THEBES. - City of ancient Egypt called Θῶσι by the Greeks; its Egyptian name is Wóse and later Nī'e "the city" par excellence; in Hebrew N' is badly vocalized as Nō'; the versions often confuse it with "Alexandria" (cf. St. Jerome: PG 25, 289).

It was the capital of Egypt under the XI dynasty and for long subsequent periods, so that the kings adorned it with sumptuous buildings, whose ruins still form (at Luxor and Karnak) the wonder of visitors, and they extended its circuit until it became one of the largest cities of the ancient world. After the XXII dynasty T. became the holy city of Egypt. During the struggle between the Ethiopian king Tantamani (663-656) and Ashurbanipal it suffered very great damage; the prophet Nahum recalls this (3, 8-10), alluding to it while preaching the imminent ruin of Nineveh. The prophets Jeremiah (46, 25) and Ezekiel (29, 10) prophesy the defeat of Necho in 605.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: A. Blackman, Luxor and its temples, London 1923; J. Capart, Thèbes: la glorie d'un grand passé, Brussels 1928; G. Legrain, Les temples de Karnak, ibid. 1929; M. Pillet, Thébes, Karnak et Lousor, Paris 1930; id., Thébes, palais et néeropole, ibid. 1930.

Aristide Calderini

@incollection{ec11_tebe, author = {Calderini, Aristide}, title = {Tebe}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {1854--1855}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/tebe} }

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Thebes

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