Canopus (Egypt)

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 village of Abu Qir.

The settlement's Egyptian name was Peguat or Pikuat. The Greeks called it Canopus (Κάνωπος, Kánōpos) after a legendary commander of the era of the Trojan War supposedly buried there. The English form of the name derives from the Latinized form used under Roman rule.

Canopus was the site of a temple to the Egyptian god Serapis.

The name of Canopus appears in the first half of the 6th century BC in a poem by Solon. Early Egyptological excavations some 2 or 3 km from the area known today as Abu Qir have revealed extensive traces of the city with its quays, and granite monuments with the name of Ramesses II, but they may have been brought in for the adornment of the place at a later date. The exact date of the foundation of Canopus is unknown, but Herodotus refers to it as an ancient port. Homeric myth claims that it was founded by Menelaus, and named after Canopus, the pilot of his ship, who died there after being bitten by a serpent. Legend describes how Menelaus built a monument to his memory on the shore, around which the town later grew up. The real origin of the name Canopus is said to be Ancient Egyptian Kah Nub ("golden floor"), referring likely to the profits made by merchants trading through the port. There is unlikely to be any connection with "". A temple to Osiris was built by Pharaoh Ptolemy The Good (the third ruler of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty), but, according to Herodotus, very near to Canopus was an older shrine, a temple of Heracles that served as an asylum for fugitive slaves. Osiris was worshipped at Canopus under a peculiar form: that of a vase with a human head. Through an old misunderstanding, the name "canopic jars" was applied by early Egyptologists to the vases with human and animal heads in which the internal organs were placed by the Egyptians after embalming.

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