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This is the continuation of Part
III in this series examining minor ruins of temples and
other monuments in the Nile Delta. Part IV is the final in
this series, and covers Tell el-Retaba, Saft el-Hinna, Samannud
(Sebennytos) and Tell el-Yahudiya. For information on Abusir
(in the Delta), Tell Atrib (Arhribis), Ausim (Letopolis),
Behbeit el-Hagar, and Tell el-Dab'a, as well as a listing of
the major ruins in the Nile Delta, please see Minor Temple and
Other Ruins of the Nile Delta, Part I. For information on Ezbet
Rushdi, Tell Far'un
(Tell Fara'un), Kom el-Hisn (ancient Imu), Kom Abu Billo
(known to the Greeks as Terenuthis) and Tell el-Maskhuta near
Ismaliya,
please see Part
II of the series. For information on Tell el-Muqdam,
Tell el-Qirqafa and Tell el-Rub'a, see Part
III of this series.
Tell el-Retaba
Tell el-Retaba is the site of a fortified military fortress
used to guard the Wadi Tumilat approach to the Delta during
Ramessid times. It is located about 14 kilometers (8.75 miles)
west of Tell
el-Maskhuta in the Nile Delta. Along with the
fortification, there is also a temple of Atum that also dated
from the Ramessid period.
Saft el-Hinna (Saft el-Henna)
  Right:
Headless statue of Nactanebo I; Left: A bronze statue of
the God Sopdu
Just to the southeast of the modern city of Zagazig
in the Nile Delta is the site of an ancient provincial capital
named Per-Sopdu (The House of Sopdu). Sopdu, sometimes
referred to as Sopedu, Soped, or Sopedu-Horus, was a falcon
style god who came to be very revered in the eastern region as
a warrior god and protector of the eastern frontier. He was
often represented either as a crouching falcon or as a bearded
man wearing a Shesmet girdle and a headdress of two falcon
feathers, often carrying a scepter, a battle-axe and an Ankh
sign. Here, in 1885, Edouard
Naville discovered the enclosure walls of a temple
dedicated to that god, measuring 75 x 40 meters (246 x 131
ft). Inside the enclosure wall he discovered a Late Period
granite naos of Sopdu built by Nactanebo
I. Little of the artifacts discovered in the area predate
the reign of Ramesses
II.
Samannud (Sebennytos)
 Located
on the Damietta branch of the Nile in the Egyptian Delta, the
modern town of Samannud, a cotton marketing center, is just
east of el-Mahalla el-Kubra, and is the site of ancient
Tjebnutjer (coptic Djebenoute or Djemnouti), which the Greeks
called Sebennytos. It was the capital of Egypt's 12th Lower
nome. Manetho, perhaps the greatest of the native Egyptian
historians, was from this region, and claims that Tjebnutjer
was the home of the 30th
Dynasty kings. There are remains, though mostly only a
mound, of a temple dedicated to the local god, Onuris-Shu
(Anhur-Shu)
who was a hunter and sky-god. It was probably at this temple
that Manetho served as a priest. It is located on the western
side of the modern town. There are scattered granite
blocks from the site inscribed with the names of Nectanebo
II,
Alexander IV, Philip Arrhidaeus and Ptolemy
II, with none of the inscriptions appearing to predate the
30th Dynasty. Some items found here are said to have come from
neighboring towns, including an Old Kingdom false door, an
altar of Amenemhet
I, a statue dated to Psammetichus
I, a fragment of a shrine of Nepherites and a sculpture
dating to the reign of Nactanebo
I.
Offer bearers from Nectanebo II present
gifts to Onuris-Shu
From the Temple at Sebenmytos
It should also be noted that today, the area is well known
as a part of the route of the Holy Family when they were in
Egypt.
Tell el-Yahudiya (Leontopolis)
 Tell
el-Yahudiya, also known as "Mound of the Jews, is located
only about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) northeast of Cairo
on the Ismailiya
road. This is the site of ancient Nay-ta-hut, which dates from
at least as early as the Middle Kingdom. Here we find a huge earthen
enclosure wall measuring some 515 x 490 meters (1,689 x 1607
ft), that was excavated by Petrie
between about 1905 and 1906. This structure that dates from
either the Middle Kingdom or the Second
Intermediate Period is traditionally thought to be a
military enclosure, but could possibly have had a religious
purpose, or served as a perimeter wall for both military and
religious structures. There are no other good Egyptian parallels
for such a massive defensive enclosure wall such as this. The
walls are plastered over and have sloping outside facades and
that are almost vertical on the interior.
 In
the western part of the enclosure wall there was a temple
and/or palace of Ramesses
III, and colossal statues of Ramesses
II found in the northern part of the enclosure suggest
that ruler may also have had a cult temple here. In the
structure associated with Ramesses III, early scholars
discovered enameled tiles imprinted on their back side with
Greek letters, with some also bearing the name of Ramesses
III. They were decorated with rosettes, rekhyt birds symbolic
of the king's subjects, and foreign captives.
Right: a Polychrome faience tile with a depiction of a
captive Libyan, one of the traditional enemies of Egypt.
This site is especially noted for a type of pottery dating
to the Hyksos period and the Middle Kingdom. It is
characterized by a type of juglet, named after the site, and
found as far away as Syprus, Syria/Palestine and in the
ancient Nubian towns of Buhen and Aniba. Known as Tell
el-Yahudiya ware, the juglets were made in a distinctive black
fired material which was often decorated with incised zigzag
designs filled with white pigment.
Outside the enclosure wall to the northeast are also the
remains of a temple that Ptolemy
VI allowed Onias, an exiled Jewish priest, to build. Here,
Onias established a small Jewish settlement that flourished
between the early 2nd Century BC and the 1st Century AD.
Vespasian had the temple enclosed when, in 71 AD, the Jews in
Jerusalem rebelled.
References:
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