Coordinates: 30°07′45.6″N 31°18′27.

1″E

Heliopolis (ancient Egypt)

Heliopolis was a major city of ancient Egypt. It was the capital of the 13th or
Heliopolis
Heliopolite Nome of Lower Egypt and a major religious center. It is now located in
Ayn Shams, a northeastern suburb ofCairo.

Heliopolis was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, occupied since the
Predynastic Period.[1] It greatly expanded under the Old and Middle Kingdoms but
is today mostly destroyed, its temples and other buildings having been scavenged for
the construction of medieval Cairo. Most information about the ancient city comes
from surviving records.

The major surviving remnant of Heliopolis is the obelisk of the Temple of Ra-Atum
erected by Senusret I of Dynasty XII. It still stands in its original position, now
within Al-Masalla in Al-Matariyyah, Cairo.[2] The 21 m (69 ft) high red granite
obelisk weighs 120 tons (240,000 lbs).

The Al-Masalla obelisk, the largest

surviving monument from Heliopolis
Contents
Names
History
Egyptian Heliopolis
Hellenistic Heliopolis
Roman Heliopolis
Islamic Heliopolis
Legacy
Present site
See also Shown within Egypt
Notes Location Egypt
References
Region Cairo Governorate
Citations
Bibliography Coordinates 30.129333°N
External links 31.307528°E

Names
Heliopolis is the latinized form of the Ptolemaic Greek name Hēlioúpolis (Ἡλιούπολις), meaning "City of
the Sun". Helios, the personified and deified form of the sun, was identified by the Greeks with the native
Egyptian gods Ra and Atum, whose principal cult was located in the city
. [a]

͗
Its native name was Iwnw ("The Pillars"), whose exact pronunciation is uncertain because ancient Egyptian
Hieropolis
recorded only consonantal values. Its traditional Egyptological transcription is Iunu but it appears in biblical ͗
Iwnw
Hebrew as Ôn (‫ )אן‬and Āwen (‫)און‬, leading some scholars to reconstruct its pronunciation as *Āwanu. in hieroglyphs
Variant transcriptions includeAwnu and Annu.
The city also appears in theOld Kingdom Pyramid Texts as the "House of Ra".[4]

History

Egyptian Heliopolis
In ancient Egypt, Heliopolis was a regional center frompredynastic times.

It was principally notable as the cult center of the sun god Atum, who came to be
identified with Ra[6] and then Horus. The primary temple of the city was known as
the Great House (Ancient Egyptian: Pr Ꜥꜣt or Per Aat, *Par ʻĀʼat) or House of Atum
͗
(Pr Itmw or Per Atum, *Par-ʼAtāma; Hebrew: ‫פתם‬, Pithom). Its priests maintained
that Atum or Ra was the first being, rising self-created from the primeval waters. A
decline in the importance of Ra's cult during Dynasty V led to the development of
the Ennead, a grouping of nine major Egyptian gods which placed the others in
subordinate status to Ra–Atum. Thehigh priests of Ra are not as well documented as Map of ancient Lower Egypt showing
those of other deities, although the high priests of Dynasty VI (c. 2345 – c. 2181 BC) Heliopolis
have been discovered and excavated.[7] During the Amarna Period of Dynasty
XVIII, Pharaoh Akhenaten introduced a kind of monotheistic worship of Aten, the
deified solar disc. As part of his construction projects, he built a Heliopolitan temple
named "Elevating Aten" (Wṯs Itn ͗ or Wetjes Atum), whose stones can still be seen in
some of the gates of Cairo's medieval city wall. The cult of the Mnevis bull, another
embodiment of the Sun, had its altar here as well. Their personal formal burial
ground was situated north of the city.

The store-city Pithom is mentioned once in the Hebrew Bible (Exodus 1:11), and
according to one theory, this was Heliopolis.

