Tag: Egypt

We’ve reviewed the earlier visitors to Antinoupolis.  It’s time to go back to the Description de l’Egypte, made by Napoleon’s engineers, and the detailed description of the city made by them.

In fact it’s a relief to do so.  The shoddy engravings of Paul Lucas are not to be compared to the excellence of the material prepared by the French military engineers.  Compare the picture above of the “triumphal arch” with Perry’s reprint of Lucas’ miserable image, inaccurate because of damage even in Perry’s day:

There is rather a lot of material about Antinoupolis in the Description, and all of it is by Jomard.  The material is in three places:

• There is a details 41 page description of the city in Book 02 (1818), Volume II – Antiquités, Descriptions.  Google. Google. Heidelberg.
• There is a bunch of maps, plans and drawings, plates 53-61, in Book 14 (1809), Volume IV – Planches : Antiquités.  Heidelberg.  Toulouse.
• There are several pages in the same volume describing the plates, with detailed measurements and orientation, starting here (the pages are helpfully unnumbered).
• Finally Jomard also discusses the inscription on the column of Alexander Severus elsewhere.  At the foot of p.22 of the description of the city, he adds unhelpfully, “Voyez mon Mémoire sur les anciennes inscriptions recueillies en Égypte, A. tom. II, et la pl. 56, A. vol. V”.  Indeed we would, monsieur, if we could locate so vaguely described a work.  (Update: in fact the “memoire” is a paper in the same vol. 2 as the 41 page description; but says nothing useful.  The “plate 56” is in vol. 5 of the Description here, and contains nothing less than a drawing of the inscription!  I add it at the end.)

At the cross-roads in the centre of the city, there stood four columns, on bases.  An inscription on each of the bases recorded that the pillars were erected by Alexander Severus, although only two bases remained by modern times.  Here is Jomard’s plate of the cross-roads:

I wrote here about Richard Pococke’s publication of the inscription.  But Jomard makes a much better job of it.  In his description in vol. 2, p.22, he gives this image of what he could actually see on-site:

And then this reconstruction with Latin (!) translation.

I.e. “For good luck.  To the emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander, Pious, Lucky, Augustus; and to Julia Mammaea the Augusta, his mother and also mother of the army camp, for safety and their perpetual stability, and of all their house, by Mevius Honorius …  prefect of Egypt … [i.e. at his order] … of the new Greeks of Antinoe, Aurelius Origenes being Prytaneus and Apollonius the senator being gymnasiarch, on account of the [triumphal] crowns that also by the action of the senate of Athens, in the 11th year …”

Jomard tells us that the inscription appeared on all four column bases, facing the crossroads, and was of 14 lines.  It was carefully engraved on the flat spaces left for it.

It’s all gone now.  Blown up, smashed to pieces, and used for building materials by the local inhabitants.

There are people who take things so much for granted that they scoff at scholarly literature as simply making copies on paper of what can be seen more easily in the round on the ground.  That is, of course, exactly what the literature does.  For what is on the ground can vanish.  That’s why it has to be recorded, in multiple copies.

Thanks to the effort of Edme François Jomard the column and the inscription of Alexander Severus is preserved for us all today.

UPDATE: I finally located Jomard’s drawing of the inscription, in vol. 5, plate 56, of the Description de l’Egypte (online here).  The plate contains a bunch of inscriptions.  Two, numbers 18 and 19, are labelled as from Antinoupolis.  Here they are:

Presumably these are transcribed from the two pedestals.

The English traveller Charles Perry visited Antinoupolis in the early 18th century, although I have not been able to see in his book the exact year without reading the whole thing through.  His account was published in 1743 as A view of the Levant: particularly of Constantinople, Syria, Egypt and Greece (London: Woodward & co, 1743; online here; better copy with plates at UCL here).  His account of Insine, or Antinoupolis, is on p.328.  There is a plate also, at the end of the volume (although missing, I notice, in many Google copies), which has two items from Insine, but mostly the pyramid of Giza (which is what the diagram in the middle relates to).  I’ve chopped off the bottom.  Click to enlarge.

