Thebes

Thebes may refer to one of the following places:

See also

Thebes, Greece

Thebes (/ˈθiːbz/; Ancient Greek: Θῆβαι, Thēbai, Greek pronunciation: [tʰɛ̂ːbai̯];Modern Greek: Θήβα, Thíva [ˈθiva]) is a city in Boeotia, central Greece. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others. Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed a Mycenaean settlement and clay tablets written in the Linear B script, indicating the importance of the site in the Bronze Age.

Thebes was the largest city of the ancient region of Boeotia and was the leader of the Boeotian confederacy. It was a major rival of ancient Athens, and sided with the Persians during the 480 BC invasion under Xerxes. Theban forces ended the power of Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC under the command of Epaminondas. The Sacred Band of Thebes (an elite military unit) famously fell at the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC against Philip II and Alexander the Great. Prior to its destruction by Alexander in 335 BC, Thebes was a major force in Greek history, and was the most dominant city-state at the time of the Macedonian conquest of Greece. During the Byzantine period, the city was famous for its silks.

Thebes, Egypt

Thebes (Ancient Greek: Θῆβαι, Thēbai), known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, was an ancient Egyptian city located east of the Nile about 800 kilometers (500 mi) south of the Mediterranean. Its ruins lie within the modern Egyptian city of Luxor. Thebes was the main city of the fourth Upper Egyptian nome (Sceptre nome). It was close to Nubia and the eastern desert, with their valuable mineral resources and trade routes. It was a cult center and the wealthiest city of ancient Egypt at its heyday. The site of Thebes includes areas on both the eastern bank of the Nile, where the temples of Karnak and Luxor stand and the city proper situated; and the western bank, where a necropolis of large private and royal cemeteries and funerary complexes can be found.

Toponymy

The Ancient Egyptians originally knew Thebes as Waset (wꜣs.t), the "City of the Was". A was was the scepter of the pharaohs, a long staff with an animal's head and a forked base.

Thebes is the Latinized form of the Greek Thebai, the hellenized form of the Demotic Egyptian Ta-pe. This was the local name not for the city itself but for the Karnak temple complex beside the necropolis on the west bank of the river. (Ta-opet in formal Egyptian.) As early as Homer's Iliad, the Greeks distinguished the Egyptian Thebes as Thebes of the Hundred Gates, (Θῆβαι ἑκατόμπυλοι, Thēbai hekatómpyloi) as opposed to the "Thebes of the Seven Gates" (Θῆβαι ἑπτάπυλοι, Thēbai heptapyloi) in Boeotia, Greece.