Qift

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Qift (Arabic: قفط; Coptic: Ⲕⲉϥⲧ Keft) is a small town in the Qina governorate of Egypt about 43 km north of Luxor, on the east bank of the Nile.

In ancient times Qift was called Coptos or Gebtu, and was an important center for administration, religion, and commerce, being the chief town of the Nomos of Harawî (Two Hawks). It supported mining in the nearby desert during the First and Second dynasties

Coptos, once politically important, under the eleventh dynasty was overshadowed by Thebes. Its principal god was Min, with an Isis and an Horus infant.

Coptos was at the starting-point of the two great caravan routes leading to the coast of the Red Sea, the one towards the port Tââou (Myoshormos), the other more southerly, towards the port of Shashirît (Berenice). Under the Pharaohs the whole trade of southern Egypt with the Red Sea passed over these two roads; under the Ptolemies, and in Roman and Byzantine times, merchants followed the same roads for purposes of barter with the coasts of Zanzibar, Southern Arabia, India, and the Far East.

Coptos was most prosperous under the Antonines; it was the basecamp of Legio III Cyrenaica, or at least one of is subunits. It rebelled, but soon captured in 292 by Diocletian after a long siege and almost destroyed, but soon recovered its former standing. In the 6th century it was called Justinianopolis.

The see was suffragan of Ptolemais in Thebais Secunda. Five bishops are known (Lequien, II, 607): Theodorus, a partisan of Meletius; Phoebammon in 431; Sabinus in 451; Vincent, author of the "Canonical Solutions", preserved in an Arabic translation and highly esteemed by the Copts; Moyses, who wrote the panegyric of Vincent. Under the caliphs and the sultans Koptos remained one of the chief cities of Said. In 1176 its Christian inhabitants raised the standard of revolt against the Mussulmans, but were promptly suppressed by El Adel, brother of Saleh ed-Din (Saladin), who hanged nearly 3000 on the trees around the city. In the 13th century there were still in this region numerous monasteries. Coptos was ruined in the 16th century by the Turkish conquest.

Coptos was the focus of an Australian archeological project between 2000 and 2003.