The city is located in the eastern Nile delta (30°57′30″N 31°30′57″E / 30.95833°N 31.51583°E / 30.95833; 31.51583) and was the capital of the 16th Lower Egyptian nome of Kha, until it was replaced by Thmuis in Greco-Roman Egypt.

During the 29th Dynasty, Mendes was also the capital of Ancient Egypt, lying on the Mendesian branch of the Nile (now silted up), about 35 km east of al-Mansurah.

Archaeological evidence attests to the existence of the town at least as far back as the Naqada II period (4th millennium BCE).

Under the first Pharaohs, Mendes quickly became a strong seat of provincial government and remained so throughout the Ancient Egyptian period.

Mendes, however, declined early, and disappears in the first century AD; since both Ptolemy (l. c.) and P. Aelius Aristides (iii.

From its position at the junction of the river and the lake, it was probably encroached upon by their waters, after the canals fell into neglect under the Macedonian kings, and when they were repaired by Augustus (Sueton.

The occultist Eliphas Levi in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) drew an image of the fictitious medieval idol Baphomet that conflated it with the goat of Mendes and the imagery of the Satanic satyr.

The image of the satyr-like Baphomet and its supposed connection with Mendes has since been repeated by various occultists, conspiracy theorists, and neopagans.

Work on the New Kingdom processional-style temple has recently uncovered foundation deposits of Merenptah below the second pylon.

On the edge of the temple mound, a sondage supervised by Matthew J. Adams has revealed uninterrupted stratification from the Middle Kingdom down to the First Dynasty.

Coring results suggest that future excavations in that sondage should expect to take the stratification down into the Buto-Maadi Period.