THE TEMPLES, SITES AND MONUMENTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT

One of the three major cities of ancient Egypt, after Thebes and Memphis, Heliopolis, ("City of the Sun" in Greek), was situated in the area of Tell Hisn on the northeastern outskirts of modern Cairo. The ancient Egyptian name was Iunu or iwnw, meaning 'pillars'. Today it is largely covered by the suburbs of Cairo. It is not situated on the banks of the Nile, but lay inland to the east of the river, and was connected thereto by an ancient canal.

Since Predynastic times Heliopolis (On in Coptic) had been the capital of the 13th nome of Lower Egypt . By the beginning of the Old Kingdom, the city was a center of astronomy as reflected in the title of its high priest, wr-ma'aw - "Chief of Observers" or "Greatest of Seers. This title was held by Imhotep during the 3rd Dynasty reign of Djoser (2630-2611 BC), and dates earlier to the reign of Khasekhemwy (ca 2690? BC) in the 2nd Dynasty.

Helioopolis-Iunu also had a reputation for learning and theological speculation, which it retained into Greco-Roman times. Much of that learning centered on the role of the sun in creation, the 'maintenance' of the world, and in the persons of the gods Ra and Tem, whose temples must have graced the city.

One of the earliest, richest, and most influential of theological traditions, centered here, was summarized in the concept of the Ennead, the group of nine gods that embodied the creative source and chief forces of the universe. By the beginning of the Old Kingdom that system had been formulated into a coherent philosophy, and it dominated Egyptian thought for the next three thousand years.

Creation was viewed as an evolutionary process. However, it was recorded in typical Egyptian metaphors of birth rather than in scientific or philosophical terminology.

Grain was stored in Heliopolis for the winter months, when many people would descend on the town to be fed, leading to it gaining the additional title "Place of Bread". The Book of the Dead goes further and describes how Heliopolis was the place of multiplying bread, recounting a myth in which Horus feeds the masses there with only 7 loaves.

Egyptians believed Heliopolis was the location of the Ben-Ben, the pyramid-shaped stone which was the first mound to arise from the primordial "Waters of Potentiality" at the moment of creation. On the Ben-Ben the Raas a Bennu - the white heron called Phoenix by the Greeks - first sang the song of creation. The bennu-bird figured prominently in paintings and reliefs throughout Egyptian history.

The obelisk (above), the sacred symbol of the sun-god, gave the city its Egyptian name. Obelisks were topped by a pyramid--shaped sacred capstone (representing the Ben-Ben stone). Examples of such capstones have been found. They were coated in electrum (gold and silver foil), in order to catch and gleam with the rays of the sun. Numerous obelisks in open-air courts decorated the city. Most have been taken over the centuries.

Although Heliopolis played a central role in Egyptian culture throughout the Dynastic and into the Greco-Roman Periods, nothing today remains of this important city or its cult center of the sun-god Ra. The form and size of the site’s religious structures and even the main temple of the sun god are thus unknown, but it is possible that the solar temples of the 5th Dynasty located elsewhere were modeled at least to some extent on the Heliopolitan sun temple, with its central feature of the obelisk.

Little is known about the city itself. The remains of mud-brick walls in the area suggest a vast enclosure estimated at 3,600 by 1,558 feet, and recent excavations have found signs of what may be a number of separate temples or parts of one great temple of New Kingdom date. Its principal feature was a temple devoted to Tem and Ra, the precise shape and location of which is uncertain.

Today the only standing monument is a large red granite obelisk (above), dedicated by Senusret I and dating back only to the 12th Dynasty. Earlier structures include the Third Dynasty fragmentary shrine of Djoser.These fragments show scenes connected with the celebration of a Sed-festival and/or with the Ennead worshipped there.

Other structures also included part of a 6th Dynasty obelisk of Teti. Several Old Kingdom tombs of high priests dating to the 6th Dynasty have been found southeast of Senusret’s obelisk, near the southeast corner of the enclosure.

A stela of Tuthmosis III from the 18th Dynasty commemorates a wall that encloses the solar temple. Excavations have revealed some Ramesside construction – several temples and a cemetery for the Mnevis bulls discovered northeast of the obelisk and dated to the 19th - 20th Dynasties. The bulls were worshipped as manifestations of the sun-god.

We can envision the main Heliopolitan Temple of Ra based on the 5th Dynasty replicas. It was erected on an artificial mound faced on all four sides with an enclosing wall of limestone. A long causeway topped by a covered corridor led up to the terrace from a large pavilion on the edge of the desert. At its upper end, a gateway opened on to a paved court, 330 feet long and 250 feet broad.

The most recognizable feature is a rectangular podium, with sides sloping inwards and open to the sun, built of limestone on a platform of granite. This was the primordial Ben-Ben mound. Atop the podium probably stood an obelisk also built of limestone blocks and coated in gleaming electrum in the open-air court.

To the east of the obelisk lay a huge alabaster altar, built of one large circular block surrounded by four blocks, one on each side, each of these in the shape of the hieroglyph hetep, meaning "offering".

Near the entrance to the base of the obelisk was a small chapel, with two basins on both sides of its door and two granite stelae. The walls of the chamber were decorated with reliefs showing foundation-ceremonial and feasts in the temple.

Donation lists from the time of Ramesses III indicate that the Temple of Ra at Heliopolis were second only to those of Amun at Thebes. After the end of the New Kingdom, the fortunes of Heliopolis began to decline. The city was largely destroyed during the Persian invasion of 525 and 343 BC, although enough of its structures and reputation remained to attract tourists in Greco-Roman times.

The Temple of Ra held a special place as a depository for royal records, and Herodotus states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in history and astronomy of all the Egyptians. The schools of philosophy and astronomy are claimed to have been frequented by Plato, Solon, Pythagoras, and other Greek philosophers. When Strabo visited the site in the late first century BC, he found it partly abandoned (although some priests still lived there) and by the first century AD, most of the statuary and obelisks had been removed to Alexandria and Rome. The remaining structures then served as a quarry for the building of medieval Cairo.

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