Portal:Ancient Egypt/Selected article/3



Thinis or This (Egyptian: Tjenu) was a city, as yet undiscovered, which the classical historian Manetho cites as the centre of the Thinite Confederacy, a tribal confederation whose leader, Menes (or Narmer), united Egypt and was its first pharaoh, and as the capital of the first dynasties of ancient Egypt. The precise location of Thinis is unknown, although mainstream Egyptological consensus places it in the vicinity of ancient Abydos and modern Girga.

Other proprosals for Thinis' location have lost favour at the expense of the Girga-Birba theory: Auguste Mariette, founder director of the Egyptian Museum, suggested Kom el-Sultan; A. Schmidt, El-Kherbeh; and Heinrich Karl Brugsch, Johannes Dümichen and others supported El-Tineh, near Berdis. Mainstream Egyptological consensus continues to locate Thinis at or near to either Girga or El-Birba, where an inscribed statue fragment mentioning Thinis is said to have been found. Although the archaeological site of Thinis has never been located, evidence of population concentration in the Abydos-Thinis region dates from the fourth millennium BCE. Thinis is also cited as the earliest royal burial-site in Egypt.

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