In a breakthrough find, an Egyptian archaeological team has unearthed a previously unknown and intact copy of the Canopus Decree, which dates back to 238 BCE. The stela was discovered at the Tell El-Fara’in site, in the city of El-Husseiniya, in the Sharqia Governorate, in the eastern Nile Delta, a place long renowned for its rich heritage. This find is the first full copy of the decree to be discovered in more than 150 years.
Complete copy of the Canopus Decree unearthed in Egypt after 150 years. Courtesy of Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
The Canopus Decree was originally proclaimed by King Ptolemy III Euergetes at a gathering of high priests in the ancient city of Canopus, which lies to the east of modern-day Alexandria. It was published to honor the king, his wife Berenice II, and their daughter, and to celebrate their political achievements and religious activities. Copies of the decree were to be distributed to significant temples all over Egypt.
Prior to this, archaeologists had found only six full or partial copies from sites like Kom El-Hisn, San El-Hagar, and Tell Basta. Unlike these earlier trilingual stelae in hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Greek scripts, the new stela is inscribed entirely in hieroglyphs, which gives scholars a unique opportunity to study Ptolemaic language, religious practice, and administration from a purely Egyptian perspective.
The stela, carved from sandstone, stands 127.5 cm high, 83 cm wide, and approximately 48 cm thick. Its rounded top is adorned with a winged solar disk with two uraei, or royal cobras, bearing the White and Red Crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. In the interval between the cobras, “Di Ankh”—”He who gives life”—is inscribed. Below it, 30 lines of hieroglyphic text detail the royal edict. While the craftsmanship is moderate in quality, the inscriptions are legible, providing invaluable source material for historians and linguists.
The Decree of Canopus, on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt. CC BY-SA 4.0
The decree itself bears witness to the scope of Ptolemaic governance and religious policy. It documents royal donations to temples, tax remissions in times of low Nile inundations, and the enforcement of a leap-year system, inserting an additional day into the calendar every four years to align the calendar with religious observances. The text also establishes a new priestly тιтle in honor of the royal family, prescribes a religious festival based on the heliacal rising of the star Sirius, and deifies the king, the queen, and their daughter. All these illustrate a deep entanglement of religious devotion, administrative rule, and royal ideology.
Tell El-Fara’in, anciently known as Imet, was an essential city during the Middle Kingdom and remained so during the Ptolemies. Past excavations at the site revealed monumental temples and elite residences, including a temple dedicated to Wadjet, the goddess and protector of Lower Egypt. Archaeologists note that the discovery of the Canopus Decree here enhances the site’s continued importance and the Nile Delta’s status as a focal point of political and religious life.
The discovery not only contributes to the rare corpus of Canopus Decree copies but also offers scholars an unprecedented window through which to observe the interaction of language, religion, and government during one of Egypt’s most cosmopolitan and complex eras.
More information: Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
