A nome (/noʊm/, from Ancient Greek: νομός, nomós, "district") was a territorial division in ancient Egypt.
Each nome was ruled by a nomarch (Ancient Egyptian: ḥrj tp ꜥꜣ, "Great Chief"). The number of nomes changed through the various periods of the history of ancient Egypt.
Meidum, Maydum or Maidum (Arabic: ميدوم, Ancient Egyptian: Mr(y)-Jtmw, lit. 'beloved of Atum', Ancient Greek: Μοι(ε)θυμις) is an archaeological site in Lower Egypt. It contains a large pyramid and several mudbrick mastabas. The pyramid was Egypt's first straight-sided one, but it partially collapsed in ancient times. The area is located around 72 kilometres (45 mi) south of modern Cairo.
Menes (fl. c. 3200–3000 BC; /ˈmeɪneɪz/; Ancient Egyptian: mnj, probably pronounced */maˈnij/; Ancient Greek: Μήνης and Μήν) was a pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, credited by classical tradition with having united Upper and Lower Egypt, and as the founder of the First Dynasty.
The identity of Menes is the subject of ongoing debate, although mainstream Egyptological consensus inconclusively identifies Menes with the Naqada III ruler Narmer or his successor, the First Dynasty pharaoh Hor-Aha.
Narmer (Ancient Egyptian: nꜥr-mr, may mean "painful catfish", "stinging catfish", "harsh catfish", or "fierce catfish"; fl. c. 3100 BC) was an ancient Egyptian king of the Early Dynastic Period, whose reign began at the end of the 4th millennium BC. He's believed to have been the successor to the Protodynastic king Ka. Many scholars consider him the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and in turn the first king of a unified Egypt. He also had a prominently noticeable presence in Canaan, compared to his predecessors and successors. Neithhotep is thought to be his queen consort or his daughter.
A majority of Egyptologists believe that Narmer was the same person as Menes.
Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: ϯⲙⲉⲧⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, romanized: Timetremənkʰēmi) is a dormant Afroasiatic language. It is a group of closely related Egyptian dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third century AD in Roman Egypt. Coptic was supplanted by Arabic as the primary spoken language of Egypt following the Arab conquest of Egypt and was slowly replaced over the centuries.
Coptic has no modern-day native speakers, and no fluent speakers apart from a number of priests, although it remains in daily use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and of the Coptic Catholic Church. It is written with the Coptic alphabet, a modified form of the Greek alphabet with seven additional letters borrowed from the Demotic Egyptian script.
Neith /ˈniː.ɪθ/ (Koine Greek: Νηΐθ, a borrowing of the Demotic form Ancient Egyptian: nt, also spelled Nit, Net, or Neit) was an ancient Egyptian deity, possibly of Libyan origin. She was connected with warfare, as indicated by her emblem of two crossed bows, and with motherhood, as shown by texts that call her the mother of particular deities, such as the sun god Ra and the crocodile god Sobek. As a mother goddess, she was sometimes said to be the creator of the world. She also had a presence in funerary religion, and this aspect of her character grew over time: she became one of the four goddesses who protected the coffin and internal organs of the deceased.
Neith is one of the earliest Egyptian deities to appear in the archaeological record; the earliest signs of her worship date to the Naqada II period (c. 3600–3350 BC). Her main cult center was the city of Sais in Lower Egypt, near the western edge of the Nile Delta, and some Egyptologists have suggested that she originated among the Libyan peoples who lived nearby. She was the most important goddess in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BC) and had a significant shrine at the capital, Memphis. In subsequent eras she lost her preeminence to other goddesses, such as Hathor, but she remained important, particularly during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (664–525 BC), when Sais was Egypt's capital. She was worshipped in many temples during the Greek and Roman periods of Egyptian history, most significantly Esna in Upper Egypt, and the Greeks identified her with their goddess Athena.
Oxyrhynchus (/ɒksɪˈrɪŋkəs/ ok-sih-RINK-əs; Ancient Greek: Ὀξύῤῥυγχος, romanized: Oxýrrhynkhos, lit. 'sharp-nosed', Koine Greek: [okˈsyr̥r̥yŋkʰos]; Ancient Egyptian: pr mꜥḏ; Coptic: ⲡⲉⲙϫⲉ or ⲡⲙ̅ϫⲏ, romanized: Pemdje), also known by its modern name Al-Bahnasa (Arabic: البهنسا, romanized: el-Bahnasa), is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo in Minya Governorate. It is also an important archaeological site. Since the late 19th century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been excavated almost continually, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts dating from the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt. They also include a few vellum manuscripts, and more recent Arabic manuscripts on paper (for example, the medieval P. Oxy. VI 1006).
Hathor (Ancient Egyptian: ḥwt-ḥr, lit. 'House of Horus', Ancient Greek: Ἁθώρ Hathōr, Coptic: ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: 𐦠𐦴𐦫𐦢 Atari) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form, she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented beauty, music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.
Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness, a cobra, or a sycomore tree.
Heka (/ˈhɛkə/; Ancient Egyptian: ḥkꜣ(w); Coptic: ϩⲓⲕ hik; also transliterated Hekau) was the deification of magic and medicine in ancient Egypt. The name is the Egyptian word for "magic". According to Egyptian literature (Coffin text, spell 261), Heka existed "before duality had yet come into being." The term ḥkꜣ was also used to refer to the practice of magical rituals.