thumb|Map of ancient Lower Egypt showing Tanis

Tanis ( ; ; ) or San al-Hagar (; ; ; or or ; ) is the Greek name for ancient Egyptian ḏꜥn.t, an important archaeological site in the northeastern Nile Delta of Egypt, and the location of a city of the same name. Tanis was the capital of the Egyptian Kingdom in its 21st and 22nd Dynasties. It is located on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, which has long since silted up.

History

Tanis is unattested before the 19th Dynasty of Egypt, when it was the capital of the 14th nome of Lower Egypt. A temple inscription datable to the reign of Ramesses II mentions a "Field of Tanis", while the city in se is securely attested in two 20th Dynasty documents: the Onomasticon of Amenope and the Story of Wenamun, as the home place of the pharaoh-to-be Smendes.

The earliest known Tanite buildings are datable to the 21st Dynasty. Although some monuments found at Tanis are datable earlier than the 21st Dynasty, most of these were in fact brought there from nearby cities, mainly from the previous capital of Pi-Ramesses, for reuse. Indeed, at the end of the New Kingdom the royal residence of Pi-Ramesses was abandoned because the Pelusiac branch of the Nile in the Delta became silted up and its harbour consequently became unusable. A remarkable achievement of these kings was the building and subsequent expansions of the Great temple of Amun-Ra at Tanis (at the time, Amun-Ra replaced Seth as the main deity of the eastern Delta), while minor temples were dedicated to Mut and Khonsu whom, along with Amun-Ra, formed the Theban Triad.

By the time of John of Nikiû in the 7th century, Tanis appears to have already declined significantly, as it was grouped together with four other towns under a single prefect.

Benjamin of Tudela reported that Cairo had 40 Jews in 1170.

The 1885 Census of Egypt recorded San el-Hagar as a nahiyah in the district of Arine in Sharqia Governorate; at that time, the population of the city was 1,569 (794 men and 775 women).

Studies and excavations

thumb|The first map of Tanis as drawn by Jacotin in [[Description de l'Égypte]]

The first study of Tanis dates to 1798 during the French invasion of Egypt and Syria. Pierre Jacotin, a French engineer, drew up a map of the site in the Description de l'Égypte. It was first excavated in 1825 by Jean-Jacques Rifaud, who discovered the two pink granite sphinxes now in the Musée du Louvre. He was followed by François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette who excavated between 1860 and 1864. William Matthew Flinders Petrie oversaw excavation from 1883 to 1886. The work was taken over by Pierre Montet from 1929 to 1956, who discovered the royal necropolis dating to the Third Intermediate Period in 1939. The Mission française des fouilles de Tanis (MFFT) has been studying the site since 1965 under the direction of Jean Yoyotte and Philippe Brissaud, and François Leclère since 2013.

There has been much debate over whether or not Tanis could be the biblical city of Zoan in which the Hebrews would have suffered pharaonic slavery. Pierre Montet, in inaugurating his great excavation campaigns in the 1930s, began from the same premise. He was hoping to discover traces that would confirm the accounts of the Old Testament. His own excavations gradually overturned this hypothesis, even if he was defending this biblical connection until the end of his life. It was not until the discovery of Qantir/Pi-Ramesses and the resumption of excavations under Jean Yoyotte that the place of Tanis was finally restored in the long chronology of the sites of the delta.

Ruins

Though Tanis was briefly explored in the early 19th century, the first large-scale archaeological excavations there were made by Auguste Mariette in the 1860s. In 1866, Karl Richard Lepsius discovered a copy of the Canopus Decree, an inscription in both Greek and Egyptian, at Tanis. Unlike the Rosetta Stone, discovered 67 years earlier, this inscription included a full hieroglyphic text, thus allowing a direct comparison of the Greek text to the hieroglyphs and confirming the accuracy of Jean-François Champollion's approach to deciphering hieroglyphs.

During the subsequent century the French carried out several excavation campaigns directed by Pierre Montet, then by Jean Yoyotte and subsequently by Philippe Brissaud.

Today, the main parts of the temple dedicated to Amun-Ra can still be distinguished by the presence of large obelisks that marked the various pylons as in other Egyptian temples. Now fallen to the ground and lying in a single direction, they may have been knocked down by a violent earthquake during the Byzantine era. They form one of the most notable aspects of the Tanis site. Archaeologists have counted more than twenty.

The chief deities of Tanis were Amun; his consort, Mut; and their child Khonsu, forming the Tanite triad. This triad was, however, identical to that of Thebes, leading many scholars to speak of Tanis as the northern Thebes.

In 2009, the Egyptian Culture Ministry reported archaeologists had discovered a sacred lake in the temple of Mut at Tanis. The lake, built out of limestone blocks, had been 15 meters long and 5 meters deep. It was discovered 12 meters below ground in good condition. The lake could have been built during the late 25th–early 26th Dynasty.

