Tebtunis

Temple of Sobek in Tebtunis, el-Fayyum, Egypt

Tebtunis was a city and later town in Lower Egypt. The settlement was founded in approximately 1800 BCE by the Twelfth Dynasty king Amenemhat III. It was located in what is now the village of Tell Umm el-Baragat in the Faiyum Governorate. In Tebtunis there were many Greek and Roman buildings. It was a rich town and was a very important regional center during the Ptolemaic period.

It is possible that Tebtunis was identical with a town called Theodosiopolis (from Koinē Greek: Θεοδοσιούπολις Theodosioúpolis), which is only attested since late antiquity.[1]

In Coptic, it became Toutōn (Arabic Tuṯun). In the Middle Ages, Toutōn was a major centre of Coptic manuscript copying. At least thirteen existing manuscripts were copied there between AD 861 and 940.[2] The present village of Tuṯun is located about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Umm el-Baragat.[2]

  1. ^ Hickey, Todd M. (2007). Lippert, Sandra; Schentuleit, Maren (eds.). Down and Out in Late Antique Tebtunis?. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 136–138. ISBN 978-3-447-05782-0.
  2. ^ a b René-Georges Coquin, "Tuṯun", The Coptic Encyclopedia (Macmillan, 1991), 7: 2283a–2283b.