EKHMIN, or Akhmin, a town of Upper Egypt, a short distance from the right bank of the Nile, between two and three miles above Suhag. It is a place of about 3000 or 4000 inhabitants, has several mosques and two Coptic churches, maintains a weekly market, and manufactures shawls and checked cotton. Outside of the walls are the ruins of two ancient temples, one of which, identified by an inscription of the 12th year of the emperor Trajan as that of Pan, wa3 regarded by Abulfeda as among the most important in Egypt.

Ekhmin, in Coptish Klimin or Shmin, is the ancient Chemmis or Panopolis, chief town of the Chemmite nome in the Thebaid, and, according to Strabo, inhabited by skilful stone-cutters and linen-weavers. It was reputed one of the oldest cities in the country. Herodotus particularly mentions a temple of Perseus, and asserts that the inhabitants celebrated gymnastic games in honour of this hero; but it has not been ascertained to which of the Egyptian gods this account should be assigned. Panopolis probably decayed with the rise of Thebes, and long after it suffered greatly at the hands of the Arab invaders. At the time of Pococke’s visit in 1738, it was still the seat of a powerful emir, who extended his protection to the Coptic Catholics; but the dynasty is long ago extinct, leaving nothing but its traditions and sepulchres behind. Nonnus, the Greek poet, was born at Chemmis in 410, and Nestorius died and was buried there about 447.