archaeologist J. E. Quibell on the fragment of the stele of Kha-Sekhemu (the King of the II Dynasty) and on the three stone vessels, found during excavations in 1898. Ancient Egyptian inscriptions, ingraved on the surface of these vases, are briefly describing how the King hold victory on the northern invaders in those lands. One of the inscriptions reads: "The year of the expulsion of the northern invanders from the city of Nekheb." Being carved in the shape of a vulture, the goddess Nekhbet stands face to face with the Horus name of King Kha-Sekhemu. In one of her paw she helds a seal in the form of a ring which is the word "besh" inside of it, which means "rebels", in the other paw - the symbol of the United Egypt.

   

Click to enlarge

Khasekhem 2 Khasekhem 1

Click to enlarge. Photo by: Juan Rodríguez Lázaro

At present time, the ruins of the ancient city with its temples, buildings of different epoches, and it's Sacred Lake are noticable in the general landscape, due to the massive enclosure wall surrounding it. This wall was built by the Pharaoh of the XXX Dynasty - Nectanebo II in the middle of the IV century BC. (360-343 BC). Being made of adobe, the wall encircles an area of about 30,000 m² and forms a rectangle of 520 x 590 meters. The thickness of the wall varies from 12 to 16 m.


Click to enlarge.
Source:
Luc Limme. Elkab, 1937-2007: seventy years of Belgian archaeological research.
(British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 9 (2008): 15–50. )

The visiting of El-Kab by European travelers began in the 1740s. During Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt (1798-1799), the parts of the temples with their columns and architraves were still standing. This fact is evidenced in the drawings and schemes of Francois Denon in Napoleon's expedition account of 1800.


Click to enlarge.

The image below shows how El-Kab appeared before the eyes of the German artist Ernst Weidenbach, who made sketches of historical monuments during the expeditions of the German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius in the middle of the XIX century.


Date created: 1849-1856. Artist: Weidenbach Ernst. Source: The New York Public Library.

The first large-scale archaeological research in El-Kab were carried out in the late XIXth and early XXth centuries by such famous British archaeologists as: James Edward Quibell, Frederick William Green, Archibald Henry Sayce, Joseph John Tylor and Somers Clarke. In 1937, the Belgian archaeologists have completely taken this project under their disposal, and since then the excavations of the ancient town were provided only under their control. The famous Belgian Egyptologist Jean Capart and his successor Pierre Gilbert directed archaeological research here for many years before and after the World War II.

A major part of the archeological research was carried out directly on the territory of El-Kab. However, since the 1980s, the explorartion work has moved north and north-east from the ancient city.

According to the Clark Somers's research, when Nile meandred, eroding the cliffs of the right bank and flooding the left, “in its early youth the town must have stood well above the flood waters.” Time passed, and the shift of the Nile riverbed towards the city began to threaten the buildings so that the wall, originally built around the town, could no longer protect it from the flood. The Egyptians built a new wall, by moving it further from the shore, so that people could continue to live in a safe from destruction zone .

Now the wall looks like as follows:

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Historical buildings, covering different time periods of the Egyptian history from the Pre-Dynastic to the Ptolemaic times could be seen in El-Kab in the various levels of destruction. According to the research work of the Belgian archaeologist Pierre Wermersch "Elkab II. L'Elkabien, Épipaléolithique de la vallée du Nil Égyptien", numerous evidences are indicating on the fact, that this place was inhabited since the epipaleolith (about 7000 years BC).

The central part of the city was represented by two massive temples belonging to the early Dynastic Period. The most important of them, built from sandstone, was dedicated to Nekhbet. It was built in the Late Period from fragments of blocks containing engravings of the Middle and New Kingdoms and partially overlapped with the older building of the end of the IV millennium BC.

The second (western) temple was built in honor of the god Thoth. The construction of the Temple of Thoth was begun by Pharaoh of the XVIII Dynasty - Amenhotep II. Later, the temple was expanded and rebuilt by the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom.

For the present time, only the foundations of these temples could be observed.

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Sacred Lake.

   
   
   

In the southeastern part of the city one can still see the foundations of the Graeco-Roman village, excavated by Belgian archaeologists between 1967 and 1982.

   
   

During the Graeco-Roman period, Nekheb prospered and was known as Eileithyiaspolis in honor of the goddess Eileithyia, the daughter of Zeus and Hera. The city remained as an important settlement until the Arab Caliphate, and in the VIIIth century AD it was almost completely destroyed as a result of military compaigns.


SOURCES:


Author: Walter В. Emery
Archaic Egypt.
Year: 2001

Author: J. E. QUIBELL
EGYPTIAN RESEARCH ACCOUNT. HIERAKONPOLIS. PART I. PLATES OF DISCOVERIES IN 1898 BY. J. E. QUIBELL, B.A. WITH NOTES BY V. M. F. P. (London)
Year: 1900

Author: Quibell, James Edward
El Kab .
Год: 1898
Author: Pierre Vermeersch
Elkab II. L'Elkabien, Épipaléolithique de la vallée du Nil Égyptien.
Year: 1978

Author: Napoleon Bonaparte.
Description de l'Égypte, ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l'expédition de l'Armée française

Year: 1812

Author: Luc Limme
Elkab, 1937-2007: seventy years of Belgian archaeological research.
(British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 9 (2008): 15–50.)
Год: 2008

"El-Kab and the Great Wall". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
Year: 1921




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