Tanis

Tanis is a toponym used for several places and fictional works, with the most historically significant reference being the ancient Egyptian city in the Nile Delta. The site, sometimes called Tell Tanis, functioned as a major urban and religious center during the Late Period and into the Third Intermediate Period, and it played a role as a regional capital in the eastern Nile Delta at various times. The city is best known to archaeologists for its royal necropolis, discovered by French archaeologist Pierre Montet in the 1930s and 1940s. The excavations revealed a substantial cemetery dating largely to the 21st Dynasty and yielded a wealth of royal mummies, regalia, and artifacts that became famous as the Tanis Treasure. Among the finds were gold funerary objects, jewelry, and other items that shed light on burial practices and interregional connections during a period of shifting political power in Egypt.

In addition to the ancient city, the name Tanis is used in modern times as a personal name and appears in various works of fiction and cultural contexts as a place name or character name. The term thus encompasses both a concrete historical site with extensive archaeological significance and broader contemporary uses as a toponym or given name.