Thmuis


Thmuis, modern Tell et-Timai was a city in Lower Egypt, located on the canal east of the Nile, between its Tanitic and Mendesian branches. Its ruins are near the modern city of Timayy al-Imdid.

Geography

Its ruins are at Tell El-Timai, about five miles north-west of Sinbellawein, a station on the railway from Zagazig to Mansourah in the central Delta.

History

Ptolemaic period

During the Ptolemaic period, Thmuis succeeded Djedet as the capital of Lower Egypt's 16th nome of Kha. The two cities are only several hundred meters apart. Ptolemy also states that the city was the capital of the Mendesian nome. From the Ptolemaic-Roman period are preserved the foundations of a temple.
Excavations uncovered deposits from a Hellenistic-era mud-brick building that was destroyed after 204 BC, as indicated by a coin cache of 13 bronze coins from the reigns of Ptolemy II, Ptolemy III, and Ptolemy IV. Evidence of burning on floors and vessels indicates that the building was destroyed in a fire. A second phase of the building continued in use after the destruction, before being destroyed by fire in the 1st century BC.
Excavations at the site also uncovered a midden containing remains of more than 70 ceramic bread molds. They were found adjacent to a large circular bread oven built into a mud-brick platform. They belong to an Egyptian type used since the Second Intermediate Period.

Roman period

Thmuis was an episcopal see in the Roman province of Augustamnica Prima, suffragan of Pelusium. Today it is part of the Coptic Holy Metropolitanate of Beheira, Mariout, Marsa Matruh, Libya and Pentapolis.
In the fourth century it was still an important Roman city, having its own administration and being exempt from the jurisdiction of the Prefect of Alexandria.

Islamic period

The site was in existence at the time of the Muslim invasion of Egypt in 642 AD, and was later called Al-Mourad or "Al-Mouradeh"; it must have disappeared after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt.

Bishopric

Le Quien names nine bishops of Thmuis, the last three being Monophysites of the Middle Ages. The others are: