Akhmim (, ; Akhmimic , ; Sahidic/Bohairic ) is a city in the Sohag Governorate of Upper Egypt. Referred to by the ancient Greeks as Khemmis or Chemmis () and Panopolis (), it is located on the east bank of the Nile, to the northeast of Sohag. History Akhmim was known in Ancient Egypt as Ipu, Apu (according to Brugsch the name is related to the nearby village of Kafr Abou) or Khent-min. It was the capital of the ninth (Chemmite) nome of Upper Egypt. The city is a suggested hometown for Yuya, the official of Tuthmosis IV and Amenhotep III. The ithyphallic Min (whom the Greeks identified with Pan) was worshipped here as "the strong Horus." Herodotus mentions the temple dedicated to Perseus and asserts that Chemmis was remarkable for the celebration of games in honor of that hero, after the manner of the Greeks, at which prizes were given; as a matter of fact some representations are known of Nubians and people of Punt (southern coastal Sudan and the Eritrean coast) clambering up poles before the god Min. Min was especially a god of the desert routes on the east of Egypt, and the trading tribes are likely to have gathered to his festivals for business and pleasure at Coptos (which was really near Neapolis) even more than at Akhmim. Herodotus perhaps confused Coptos with Chemmis. Strabo mentions linen-weaving and stone-cutting as ancient industries of Panopolis, and it is not altogether a coincidence that the cemetery of Akhmim is one of the chief sources of the beautiful textiles of Roman and Christian age, that are brought from Egypt. In the Christian Coptic era, Akhmim was written in Sahidic but was probably pronounced locally something like Khmin or Khmim. Monasteries abounded in this region from a very early date. Shenouda the Archimandrite (348–466) was a monk at Athribis near Akhmim. Some years earlier Nestorius, the exiled ex-patriarch of Constantinople, had died at an old age in the neighborhood of Akhmim. Nonnus, the Greek poet, was born at Panopolis at the end of the 4th century. The bishopric of Panopolis, a suffragan of Antinoë in Thebais Prima, is included in the Catholic Church's list of titular sees. Among the bishops of Panopolis, Le Quien mentions Arius, friend of Saint Pachomius who had built three convents in the city, Sabinus, and Menas. Excavations at Akhmim have disclosed numerous Christian manuscripts, among