A nome (/noʊm/,[1] from Ancient Greek: νομός, nomós, "district") was a territorial division in ancient Egypt.[2]
Each nome was ruled by a nomarch (Ancient Egyptian: ḥrj tp ꜥꜣ, "Great Chief").[3] The number of nomes changed through the various periods of the history of ancient Egypt.[4]
The term nome comes from Ancient Greek νομός, nomós, meaning "district"; the Ancient Egyptian term was sepat or spAt.[5] Today's use of the Ancient Greek rather than the Ancient Egyptian term came about during the Ptolemaic period, when the use of Greek was widespread in Egypt.[6] The availability of Greek records on Egypt influenced the adoption of Greek terms by later historians.
The division of ancient Egypt into nomes can be traced back to prehistoric Egypt (before 3100 BC). These nomes originally existed as autonomous city-states[citation needed], but later began to unify. According to ancient tradition, the ruler Menes completed the final unification.[7]
Not only did the division into nomes remain in place for more than three millennia, the areas of the individual nomes and their ordering remained remarkably stable. Some, like Xois in the Nile Delta or Khent in Upper Egypt, were first mentioned on the Palermo Stone, which was inscribed in the Fifth Dynasty. The names of a few, like the nome of Bubastis, appeared no earlier than the New Kingdom. Under the system that prevailed for most of pharaonic Egypt's history, the country was divided into 42 nomes.
Нижний Египет (египетский: «А-мехти»), от столицы Древнего царства Мемфиса до Средиземного моря , состоял из 20 номов. Первый базировался вокруг Мемфиса, Саккары и Гизы , на территории современного Каира . Номы были пронумерованы более или менее упорядоченно с юга на север через дельту Нила, сначала охватывая территорию на западе, а затем продолжая с более высокими цифрами на востоке. Таким образом, Александрия находилась в Третьем номе; Бубастис был в Восемнадцатом.