Introducing Hermopolis Magna 2.0, a user-friendly learning platform showcasing an ancient metropolis in Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman, and Arab Egypt. The platform features interactive maps and timelines of Hermopolis Magna, allowing users to explore people, places, objects, and historical events in a clear chronological and spatial context. The content is organized into four main modules: texts, places, people, and history, providing a comprehensive view of the site and its broader contexts. This multimedia and multimodal web environment intentionally goes beyond the limitations of printed representations. By interconnecting historical events, monuments, archaeological objects, and textual sources, it provides students with a direct understanding of the foundations upon which our reconstructions of historical events and cultural-historical developments rest.
Hermopolis Magna, located in Middle Egypt, is an ideal fit for this platform, offering a historical journey from the beginnings of Pharaonic civilization to the present day. Over the centuries, the city evolved into the capital of the 15th Upper Egyptian district and remained a central reference point for the region. The multitude of sources accessible at this location serves as a unique laboratory for various disciplines in ancient studies, including Egyptology, Coptology, ancient history, papyrology, classical archaeology, and historical building research. Such a concentration of diverse sources is rarely found in a single place and provides an invaluable resource for understanding historical examples in a comprehensive manner.
The idea for this project arises precisely from this diversity of sources and is based on the long-term research conducted by the Institutes of Egyptology and Coptology, as well as Ancient History at LMU in Hermopolis Magna. This includes participation in the collaborative research project “Kosmogonie und Theologie von Hermopolis Magna” funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from 2015 to 2020 (LMU Munich, Roemer-Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, and Cairo University). The project, led by PD Dr. Alexander Free (Ancient History) and Dr. Alexander Schütze (Egyptology), is supported by LMU’s Fund for the Promotion of Teaching from 2022 to 2024. The contributions gathered on this platform were not only prepared by researchers but also by students participating in an interdisciplinary seminar that took place at LMU during the winter semester of 2023/24.