The choice of images is pretty clearly derived from Lucas;  Perry tells us that the “triumphal arch” had been damaged since Lucas, but his image does not show this.

His dependence on the words of Father Sicard appears at one or two points.  But let’s hear him.  Note that I have slightly modernised the spelling, and capitalisation.

    *    *    *    *

…we prevail’d on him[the boat captain, who was afraid of bandits], though not without much difficulty, to fall down to Insine, which is about four miles lower, on the east of the river, to visit the ruins and remaining antiquities of that once famous city. Indeed we had made very strict inquiry after it, with design to visit it in our way from Minio to Meloue, being inform’d it was not above three leagues below the latter; but notwithstanding we carry’d a pilot with us extraordinary, who had once been as far as the third cataract, and had many times been as far as Asoan with his own bark, and pretended to know every creek and corner of the Nile so far, yet he could give us no manner of intelligence where Insine was. But here lay the mistake, or the cause of our difficulty – though Insine was the ancient name of the city, and is the name given it by all writers, as well modern as ancient, yet the people of the Country call it Sheik Abadie from a Turkish saint that lies buried there. Whenever we talk’d to the Pilot of Insine, he imagin’d, and consequently would persuade us we meant Esne, which is another village about 150 leagues higher, lying on the west of the Nile, 35 leagues below the cataract of Asoan.

The extent of the present ruins of Insine (which we judge to be near four miles in circuit) serve to shew that of the ancient city, as the great Number of porphyry, and other pillars, do to shew its ancient splendor and magnificence.

A certain French Author (a reverend father) says, there are no less than fourteen pillars of red granite yet standing and whole, besides many others broken. But though the travellers of that nation seldom undervalue or under-rate the marvels they see and recite, yet this gentleman has been very short in this particular, though he has made amends for it in others; for we told so many pillars, that the account grew too perplex’d and heavy for our memory; and, at least, we can aver they far exceed the number by him given. Many of these fine pillars are disposed in lines, in a regular good order, before the Triumphal Arch of Marcus Aurelius, as ’tis called, and have doubtless been parts of some very superb edifice: But there are several others of them, further to the left-hand, which now serve as parts of, or props to miserable Arab houses, or rather huts.

The edifices, or parts of edifices yet extant, are the Triumphal Arch of Marcus Aurelius afore-mentioned, the Porta Ferrea, and the palace called Abulkerun. We compar’d the two former with Lucas’s draughts of them, and found them to agree very exactly, which we shall therefore exhibit for the curious reader to see. Of these the Triumphal Arch is the most considerable, being yet perfect and entire, as represented by Lucas; except only that since the time when he took a draught of it, the front is broken, just under the angle, which discovers, that the stone work, which terminates in a triangle, was sustained by an arch of brick-work.

Of the Triumphal Arch of Marcus Aurelius.

This edifice is seventeen yards in front, and half that sum in flank: its height is about fifty-six feet: the grand arch is five yards and an half wide, and eight yards high: Each of the small arches is two yards broad, and six yards and an half high. Besides those three arches, which pass from side to side, there is another which runs from end to end, and intersects all the other arches at right angles. But this Lucas does not mention in his reading, nor does he give it any appearance in his draught, which might have been done by drawing the face a little obliquely, or sideways. This edifice has in its front four pillars, made of square stones, with beautiful capitals, all which are very well express’d by Lucas. A few paces distant from this portico, on the left side of it, are three noble pillars of porphyry, placed regularly in a line. When we see and consider so many fine pillars, some in front, and others in flank of this portico, which seem to have been appendages to it, we are at a loss to guess what this fabric may formerly have been, and to what use and purpose designed.

