White Wall

English

Etymology

Calque of Ancient Greek Λευκὸν τεῖχος (Leukòn teîkhos), itself calqued from Egyptian jnb-ḥḏ. Some of the modern uses are likely to be directly calqued from Egyptian.

Proper noun

White Wall

1. (rare) Memphis, Egypt or its central fortress
   • 1735, Charles Rollin, The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians, and Grecians, volume III, pages 250–251:

     Thoſe who eſcaped fled to Memphis, whither the conquerors purſued them, and immediately made themſelves maſters of two quarters or diviſions of the city: but the Perſians having fortified themſelves in the third, called the white wall, which was the largeſt and the ſtrongest of the three; they were beſeiged in it near three years, during which they made a moſt vigorous defence, till they were at laſt delivered by the forces that were ſent to their ſuccour.

   • 1907, Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, transl., The Egyptian Sûdân: Its History and Monuments, volume 2, page 19:

     I will make an offering unto Ptaḥ and the gods who are within White Wall, I will perform all the ceremonies appertaining to Seker in the secret sanctuary, I will look upon the god who is on his southern wall (i.e. Ptaḥ), and then I will sail on down the river in peace.

   • 1976, Miriam Lichtheim, transl., Ancient Egyptian Literature, volume II: The New Kingdom, University of California Press, page 81:

     Lord of remembrance in the Hall of Justice,
     Secret ba of the lord of the cavern,
     Holy in White-Wall,
     Ba of Re, his very body.

   • 2000, Jaromir Malek, “The Old Kingdom”, in Ian Shaw, editor, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, pages 83 and 104:

     For the Egyptians even more important was the fact that the place of the royal residence did not change, but remained at White Wall (Ineb-hedj), on the west bank of the Nile south of modern Cairo. […] The original capital at White Wall, founded at the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, was probably gradually replaced in importance by the more populated suburbs further to the south, approximately to the east of Teti’s pyramid.

   • 2012, Miroslav Verner, translated by Anna Bryson-Gustová, Temple of the World: Sanctuaries, Cults, and Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, page 93:

     The First Dynasty kings, however, continued to be buried in the south, in the cemetery of their forefathers of Dynasty Zero at Umm al-Ga‘ab by Abydos, close to the town of Tjeny (called Thinis or This in Greek)—likewise not yet reliably located archaeologically—which in the Early Dynastic Period still served as the capital of the country alongside the White Wall.