The Decree of Nectanebo I was issued by Pharaoh Nectanebo I of the 30th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. It regards payments to the local temple, and was recorded on two steles.
The location of the temple was near the Canopic branch of the Nile River, in the eastern Nile Delta of Lower Egypt. Accordingly, steles were erected at two locations as statements to curry political favor with the priesthood, and possibly the populace.
The twin steles are identical in 14 columns of hieroglyphs except in column 13, where the stele's location is named. The steles were erected shortly after Nectanebo came to power, ca 380 BC.
The stele's purpose was to use a 10 percent portion of the waterway-use tax (unspecified import tax) for the services of the priests in charge of the temples of the goddess Neith. [1]
A finely engraved lunette adorns the upper third of the steles; the engravings and hieroglyphs are all incised in moderate sunken bas relief. The lunette focusses on two versions of the goddess Neith, being offered a food offering on the right, and a usekh collar on the left, by the presenter Nectanebo.
The first stele, the Stele of Naukratis was uncovered at Naukratis in 1899, and was subsequently translated.
Only recently, its twin stele was recovered from the underwater site of Heracleion, an ancient Egyptian city that was discovered by archaeologists in 2000. Heracleion was also located on the Canopic branch of the Nile.
Herakleion is also mentioned on the steles. [2]
Osiris is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, and holding a symbolic crook and flail. He was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother Set cut him up into pieces after killing him, Osiris' wife Isis found all the pieces and wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life. Osiris was widely worshipped until the decline of ancient Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Egyptology is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the 4th century AD.
Serket is the goddess of healing venomous stings and bites in Egyptian mythology, originally the deification of the scorpion. Her family life is unknown, but she is sometimes credited as the daughter of Neith and Khnum, making her a sister to Sobek and Apep.
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers 240 km (150 mi) of Mediterranean coastline and is a rich agricultural region. From north to south the delta is approximately 160 km (100 mi) in length. The Delta begins slightly down-river from Cairo.
Nectanebo II was the last native ruler of ancient Egypt, as well as the third and last pharaoh of the Thirtieth Dynasty, reigning from 358 to 340 BC.
Naucratis or Naukratis was a city and trading-post in ancient Egypt, located on the Canopic (western-most) branch of the Nile river, south-east of the Mediterranean sea and the city of Alexandria. Naucratis was the first and, for much of its early history, the only permanent Greek settlement in Egypt, serving as a symbiotic nexus for the interchange of Greek and Egyptian art and culture.
Canopus, also known as Canobus, was an ancient Egyptian coastal town, located in the Nile Delta. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria, around 25 kilometers (16 mi) from the center of that city. Canopus was located on the western bank at the mouth of the westernmost branch of the Delta – known as the Canopic or Heracleotic branch. It belonged to the seventh Egyptian Nome, known as Menelaites, and later as Canopites, after it. It was the principal port in Egypt for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria, along with Naucratis and Heracleion. Its ruins lie near the present Egyptian town of Abu Qir.
Qift is a city in the Qena Governorate of Egypt about 43 km (27 mi) north of Luxor, situated a little south of latitude 26° north, on the east bank of the Nile. In ancient times its proximity to the Red Sea made it an important trading emporium between India, Punt, Felix Arabia and the North. It was important for nearby gold and quartzite mines in the Eastern Desert, and as a starting point for expeditions to Punt.
The Abū Qīr Bay is a spacious bay on the Mediterranean Sea near Alexandria in Egypt, lying between the Rosetta mouth of the Nile and the town of Abu Qir. The ancient cities of Canopus, Heracleion and Menouthis lie submerged beneath the waters of the bay. In 1798 it was the site of the Battle of the Nile, a naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the navy of the French First Republic. The bay contains a natural gas field, discovered in the 1970s.
Deshret was the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. When combined with the Hedjet of Upper Egypt, it forms the Pschent, in ancient Egyptian called the sekhemti.
The Decree of Canopus is a trilingual inscription in three scripts, which dates from the Ptolemaic period of ancient Egypt. It was written in three writing systems: Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic, and Koine Greek, on several ancient Egyptian memorial stones, or steles. The inscription is a record of a great assembly of priests held at Canopus, Egypt, on 7 Appellaios (Mac.) = 17 Tybi (Eg.) year 9 of Ptolemy III = Thursday 7 March 238 BC. Their decree honoured Pharaoh Ptolemy III Euergetes; Queen Berenice, his wife; and Princess Berenice.
Nectanebo I was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, founder of the last native dynasty of Egypt, the 30th.
Franck Goddio is a French underwater archaeologist who, in 2000, discovered the city of Thonis-Heracleion 7 km (4.3 mi) off the Egyptian shore in Aboukir Bay. He led the excavation of the submerged site of Canopus and of Antirhodos in the ancient harbour of Alexandria. He has also excavated ships in the waters of the Philippines, significantly the Spanish galleon San Diego.
Heracleion, also known as Thonis and sometimes called Thonis-Heracleion, was an ancient Egyptian port city located near the Canopic Mouth of the Nile, about 32 km (20 mi) northeast of Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea. It became inundated and its remains are located in Abu Qir Bay, currently 7 km (4.3 mi) off the coast, under ca. 19 ft (5.8 m) of water, and near Abukir. The sanctuary of Neith of Sais was located in Thonis. A stele found on the site indicates that late in its history the city was known by both its Egyptian and Greek names.
The ancient Egyptian Mast hieroglyph is one of the oldest language hieroglyphs from Ancient Egypt. It is used on a famous label of Pharaoh Den of the First dynasty, but forms part of the location hieroglyph: Emblem of the East.
Frosting is a decorative effect named after its resemblance to the appearance of frost. It involves making very small marks in a surface so that it appears matt rather than polished, and in glass opaque rather than optically transparent. It is often used for glass for bathrooms and toilets, but may be used on many materials and created by many processes.
The lunette spatial region in the upper portion of stelas, became common for stelas as a prelude to a stele's topic. Its major use was from ancient Egypt in all the various categories of stelas: funerary, Victory stelas, autobiographical, temple, votive, etc.
The ancient Egyptian Branch hieroglyph, also called a Stick, is a member of the trees and plants hieroglyphs.
This page list topics related to ancient Egypt.
The Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the Louvre is a department of the Louvre that is responsible for artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century. The collection, comprising over 50,000 pieces, is among the world's largest, overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods.
M. Lichtheim, "The Naucratis Stela Once Again," in J. H. Johnson and E. F. Wente (eds.), Studies in Honor of George R. Hughes, January 12, 1977 (Chicago 1976), 139-47. http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc39.html
J. Yoyotte, "An Extraordinary Pair of Twins: The Steles of the Pharaoh Nektanebo I," in F. Goddio and M. Clauss (eds.), Egypt's Sunken Treasures (Munich 2006), 316-23.
S. v Bomhard,"The Decree of Saïs. Underwater Archaeology in the Canopic Region in Egypt". Oxford Center for Maritime Archaeology 7, (Oxford 2013).