Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "SYINI Ancient city EGYPT".
A double city 964 km S of Cairo, below the First Cataract. Syene lies
on the E bank of the Nile. Opposite, at a distance of only 150 m, is the Island
of Abu, whose name the Greeks translated into Elephantine. The function of the
double city had already been established in the 1st Dynasty (3200 B.C.): Syene
as a market place for all kind of goods coming from the S and as a quarry of the
famous Syenite stone (Pliny 5.9,59), the red granite; and Elephantine the actual
city, fortress against invaders from Nubia and the religious center and residence
of the god Khnum, lord of the Cataract.
In 1918 the discovery of Aramaic papyri from the Persian period indicated
that in the 6th c. B.C. a Jewish colony was established in Elephantine and had
its own synagogue. Under the Ptolemies the prosperity of Elephantine depended
on the increasing interest in the cult of Isis on the Island of Philae. About
this time, Eratosthenes (250 B.C.) made his visit to Syene where, by measuring
the difference between the sun's shadows here and in Alexandria, he was able to
estimate the circumference of the earth.
During the Roman Conquest Syene became the battle ground for wars
between the Romans and the Blemmyes until the Roman general Maximius was forced
to make peace with them (A.D. 451). With the fall of Roman power, Syene became
Christian and a Coptic church was erected here. Monuments of interest are: the
Temple of Isis, which lies behind Aswan in the midst of the ancient city and dates
from the time of Ptolemy III and Ptolemy IV; the Temple of Trajan to the W of
the island; and, still farther W, the granite gateway of the Temple of Alexander
II. The local museum on the island contains some of the finds from excavations.
S. Shenouda, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Now Assouan; a city of Upper Egypt on the east bank of the Nile, just below the First Cataract. It was an important point in the astronomy and geography of the ancients, as it lay just under the tropic of Cancer, and was therefore chosen as the place through which they drew their chief parallel of latitude.
Syene (Suene, Herod. ii. 30; Strab. ii. p. 133, xvii. p. 797, seq.; Steph. B. s. v.; Ptol. vii. 5. § 15, viii. 15. § 15; Plin. ii. 73. s. 75, v. 10. s. 11, vi. 29. s. 34; It. Ant. p. 164), the modern Assouan, was the frontier town of Aegypt to the S. Syene stood upon a peninsula on the right bank of the Nile, immediately below the Great Falls, which extend to it from Philae. It is supposed to have derived its name from Suan, an Aegyptian goddess, the Ilithya of the Greeks, and of which the import is the opener; and at Syene Upper Aegypt was in all ages, conceived to open or begin. The quarries of Syene were celebrated for their stone, and especially for the marble called Syenite. They furnished the colossal statues, obelisks, and monolithal shrines which are found throughout Aegypt; and the traces of the quarrymen who wrought in these 3000 years ago are still visible in the native rock. They lie on either bank of the Nile, and a road, 4 miles in length, was cut beside them from Syene to Philae. Syene was equally important as a military station and as a place of traffic. Under every dynasty it was a garrison town; and here were levied toll and custom on all boats passing southward and northward. The latitude of Syene-24° 5' 23'-was an object of great interest to the ancient geographers. They believed that it was seated immediately under the tropic, and that on the day of the summer solstice a vertical staff cast no shadow, and the sun's disc was reflected in a well at noonday. This statement is indeed incorrect; the ancients were not acquainted with the true tropic: yet at the summer-solstice the length of the shadow, or 1/400th of the staff, could scarcely be discerned, and the northern limb of the sun's disc would be nearly vertical. The Nile is nearly 3000 yards wide above Syene. From this frontier town to the northern extremity of Aegypt it flows for more than 750 miles without bar or cataract. The voyage from Syene to Alexandreia usually occupied between 21 and 28 days in favourable weather.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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