For though ’tis commonly called the Triumphal Arch of Marcus Aurelius, yet it may have preceded his era many centuries, and have had another name, use, and design originally. However, we neither do, nor can suppose this city, or any of its remains were coeval with the ancient Egyptians; because throughout all its ruins we discover neither hieroglyphics, nor any of their divinities in relief; which are look’d upon as the only undoubted arguments and testimonies, that things were of their time, because none of their works (whether temples, statues, or grots) are without them.

Of what they call the Porta Ferrea_t there remains no more, at present, than two large pillars, with beautiful capitals, which are very well taken off by Lucas.

The palace called Abul Kerun, or the Horn’d Building, is now so far gone to ruin, as to admit of no good description. We find lying on the ground, before this palace, two capitals of pillars, whose angles are extravagantly large and prominent; and from thence, as ’tis said, the palace was called the Horn’d Building.

We found the remains of another public edifice, which we could learn no name for: it appears in front much like the Triumphal Arch above-describ’d, having one large arch in the middle, with a small one on each side, but ’tis not above seven feet thick. It had four noble large pillars, with beautiful capitals standing before it, at four yards distance, and as many behind it. These latter are partly standing and entire, but the former are all broken, and lying on the ground. At the distance of about 500 paces from thence, to the north-east, we find one pillar yet standing and entire: Its shaft consists of five stones, each seven feet high. The capital, and lower stone of the shaft, are each adorn’d with a very noble beautiful foliage. The pedestal is composed of several stones, is about four yards high, and has a Greek inscription on it, which is so much effaced by the injuries of time, that we could not make it out. ’Tis evident that there were formerly four of these pillars, disposed in form of a square; for there is the pedestal of another yet standing, with an inscription on it, which agrees, far as we could read it, with the other: there are likewise three capitals, besides many other fragments of the pillars, lying upon the ground. What assures us, that they were disposed in form of a square, is the position of the pedestal, now standing, with regard to the entire column ; for we found them bearing thus, to one another.

The Square c represents the situation of the entire Pillar, and d that of the pedestal, yet standing; so that, without doubt, a and b were the situation of the other two. But what may serve as a further proof of the ancient splendor and magnificence of this city, there are now extant two rows of marble pillars, or at least their bases in the earth; which run in right and parallel lines, at about twelve paces distance from each other, for about a mile; and those were of no other use or design, than to support a range of large balconies, which ran along on each side of the principal street; so that People might walk secure from the inclemencies and injuries of weather, whether of heat or rain. This principal street was cut in its middle, at right angles, by another street of equal form, bigness, and beauty, adorn’d in like manner with large balconies, supported with marble pillars. These two streets (according to ancient history, and what we may conclude from its present ruins) constituted the major part of the city; and the four pillars stood in that part where the streets crossed each other. Besides what we have made particular mention of, we found, as we rang’d over the ruins, a great many other stately pillars, yet on foot and entire. Without the limits of the present ruins, and consequently without those of the ancient city, doubtless, is a place about half a mile long, but not above sixty paces broad, which they now call the Meidan. This doubtless was the Circus, where they celebrated the Sports instituted by the Emperor Adrian, in Honour of his Favourite Antinous, after his Death, (being drowned, as ’tis commonly thought, in the River Nile near that City) for which he was inconsolable. History informs us, that the Emperor Adrian had (to his eternal ignominy) a most extravagant and unnatural passion for that youth; and therefore he omitted nothing that might serve to perpetuate his Memory. He called this City Antinopolis, in honour to him: He dedicated temples to him, in which he established oracles; and caused his deification to be celebrated with great pomp and solemnity. But before we finish our observation on this city, we must observe, that besides the two capital streets above-mentioned, there were several other streets, though of less extent and bigness, which were laid out with the utmost order and exactness, and ran in right and parallel lines: And these likewise had their ranges of balconies before the houses, sustain’d by fine marble pillars, as the others; so that the whole city seemed to be one continued peristylion. The ruins of this city are indeed very great, and far exceed any others that we found in all Upper Egypt, But, O tempora! O Mores! its ancient grandeur, glory, and splendor, are now reduced to a poor miserable village, consisting only of a few huts made of dirt; but their materials, however, are very well proportioned to their height, as they are both emblems of great humility, or rather poverty.