Hellenistic Heliopolis
Alexander the Great, on his march from Pelusium to Memphis, halted at this city;[8]

The temple of Ra was said to have been, to a special degree, a depository for royal Model of a Votive Temple Gateway at
records, and Herodotus states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in Heliopolis, Dynasty XIX.[5]
matters of history of all the Egyptians. Heliopolis flourished as a seat of learning
during the Greek period; the schools of philosophy and astronomy are claimed to
have been frequented byOrpheus, Homer,[9] Pythagoras, Plato, Solon, and other Greek philosophers. Ichonuphys was lecturing there
in 308 BC, and the Greek mathematician Eudoxus, who was one of his pupils, learned from him the true length of the year and
month, upon which he formed his octaeterid, or period of 8 years or 99 months. Ptolemy II had Manetho, the chief priest of
Heliopolis, collect his history of the ancient kings of Egypt from its archives. The later Ptolemies probably took little interest in their
"father" Ra, and Alexandria had eclipsed the learning of Heliopolis; thus with the withdrawal of royal favour Heliopolis quickly
dwindled, and the students of native lore deserted it for other temples supported by a wealthy population of pious citizens. By the 1st
century BC, in fact, Strabo found the temples deserted, and the town itself almost uninhabited, although priests were still present.

Heliopolis was well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, being noted by most major geographers of the period, including
Ptolemy, Herodotus and others, down to theByzantine geographer Stephanus of Byzantium.[10]

Roman Heliopolis
In Roman Egypt, Heliopolis belonged to the province Augustamnica, causing it to appear as Heliopolis in Augustamnica when it
needed to be distinguished from Baalbek. Its population probably contained a considerable Arabian element.[11] Many of the city's
obelisks were removed to adorn more northern cities of the Delta and Rome. Two of these eventually became London's Cleopatra's
Needle and its twin in New York's Central Park.

Islamic Heliopolis
During the Middle Ages, the growth of Fustat and Cairo only a few kilometres away
caused its ruins to be massively scavenged for building materials, including for their
city walls. The site became known as the "Well of the Sun" (Ayn Shams) and ʻArab
al-Ḥiṣn.

Legacy
The importance of the solar cult at Heliopolis is reflected in both ancient pagan and Battle of Heliopolis during the
current monotheistic beliefs. Egyptian and Greco-Roman mythology held that the Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1800
bennu or phoenix brought the ashes of its predecessor to the altar of the sun god at
Heliopolis each time it was reborn. In the Hebrew's scriptures, Heliopolis is
referenced directly and obliquely, usually in reference to its prominent pagan cult. In his prophesies against Egypt, Isaiah claimed the
"City of the Sun" (Ir ha Shemesh) would be one of the five Egyptian cities to follow the Lord of Heaven's army and speak
Hebrew.[12][b] Jeremiah and Ezekiel mention the "House of the Sun" (Beth Shemesh) and Ôn, claiming Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
would shatter its obelisks and burn its temple[13] and that its "young men of Folly" A
( ven) would "fall by the sword".[14]

[15]
The "Syrian Heliopolis"Baalbek has been claimed to have gained its solar cult from a priest colony emigrating from Egypt.

Heliopolis in Augustamnica remains atitular see of the Roman Catholic Church.

Present site
The ancient city is currently located about 15–20 meters (49–66 ft) below the streets of the middle- and lower-class suburbs of Al-
Matariyyah,[1] Ain Shams, and Tel Al-Hisn[16] in northern Cairo. The area is about 1.5 kilometers (1 mi) west of the modern suburb
which bears its name.[1]

Some ancient city walls of crude brick can be seen in the fields, a few granite blocks bearing the name of
Ramesses II remain, and the
position of the great Temple of Ra-Atum is marked by the Al-Masalla obelisk. Archaeologists excavated some of its tombs in
2004.[17]

See also
Other Heliopolises, particularly

Heliopolis Syriaca, the modern Baalbek in Lebanon

Heliopolis, the 20th-century suburbof Cairo
Ilioupoli, the 20th-century suburb ofAthens settled by Egyptian Greeks
Ancient Egyptian creation myths– in reference to the religious belief system ofIunu at Heliopolis
List of Egyptian dynasties– in reference to the reigns centered at Heliopolis
Benben

Notes

a. Variant representations of Iunu include .[3]

 b. Variant texts read "City of Destruction" I(r ha Heres) instead.

