COPTOS, the modern Kuft (a village near the east bank of the Nile about 25m. N.E. of Thebes), an ancient city, capital of the fifth nome of Upper Egypt, and the starting-point of several roads to the Red sea, particularly the route to Berenice (q.v.). The trade with Arabia and India raised Coptos to great com mercial prosperity ; but in A.D. 292 its share in the rebellion against Diocletian led to an almost total devastation. It again ap pears, however, as a place of importance and as the seat of a considerable Christian community, though the stream of traffic turned aside to the neighbouring Kits. During part of the 7th century it was called Justinianopolis in honour of the emperor Justinian.
The local god of coptos, as of Chemmis (Akhmim, q.v.), was the ithyphallic Min; but in late times Isis was of equal importance in the city. Min was especially the god of the desert routes. Petrie's excavations on the site of the temple brought to light three very primitive limestone statues of the god with figures of an elephant, swords of sword-fish, sea-shells, etc., engraved upon them: there were also found some very peculiar terra-cottas of the Old Kingdom, and the decree of an Antef belonging to the latter part of the Middle Kingdom, deposing the nomarch for siding with the king's enemy.