THEBES thēbz (LXX, Διὸ̀ς πόλις, for Heb. [נֹ֣א]- אָמֹ֔ון, Nō-(’Amon) from Egyp. Nìwt-(’Imn), City, of Amun). Ancient city in Upper Egypt, modern Luxor, 400 m. upriver (S) from Cairo.

On the E bank, the town focused on the two vast temples of the god Amun at Karnak and Luxor, about 1 3/4 m. apart. On the W bank, Thebes of the dead boasted a row of funerary temples of the kings along the desert edge. Behind these, the tomb chapels of their officials were carved in the rocky hills, whereas the tunnel tombs of the pharaohs and their wives were hidden away in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens behind the western cliffs. The temples and tombs on both banks contain a wealth of inscrs., reliefs, and paintings of the utmost value as background to OT life and times.

Unimportant and little known in the 3rd millennium b.c., prominence came to Thebes when the Theban 11th and 12th dynasties respectively restored the unity and prosperity of Egypt. Later Theban princes expelled the Hyksos; the 18th dynasty founded Egypt’s empire (18th-20th dynasties, c. 1550-1085 b.c.), to which epoch belong most of the greatest and finest Theban monuments. Amun of Thebes was virtually god of Empire, and in his temples were amassed vast riches. In the time of decline in the first millennium b.c., when royal (and real) power lay in the N, Thebes was still a proud religious center until sacked by the Assyrians in 663 b.c.—an event stirring enough for Nahum (3:8) to use as image for Assyria’s impending doom. His watery ramparts are prob. the Delta moats and canals, Egypt’s and Thebes’ first line of defense. Jeremiah in 605 b.c. (46:25) and Ezekiel in 571 b.c. (30:14-16) threatened judgment on Thebes, Amun, and Egypt generally. Thereafter, Thebes gradually sank into insignificance.

Bibliography Topography: E. Otto, Topographie des Thebanischen Gaues (1952), with Nims in JNES, XIV (1955), 110-123; Porter and Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings, 2nd ed., I:1 and 2 (1960/64), and 1st ed., II (1929), for the monuments; C. F. Nims, Thebes of the Pharaohs (1965); M. Noth in D. W. Thomas (ed.), Archaeology and Old Testament Study (1967), 21-35 (on name lists only).