Akademik

   Greek name of a town in Middle Egypt, ancient Per-medjed, capital of the 19th Upper Egyptian nome and modern el-Bahnasa. Little is known of the site during the Pharaonic Period as it is attested only from the New Kingdom onward. The principal deity worshipped there was Seth, along with the sacred oxyrhynchus fish. Remains date from the Graeco-Roman Periodinto the Muslim Period. The site was excavated from 1896–1907 by a British expediton, when thousands of papyrifrom that time were recovered. These finds included both known and lost literary texts and a large volume of documentary material. Further excavations at the site were carried out by an Italian team from 1910–1914, Flinders Petriein 1922, and another Italian expedition from 1927–1934. The area has been excavated more recently by a Kuwaiti-financed expedition from 1985–1987, which concentrated on Islamic remains; an Egyptian dig in 1993, and a Spanish–Egyptian expedition from 1992–2002.