All places of the Turkish Dominions, which we have as yet visited, are very well stock’d with mosques, for their public worship; but no other Part is in any Proportion so full of them as Egypt, and especially Cairo; in which, according to the report of the people, there are no less than 8000, with minarets, besides a great many others: And when one sees what an infinite number of fine pillars, and other precious remains of antiquity are employ’d in them, (which they place without any beauty, order, or symmetry, mixing pillars of different orders, materials, and magnitudes promiscuously) ’tis astonishing to think where they found them. But whoever has seen what Egypt, especially the upper part of it, is, and well considers what it has been, will necessarily conclude, that there must have been an inexhaustible fund of them.

We return’d on board our Vessel that evening, and the next morning set forward under a fair, but gentle gale. In about an hour and half we went ashore again, near a Coptic Convent, call’d Abuhennis, which is situate on the same side of the Nile, about two or three Miles above Insine. ….

Travelling in Egypt could be dangerous, as one French visitor discovered. The natives did not always like to see people drawing the ruins!

Our next early visitor to Antinoupolis was C.S. Sonnini de Manoncourt, a French Engineer sent out by the ancien regime in France in 1777, but published in “year 7” of the French Revolution, i.e. 1799.^[1]  Thankfully an English translation exists.^[2]

Only one illustration is given, of a column next to a gatehouse; the artist had to run for it before he had finished.  This, rather than the strange image given by Lucas, is the correct appearance of these square pillars.

In chapter 40, we read this account of his visit to Antinoupolis, beginning on p.40.  The footnotes are Sonnini’s.  The sneery tone towards Christians, and especially to monks, is perhaps a reflection of the bigotry of the revolutionary government, and the malice and energy of its informers, rather than a personal opinion.

    *    *    *    *

The same gusts of north wind continued to pursue us still on the 4th [of April, 1778], and carried us with a dangerous velocity to Scheick Abade, a resort of pirates, to the east of the Nile. Immense ruins, and a long succession of rubbish, announce that a great city existed there in ancient times. This was the fruit of a disgraceful passion, which poorly disguised the appearance of gratitude affected by Adrian in founding it. It is well known to what a degree this prince, renowned for his political and warlike talents, was, at the same time; despicable, on account of his passion for Antinous, the perfection of whose form is evinced by one of the most beautiful statues of antiquity, still in preservation. Adrian, during the time that he was in Egypt with his court and army, consulted the soothsayers, whose response struck his imagination. The oracle declared that the greatest danger threatened him, unless a person dear to him, and by whom likewise he was beloved, should sacrifice himself for his preservation; and the dastardly Emperor had the cruelty to accept of the sacrifice. The beautiful and generous Antinous precipitated himself from the summit of a rock into the Nile; and the vile despot thought to efface his disgrace and his ingratitude, by building, in honour of his favourite, whom he looked upon also as his deliverer, a city which, under the name of Antinoë, perpetuated his barbarous credulity and his criminal affection. He embellished it with all that art can imagine the most precious. The statues of Antinous were there considered as sacred representations; he built temples for him; he instituted games and sacrifices, and he himself regulated the worship by which he was to be venerated.

Antinoë had filled the place of the ancient Egyptian city of Abidus, in which a divinity who bore the name of Busa was worshipped. This god delivered oracles, and his. celebrity long supported itself. The ancient city of Abidus and that of Antinoë, are now equally ruinous. What remains of this last excites regret for its destruction. You behold not in these ruins the unwieldy and gigantic monuments, those enormous masses of stone, which the Egyptians raised rather to astonish than to charm the eye. Everything there was in just proportion, all possessed those delicate contours, and those elegant forms of the beautiful architecture of the Greeks and of the Romans.

