Thebes

Thebes, one of the famed cities of antiquity, the capital of the ancient Egyptian empire at its heyday. Thebes lay on either side of the Nile River at approximately 26° N latitude. The modern town of Luxor, or Al-Uqṣur, which occupies part of the site, is 419 miles (675 km) south of Cairo. Ancient Thebes covered an area of some 36 square miles (93 square km). The main part of the city was situated along the Nile’s east bank. Along the west bank was the necropolis, or “city of the dead,” an area containing the royal tombs and mortuary temples, as well as the houses of those priests, soldiers, craftsmen, and labourers who were devoted to the service of the Egyptian rulers. The Thebes area—including Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, and Karnak—was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.

History

The ancient name of Thebes was Wase, or Wo’se. The nome (province) of Wase, the fourth of Upper Egypt, is known to have existed from the 4th dynasty onward. The earliest monuments that have survived at Thebes proper date from the 11th dynasty (2081–1939 bce), when the local nomarchs (governors) united Egypt under their rule. From this time Thebes frequently served as the royal capital of Egypt and was called Nowe, or Nuwe (“City of Amon”), named for its chief god. The Greek name Thebes (Thebai) may have been derived from Ta-ope, the ancient Egyptian name for Luxor.

During the 12th dynasty (1938–1756), the royal residence was moved to the area of Memphis, but the kings of Egypt continued to honour Amon, their family god, and hence built temples at Thebes. After their invasion of Egypt and seizure of dynastic power about 1630, the Hyksos had little or no control over Thebes, and it was the lords of that city who finally drove the Hyksos out of Egypt (c. 1530–20). Then began the era of greatest prosperity for Thebes. The 18th-dynasty pharaohs rebuilt it and made it their capital, embellishing its temples with the spoils of Asia and the tribute of Nubia. During the 15th century bce great palaces, brightly painted and surrounded with gardens, rose on either bank of the river. Many noble families kept estates in the area, and in the crowded streets foreign traders and mercenaries mingled with the citizens. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom vied with each other in building great temples on the east bank and even larger mortuary temples on the west.

The height of Theban prosperity was reached in the 14th century bce in the reign of Amenhotep III (Amenophis III; reigned 1390–53), much of whose vast wealth from foreign tribute was poured into the temples of Amon. For a brief period in the reign of his son Akhenaton (1353–36), Thebes fell on evil times; the city was abandoned by the court, and the worship of Amon was proscribed. With its restoration by Tutankhamen (reigned 1333–23), however, Thebes soon regained its revenues and prestige, and it retained both through the reigns of Seti I (1290–79) and Ramses II (1279–13), who still resided for part of every year in Thebes. The city continued to be richly endowed; according to ancient sources, Ramses III (reigned 1187–56) donated 86,486 slaves and vast estates to Amon’s temples.

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Under the later Ramessids, Thebes began to decline; the government fell, it seems, into grave economic difficulties. During the reign of Ramses IX (1126–08), about 1111 bce, a series of investigations into the plundering of royal tombs in the necropolis of western Thebes uncovered proof of corruption in high places, following an accusation made by the mayor of the east bank against his colleague on the west. The plundered royal mummies were moved from place to place and at last deposited by the priests of Amon in a tomb-shaft in Dayr al-Baḥrī and in the tomb of Amenhotep II. (The finding of these two hiding places in 1881 and 1898, respectively, was one of the great events of modern archaeological discovery.) Such maladministration in Thebes led to unrest. Control of local affairs tended to come more and more into the hands of the high priests of Amon, leading to a situation in which, after the death of the last Ramses in the 11th century, the government of Egypt was shared between the pharaoh in Tanis and the high pontiff at Thebes. Intermarriage and adoption strengthened the ties between them, daughters of the Tanite kings being installed as “God’s Wife of Amon” at Thebes, where they wielded greater power.

The Napatan (Nubian) pharaohs made Thebes their capital in the 7th century bce. Its fame among the early Greeks was such that Homer speaks of the wealth of “hundred-gated Thebes.” In 663, however, it was sacked by Ashurbanipal’s Assyrians, and, although rebuilt by the Saite governors (vassals of the Assyrians), it never fully recovered. In Strabo’s time (c. 63 bce–c. 23 ce), the city had dwindled to a mere village visited by tourists who came to see the ancient temples.