Buto

Buto

Βουτώ
View of Buto
Shown within Egypt
Alternative name	Per-Wadjet Butus Tell El Fara'in
Location	Kafr El Sheikh, Egypt
Region	Lower Egypt
Coordinates	31°11′47″N 30°44′41″E / 31.19639°N 30.74472°E / 31.19639; 30.74472Coordinates: 31°11′47″N 30°44′41″E / 31.19639°N 30.74472°E / 31.19639; 30.74472
Type	Settlement
Site notes
Condition	In ruins

Buto (Ancient Greek: Βουτώ, Arabic: بوتو‎, Butu),^[1] Butus (Ancient Greek: Βοῦτος, Boutos)^[2] or Butosus was a city that the Ancient Egyptians called Per-Wadjet. It was located 95 km east of Alexandria in the Nile Delta of Egypt. What in classical times the Greeks called Buto, stood about midway between the Taly (Bolbitine) and Thermuthiac (Sebennytic) branches of the Nile, a few kilometers north of the east-west Butic River and on the southern shore of the Butic Lake (Greek: Βουτικὴ λίμνη, Boutikē limnē).^[3][4]

Today, it is called Tell El Fara'in ("Hill of the Pharaohs"), near the villages of Ibtu (or Abtu) and Kom Butu and the city of Desouk (Arabic: دسوق‎).^[5]

History[]

In the earliest records about the region, it contained two cities, Pe and Dep.^[6] Eventually, they merged into one city that the Ancient Egyptians named Per-Wadjet.^[7]

The goddess Wadjet, often represented as a cobra, was the patron deity of Lower Egypt and her oracle was located in her renowned temple in this area. An annual festival was held there that celebrated Wadjet. The area also contained sanctuaries of Horus and Bast, and much later, the city became associated with Isis.

This delta region was an important site during prehistoric Egypt. It is the site of the cultural developments of ten thousand years, from the Paleolithic to 3100 BC. Archaeological evidence shows that Upper Egyptian culture replaced the earlier culture at the delta when Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt were unified. The replacement is considered important evidence for the unification of the two portions of Ancient Egypt into one entity.

At that time many deities with parallel identities and roles, but different names in the two earlier cultures, were merged into a unified pantheon of deities because of the great similarities. That was not the case with their patron deities, however. The patron deity of Lower Egypt, Wadjet, was represented as a cobra. The patron deity of Upper Egypt, Nekhbet, was represented as a white vulture. Their separate cultural statures were such important features that they never were merged when the two cultures unified into one, as were so many deities with similar roles or natures from religious beliefs of the two unified regions. The two goddesses became known euphemistically as the 'Two Ladies',^[8] who together, remained the patrons of unified Egypt throughout the remainder of its ancient history. The image of Nekhbet joined Wadjet on the Uraeus that would encircle the crown of the kings who ruled Ancient Egypt thereafter.

During foreign occupation of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Kingdom, a dynasty that ruled from 305 to 30 BC, the classical Greeks coined the toponym Buto for the city. It served as the capital, or according to Herodian, merely the principal village of the Nile Delta. Herodotus styled it the Chemmite nome,^[2] Ptolemy knew it as the Phthenothite nome (Φθενότης),^[9] and Pliny the Elder as Ptenetha.^[10]

Greek historians recorded that Buto was celebrated for its monolithite temple and the oracle of the goddess Wadjet (Buto),^[11][12] and that a yearly festival was held there in honour of the goddess. While writing about Egyptian culture, the classical Greeks attempted to associate the more ancient Egyptian deities with their own. They wrote about them as essentially the same deities, but with different names in the Greek culture. For Wadjet the parallel identification was made with the Greek Leto or Latona. They also noted that at Buto there was a sanctuary of Horus (whom the ancient Greeks associated with Apollo) and a sanctuary of Bast (whom the Greeks associated with Artemis).^[13]

Writing during that Graeco-Roman period, Plutarch reported that Isis had entrusted the baby Horus to "Leto" (Wadjet) to raise at Buto while Isis searched for the body of her murdered husband Osiris.^[14] According to these same late sources, the shrew (sometimes associated with Horus) was worshiped at Buto as well.^[15]

A palace building dating to the Second Dynasty is considered the most important of discovery at Buto.^[16] Archaeological excavations were undertaken at Buto by the Egypt Exploration Society from 1964–1969, under the direction of Veronica Seton-Williams^[17] and later, by Dorothy Charlesworth.^[18] The German Archaeological Institute, Cairo has been excavating at Buto since the early 1980s. Six Greek bathhouses also were excavated by different missions in Buto.^[19]

See also[]

• List of ancient Egyptian towns and cities
• Diocese of Buto for ecclesiastical history and current titular sees
• Kafr El Sheikh Governorate
• Sais, Egypt

References[]

External links[]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Butos". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
• Media related to Buto at Wikimedia Commons