My reis made many difficulties about approaching the shore which covers the ruins of Antinoë. It is peopled by the worst tribe of Egyptians, and the most determined robbers. They attacked Mr. Bruce, when, on crossing the Said, he intended to stop at this place.*^[3] I observed all the precautions which prudence suggested, and I landed with my draughtsman. The extensive site, strewed with the most beautiful fragments, overwhelmed me with astonishment and admiration. It must have occupied a considerable time to travel over them all. The night approached, and it was impossible either to pass it on that dangerous coast, or, to stray very far from the boat.

The ferocious men, who dwell around the ruins of the city of Adrian, employ themselves in pulling down those parts of the edifices which still remained, and in glutting their savage disposition by the habitual commission of destruction. In the time of Vansleb*^[4], and of Paul Lucas, there were many more pieces of architecture existing entire, than I myself beheld. The greater part of the buildings were constructed of large bricks, and their red colour was still in perfect preservation. That which appeared to me the most remarkable, was a triumphal arch, or magnificent gateway, supported by fluted pillars. The front is fifty feet in length. A very bad representation of this is to be seen in the Travels of Paul Lucas +^[5]. The capitals of the pillars in particular are very badly represented. A more clear idea of it may be formed from plate XXVIII. It is evident that the intention was to have taken a complete delineation of this triumphal arch, which, to all appearance, served as the gate of the city; but while the designer was employed in this work, and I, on my part, was examining some other portions of the ruins, the noise of a gun fired off by one of our companions, who was placed as a sentinel, gave us notice of the approach of a gang of robbers. We had only time to escape to the boat, which was immediately pushed off shore, and we got clear, with only the menaces and bullying of those barbarians.

You observe also, on each side of the gate, holes cut for the hinges which sustained the folding-doors. The country people say that these doors are at Cairo, and that they were transported thither by a devil. Paul Lucas saw them there covered with plates of iron, and serving to close up an arch which is near the palace of the grand provost*^[6], without doubt the Ouali, the officer who at Cairo is intrusted with the affairs of the police. A considerable number of pillars were still standing at the other extremity of the city of Antinoë, towards the mountains. All the remainder presents nothing but a confused mass of pieces of architecture, broken and overthrown.

On the opposite side of the mountain, which terminates, towards the west, the ancient enclosure of Antinoë, you distinguish a considerable number of openings dug in the rock. These caverns were undoubtedly places of sepulture, the catacombs. There are places such as these all over Thebais, principally in the environs of great cities, along those two chains of mountains with which the Nile is bordered, and sometimes straitened. The inhabitants, too grossly ignorant to comprehend those means with which the arts supplied their ancestors, ascribe these excavations to demons. Superstition produces similar effects upon the most opposite characters; for the missionary Vansleb appeared to agree in opinion with the then natives of Egypt; it seemed equally impossible to him that human beings could dig such cavities: but he subjoins to his opinion this pious mollification, that the devils were forced to become such good workmen by means of exorcisms*^[7]. On the other band, the Christian legend beholds in that immense number of grottoes in the mountains of Thebais only the solitary retreats of holy hermits, whose indolence was but poorly disguised under the mask of contemplation; a fine-sounding word, but totally devoid of meaning, when it is applied to the life led by beings of this sort.

The mosque of the village in the neighbourhood of Antinoë, and whose aspect and population form so striking a contrast with the superb buildings and the urbanity of the ancient city built by Adrian, contains the tomb and the relics of a saint who has given to this place his name of Sheick Abade. But, what is truly diverting, while the Mahometans regard this saint as a zealous partizan of the Alcoran, the Christians claim and venerate him as one of their bishops who received the mournful honours of martyrdom at Insine*^[8]. But enough has been said respecting those absurd chimeras, of which the men of all ages and of all nations have been the may-game.

We quitted the shores, formerly flourishing, but now desolate, of the city of Antinous. We came to anchor opposite to Mellavoui, three leagues from Scheick Abade. Mellavoui is a little city, of a very beautiful appearance, situated at about half a league from the western banks of the Nile. ….

