HERMONTHIS
(Armant) Egypt.
A city, noted
by Strabo (
17.1.47), ca. 25 km S of Thebes on the W
bank of the Nile. Both the Greek and Arabic names
refer to a vanished temple dedicated to the Egyptian god
Mont, the falcon god of war. Its chief object of worship
was, however, the bull Buchis. During the Graeco-Roman
period, when the city was the capital of the Hermonithite
nome, a great new temple was constructed from material
taken from older temples. Here was the abode of the bull
Buchis. Towards the end of the Ptolemaic period, Cleopatra built the Mammisi shrine in order to celebrate the
birth of Caesarion. Building activity continued during the
Roman period and the discovery of the Bucheum, the
necropolis of the bulls, proves the continuity of the cult
of Buchis down to the time of Diocletian. The necropolis
of the mother cows, Baqaria, has also been discovered.
During the Coptic period, the town was the center of a
large administrative area and a seat of a bishopric.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Mond, O. H. Myers, et al.,
The
Bucheum (1934) 3 vols.; Mond,
Temples of Armant
(1940); K. Michalowski,
L'Art de l'Ancienne Égypte
(1968) 538-39.
S. SHENOUDA