References

Citations
1. Dobrowolska; et al. (2006),Heliopolis: Rebirth of the City of the Sun, p. 15, ISBN 9774160088.
2. "Obelisk" (http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/NUM_ORC/OBELISK_Gr_b3EXivrcos_diminutiv
.html), Encyclopædia
Britannica, 11th ed., 1911.
3. Collier & Manley, p. 29.
4. Bonnet, Hans, Reallexikon der Ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte
. (in German)
5. "Model of a Votive Temple Gateway at Heliopolis (49.183)"(http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/3
756/Model_of_a_Votive_Temple_Gateway_at_Heliopolis_49.183), Official site, Brooklyn Museum, retrieved 8 July
2014.
6. Hart, George, The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses
, ISBN 0-415-34495-6.
7. Planetware: Priests of Ra tombs, Heliopolis—Al-Matariyyah . accessed 01.28.2011 (http://www.planetware.com/cair
o/heliopolis-el-matariya-tombs-egy-cai-elmat.htm)Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20101223101624/http://ww
w.planetware.com/cairo/heliopolis-el-matariya-tombs-egy-cai-elmat.htm)2010-12-23 at the Wayback Machine.
8. Arrian, iii. 1.
9. The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus,Book I, ch VI (https://books.google.com/books?id=agd-eL
VNRMMC&print
sec=titlepage#PPA72,M1).
10. Ptolemy, iv. 5. § 54; Herodotus, ii. 3, 7, 59; Strabo, xvii. p. 805; Diodorus, i. 84, v. 57; Arrian, Exp. Alex. iii. 1; Aelian,
H. A. vi. 58, xii. 7; Plutarch, Solon. 26, Is. et Osir. 33; Diogenes Laertius, xviii. 8. § 6; Josephus, Ant. Jud. xiii. 3, C.
Apion. i. 26; Cicero, De Natura Deorum iii. 21; Pliny the Elder, v. 9. § 11; Tacitus, Ann. vi. 28; Pomponius Mela, iii. 8.
Byzantine geographer Stephanus of Byzantium, s. v. Ἡλίουπόλις.
11. Plin., Nat. Hist., vi, 34.
12. Isaiah 19:18.
13. Jeremiah 43:13 NASB;Compare NIV
14. Ezekiel 30:17 NIV
15. Macrobius, Saturn., i. 23.
16. "Al-Ahram Weekly | Features | City of the sun" (https://web.archive.org/web/20130325171032/http://weekly
.ahram.or
g.eg/2005/744/fe1.htm). Weekly.ahram.org.eg. 2005-06-01. Archived fromthe original (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/20
05/744/fe1.htm) on 2013-03-25. Retrieved 2013-03-26.
17. "Pharonic tomb uncovered in Cairo, suburbs of Matariya"(http://www.egiptomania.com/asade/novedades/descubrimi
entos4.htm), Egiptomania, 26 August 2004.

Bibliography
Allen, James P. 2001. "Heliopolis". InThe Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, edited by Donald Bruce Redford.
Vol. 2 of 3 vols. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The AmericanUniversity in Cairo Press.
88–89
Bilolo, Mubabinge. 1986.Les cosmo-théologies philosophiques d'Héliopolis et d'Hermopolis. Essai de thématisation
et de systématisation, (Academy of African Thought, Sect. I, vol. 2), Kinshasa–Munich 1987; new ed., Munich-Paris,
2004.
Reallexikon der Ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte - Hans Bonnet
Collier, Mark and Manley, Bill. How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Revised Edition. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1998.
The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, George Hart ISBN 0-415-34495-6
Redford, Donald Bruce. 1992. "Heliopolis". InThe Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman. Vol. 3 of
6 vols. New York: Doubleday. 122–123
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "article
name needed". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
External links
Obelisk of Psametik II from Heliopolis, removed and reerected by Augustus in Rome

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