Waset on the Nile was Egypt’s City of Amun for centuries
Thebes—Egyptian Waset—stood about 800 kilometres south of the Mediterranean along the Nile at modern Luxor. Close to Nubia and Eastern Desert mines, it was often Egypt’s most venerated religious city, with Karnak and Luxor temples on the east bank and royal necropolises west.
Thebes lay on the Nile in the middle of Upper Egypt, about 800 kilometres south of the Delta, mostly on alluvial plains where the valley follows a great bend of the river. Around 4,000 years ago the floodplain here widened, adding farmland that likely underpinned the region’s prosperity from the Second Intermediate Period and New Kingdom onward. The city ran north-east to south-west parallel to the river and covered 93 square kilometres, including part of the Theban Hills on the west bank. Neighbouring towns in its province included Per-Hathor, Madu, Djerty, Iuny, Sumenu and Imiotru.
Close to Nubia and the mines of the Eastern Desert, it was for long periods Egypt’s most revered religious city. The Karnak and Luxor temples rose on the east bank, while royal tombs and mortuary temples filled the west, and UNESCO listed the ruins in 1979.
Egyptians called it wꜣs.t, City of the Was sceptre, and by the late New Kingdom njw.t-jmn, City of Amun, chief god of the Theban triad. Because Greeks equated Amun with Zeus, they translated this as Diospolis, City of Zeus, adding Great to distinguish it from many namesakes; such Greek names spread after Alexander’s conquest and the rise of the Ptolemies.
The origin of the name Thebes itself is uncertain. One theory traces it to a Demotic term meaning the temple, referring to Karnak, but Homer already used the name before Demotic script existed. The Iliad calls it Thebes of the Hundred Gates, setting it apart from seven-gated Thebes in Boeotia.
Source: Thebes, Egypt
