#thmuis

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Falcon pectoral.

Period: Late Period

Date: 664–332 B.C.

Place oforigin: Egypt, Thmuis (Tell el-Timai)

MEDIUM: Yellow faience

[archaeologicalnews]

Ancient Device for Determining Taxes Discovered in Egypt

American and Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a rare structure called a nilometer in the ruins of the ancient city of Thmuis in Egypt’s Delta region. Likely constructed during the third century B.C., the nilometer was used for roughly a thousand years to calculate the water level of the river during the annual flooding of the Nile. Fewer than two dozen of the devices are known to exist.

“Without the river, there was no life in Egypt,” says University of Hawaii archaeologist Jay Silverstein, a member of the team who works at the site where the nilometer was found, near the modern city of El Mansoura. “We suspect it was originally located within a temple complex. They would’ve thought of the Nile River as a god, and the nilometer was this point of interface between the spiritual and the pragmatic.” Read more.

[historymuse]

A 2,300 year old temple has been discovered in Thmuis, Egypt. It was commissioned by Ptolemy II and archaeologists believe it to be for his wife/sister, Arsinoe II after her death.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus was the second of the Greek Pharaohs of Egypt, ruling between 283 BCE and 243 BCE. The Ptolemaic period began in 332 BCE, with Alexander the Great's conquest, and ended in 30 BCE after the Romans took control. Thmuis was one of the cities that thrived in the Ptolemaic period and was a staging ground for the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

For the full story click the link above.