Abydos is an ancient city of Upper Egypt, located on the west bank of the Nile, about 70km North-West from Thebes. It is a Holy City of Osiris, and the Pharaoh Sethi I^st made a cenotaph-temple to be built. It was Greeks who named the city Abydos after the egyptian word Abdou.

The worship of Osiris replaced this of the local god from the XII^th dynasty. Abydos got several graveyards from the first dynasties. It is the assumed place of the tomb of Osiris, and played an important religious role. Many dignitaries were buried in Abydos though they did not live in the city. There were also many cenotaphs, containing funerary steles dedicated to Osiris, and which were to make easier the dead's life. Abydos became a high place for pilgrimages, even for families of deads that were not buried in Abydos.

South of Kom es-Sultan, the Pharaoh Sethi I^st made a temple built, the Memnonium, that was finished by his son Ramses II. It was L-shaped, and the sanctuary, usually unique in egyptian temples, was replaced by seven chapels dedicated to Sethi I^st and to the gods Ptah, Rê-Horakhty, Amon-Rê, Osiris, Isis and Horus. In the south part of the temple, there is a vestibule adorned with the Abydos Tables (which remind me of the Abydos cartouche), a list of the seventy-six Pharaohs that came before Sethi I^st (therefore to the XVIII^th dynasty).