Hermonthis
HERMONTHIS (Ἕρμωνθις, Steph. B. s. v.; Strab. 17. p. 817; Aristid. Aegyptiae, p. 568; Hermunthis, It. Anton. p. 160; Plin. Nat. 5.9.11; Macrob. Saturn. 1.21), the modern Erment, was the chief town of the Hermonthite nome in the Thebaïd--Thebaïs Superioro f the Itineraries. It stood about eight miles SW. of Thebes, and 24 NE. of Latopolis, in lat. 25° 10′ N. A little above Hermonthis the sandstone rocks which had confined the Nile like a wall disappear, and limestone hills succeed, leaving, especially on the western bank of the river, wider margins of cultivable land. In a plain of this expanding character, and on the left side of the Nile, stood Hermonthis. In the Pharaonic times it was celebrated for the worship of Isis, Osiris, and their son Horus. Its ruins still attest the magnificence of its buildings; but the Iseion, of which the remains are extant, was built in the reign of the last Cleopatra (B.C. 51--29), and the sculptures appear to allude to the birth of Caesarion, her son by Julius Caesar, symbolised as that of the god Harphre, the son of Mandou and Ritho. Its astronomical ceiling is probably genethliacal, referring to the aspect of the heavens at the time of Caesarion's na. tivity. Adjacent to the temple are the vestiges of a tank, which probably served as a Nilometer, since its sides exhibit the grooves usual in such basins. Under the later Caesars, Hermonthis was the headquarters of the Legio IIda Valentiniana. (Champollion, L'Egypte, vol. 1. p. 195.)
[W.B.D](Ἕρμωνθις). The chief town of the Nomos Hermonthitis on the western bank of the Nile in Upper Egypt, near Thebes.
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.
BIBLIOGRAPHYR. 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