In 2011, analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery, led by archaeologist Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, found numerous related mud-brick walls, streets, and large residences, amounting to an entire city plan, in an area that appears blank under normal images. A French archeological team selected a site from the imagery and confirmed mud-brick structures approximately 30 cm below the surface. However, the assertion that the technology showed 17 pyramids was denounced as "completely wrong" by the Minister of State for Antiquities at the time, Zahi Hawass.

In November 2025, a French archaeological mission from Sorbonne University discovered 225 ushabti figurines, believed to belong to Shoshenq III of the 22nd Dynasty. The figurines were found in well-preserved condition inside the northern chamber of the tomb attributed to Osorkon II, lying near an uninscribed granite sarcophagus whose ownership has long been debated.

Notable finds and artifacts

In Montet's and other later archaeologists's excavations of Tanis, many important and unique artifacts were found. When the sealed tombs of kings Psusennes I, Amenemope, and Shoshenq II, were opened by Montet, all three were discovered with their tombs completely intact with all of the original funerary offerings. All three kings were still adorned with their golden and gilded funerary masks - a rarity.

Another artifact is the Pectoral of King Amenemope, a piece of jewelry he would have worn hung around his neck on his chest. The icon depicts the godesses Isis and Nephthys holding a lapis lazuli scarab with the cartouche of Amenemope.

Cultural references

The Biblical story of Moses being found in the marshes of the Nile River (Book of Exodus, ) is often set at Tanis, which is often identified with Zoan ( Ṣōʕan).

In the 1981 Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tanis is fictitiously portrayed as a lost city which was buried in antiquity by a massive sandstorm, before being rediscovered by a Nazi expedition looking for the Ark of the Covenant.

The Tanis fossil site, which may preserve unique remains from the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, is named after the city. The paleontologist Robert de Palma chose the name based on the significance of Tanis in the decipherment of hieroglyphs, as well as its role in Raiders of the Lost Ark as the hiding place of the Ark of the Covenant.

<gallery>

File:General Wendjebauendjed mask.jpg|Wendjebauendjed's funerary mask

File:General Wendjebauendjed's cups from Tanis by John Campana.jpg|Wendjebauendjed's cups from Tanis

File:Osorkon IIa.jpg|Pharaoh Osorkon II's tomb at Tanis

File:Psusennes I's Funerary Mask in 2012 (gold).jpg|The gold funerary mask of Psusennes I

File:Mask of Amenemope1.jpg|The funerary mask of king Amenemope

File:Jewellry of Psusennes I by John Campana.jpg|The Gold and lapis lazuli collar of Psusennes I

File:Pectoral of Pharaoh Amenemope.jpg|King Amenemope's funerary pectoral

File:Sarcophagus_Lid_of_Hornakht_2a.jpg|The Sarcophagus Lid of Hornakht son of king Osorkon II

File:Masque en or de Sheshonq II (la Villette, 2023).jpg|King Shoshenq II's gold mask

File:Gold Pectoral of king Amenemope.jpg|King Amenemope's gold pectoral

</gallery>

See also

  • List of ancient Egyptian towns and cities
  • List of ancient Egyptian sites, including sites of temples
  • List of historical capitals of Egypt

Notes

References

Bibliography

  • Association française d’Action artistique. 1987. Tanis: L’Or des pharaons. (Paris): Ministère des Affaires Étrangères and Association française d’Action artistique.
  • Brissaud, Phillipe. 1996. "Tanis: The Golden Cemetery". In Royal Cities of the Biblical World, edited by Joan Goodnick Westenholz. Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum. 110&ndash;149.
  • Kitchen, Kenneth Anderson. [1996]. The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100&ndash;650 BC). 3rd ed. Warminster: Aris & Phillips Limited.
  • Loth, Marc, 2014. "Tanis – 'Thebes of the North’“. In "Egyptian Antiquities from the Eastern Nile Delta", Museums in the Nile Delta, Vol. 2, ser. ed. by Mohamed I. Bakr, Helmut Brandl, and Faye Kalloniatis. Cairo/Berlin: Opaion.
  • Montet, Jean Pierre Marie. 1947. La nécropole royale de Tanis. Volume 1: Les constructions et le tombeau d’Osorkon II à Tanis. Fouilles de Tanis, ser. ed. Jean Pierre Marie Montet. Paris: .
  • &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;. 1951. La nécropole royale de Tanis. Volume 2: Les constructions et le tombeau de Psousennès à Tanis. Fouilles de Tanis, ser. ed. Jean Pierre Marie Montet. Paris: .
  • &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;. 1960. La nécropole royale de Tanis. Volume 3: Les constructions et le tombeau de Chechanq III à Tanis. Fouilles de Tanis, ser. ed. Jean Pierre Marie Montet. Paris.
  • Stierlin, Henri, and Christiane Ziegler. 1987. Tanis: Trésors des Pharaons. (Fribourg): Seuil.
  • Yoyotte, Jean. 1999. "The Treasures of Tanis". In The Treasures of the Egyptian Museum, edited by Francesco Tiradritti. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. 302&ndash;333.
  • Archaeology Magazine article on Treasures of Tanis
  • Tanis in Encyclopaedia of the Orient
  • Travel information for Tanis