The ancient city of Athribis near Sohag

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Leitz
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 467053756

The acient city of Athribis lies about 220 km north of Luxor southwest of the modern Sohag, the capital of the gouvernorate Sohag. In ancient egyptian times the capital of the 9th Upper Egyptian nome was Akhmim on the eastern side of the river Nile. The temple of the late Ptolemaic and early Roman period comprises about one third of a hectare, what is less than 2 % of the whole archaeological area of approximately 20 hectare. Athribis was after Akhmim the most important temple of this region. The main focus of the newly finished long-term DFG project concerning the temple of Athribis was the archaeological and philological documentation of the main temple. The topic of the new project proposed here is the temple in a much more comprehensive sense, understood as a whole institution and economic organisation, of which the sacred stone edifice, the temple proper, is only one of several dozen buildings. A source of fundamental importance for the other buildings is the so called Book of the Temple, to be edited by Joachim Quack. This composition lists in detail each of these other structures which were indispensable for the functioning of the temple complex as a whole. A site like Athribis, not yet excavated and currently threatened by encroachment of modern building activities, seems likely to be able to connect philological information with the archaeological data, perhaps more so than any other temple complex of the greco-roman period. This would allow an understanding of the complete temple organisation for the first time for this period. The philological documentation of the temple was important, but the detailed and time-consuming archaeological analysis ought to deserve the same efforts and is therefore proposed as a long-term project. A second important focus is the reuse of both the temple and the surrounding buildings als well the gradual transformation in a monastery and later in an Islamic settlement.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants