City in the northeastern Delta, about 20 kilometres north of the city of Per-Ramessu, the residence city built by Sethos I and Ramesses II. In the Late Period it was the capital of the 19th Lower Egyptian nome. Tanis was built and extended by Smendes and his successors (21st Dynasty), making use of stone blocks, obelisks and statues from, among others, Per-Ramessu, which itself had been constructed of reused material from the Old and Middle Kingdoms. The oldest dated building in Tanis was erected by Psusennes I (21st Dynasty). Various rulers of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties built and expanded the temple of Tanis, as did Nectanebo I (30th Dynasty). Several kings of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties are buried in underground chambers inside the temple. Their last resting places were found in 1939 by the French archaeologist Pierre Montet. There are a total of six tombs, two of which have unidentified occupants. The other four were intended for Psusennes I, Amenemope, Osorkon II and Shoshenq III, but Shoshenq II and Takelot II were also buried here. Numerous valuable objects, including jewellery of gold and silver and an entire sarcophagus of silver, were found here, along with the bodies of the kings, which lay in reused stone sarcophagi from earlier centuries.