Update (18 August 2023): Comparing this to the Pococke drawing and the drawing of the theatre portico in pl. 56 and 57 of the Description de l’Egypte, especially zooming in on the upper storey – the lower may have been buried by sand earlier – I wonder if this “gatehouse” is in fact the theatre portico?  The triangular part of the facade is distinctive, I think.

1. ^[1]SONNINI DE MANONCOURT, Charles Nicolas Sigisbert. Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Égypte… Collection de Planches, Paris, F. Buisson, An VII [=1799].  Plate XXVIII, to be inserted in Tome III, p.48.  See a copy of this image here.↩
2. ^[2]C. S. Sonnini, Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, undertaken by order of the old government of France, translated by Henry Hunter, London (1807), vol.2.  Online at Heidelberg here. The picture is the frontespiece.↩
3. ^[3]* Travels to the Sources of the Nile.↩
4. ^[4]* Nouvelle Relation d’Egypte, page 386 et suiv.↩
5. ^[5]+ Voyage fait en 1714, tome ii.↩
6. ^[6]* Nouvelle Relation d’Egypte, page 384.↩
7. ^[7]* Nouvelle Relation d’Egypte, page 384.↩
8. ^[8]* Vansleb, Nouv. Relation d’Egypte, p. 387.↩

A google images search, undertaken for other reasons, gave me a sudden picture of the people of Antinoupolis.  Here it is:

Fascinating to see, isn’t it?

I suppose some of them are from elsewhere in the Fayoum; but even so, this is a fascinating collection of people!

Another early visitor to Antinoupolis was Richard Pococke, whose Observations on Egypt, vol. 1, 1743, begin with a picture (before page 73) of one of the gates still then standing at the city.

He describes his visit as follows:

On the fourteenth [of December, 1737] we had a good wind, and passed by Minio [Minya] on the west, a neat town in comparison of the others, and the residence of the Cashis of the province of that name; higher we passed Souadi, a small town to the east.

We came up with the ruined city of Antinoopolis, now called Ensineh; Some say there was anciently a city here called Besa; but Antinous, who accompanied Hadrian into Egypt, being drowned there, that Emperor built this city, and called it after the name of his favourite, to whom he instituted games and divine honours: It was made also the capital^w of a new province of that name, taken out of the last of the seven provinces, called Heptanomis.

It is said the city was three or four miles round. I saw a large pillar with a Corinthian capital, and a square stone or plinth on the top, which was probably to set some statue on; it is said there were four of these.

I had also a view of a very fine gate of the Corinthian order, of exquisite workmanship; a plan and upright of which may be seen in the twenty-fourth plate, marked  A.  B.

Near this place is a village of Christians, called Ebadie, whose greatest security, among such very bad people, seems to be a notion that has prevailed, that no Mahometan can live in that place. Higher is the convent of St. John (Der-Abou-Ennis) where there are several priests; and a little further on is Meloui, near a mile to the west of the river.

w. Ptol. iv. c.15.

The gate is, of course, long since destroyed by the inhabitants of the area.  How interesting to discover that in Pococke’s time the village of Sheikh Ibade was a Coptic village,

The plate 24 also shows part of the now vanished temple at el-Ashmounein, or Hermopolis.

Update (18 August 2023): Comparing this with the Manoncourt drawing and the drawing of the theatre portico in pl. 56 and 57 of the Description de l’Egypte, especially zooming in on the upper storey – the lower may have been buried by sand earlier – I wonder if this “gatehouse” is in fact the theatre portico?

Never rely on Google Maps for an aerial view of an archaeological site.  Always screen-shot it.  You may be grateful in future that you did.

This thought was provoked by finding an aerial image of Antinoupolis in Egypt, modern Sheikh Ibeda, here.  Here it is:

Comparison with the current view will quickly show that part of the circus at the top, the hippodrome, has been demolished.

That’s within the last five years.

Treasure your snapshots!