DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0400
384
guides told us that they were placed there by the women of the
village, who assembled on the mound to celebrate their feasts
and holidays ; when they raise these altars, as charms, to pre-
serve the healths of any one of their family to whom they are
most attached.
San must have fallen very much from its antient grandeur
even in the time of Vespasian. Josephus, in relating the jour-
ney of Titus into Syria, calls Tanis r/m Kohlx^* a certain small
city, as some have translated it, but more properly " a fortress."
This expression has made some geographers suppose that Jose-
phus, under that name, alluded to the present island of Tennys *,
which in later times was called Thennesus, and is described as
being then an island ; whose inhabitants subsisted only by their
trade, and were even obliged to fetch from other parts the ma-
terials for building their houses.
It is singular indeed that Josephus should designate in this
way the ruins of a vast city, which had been rendered so con-
spicuous by the curses denounced against it by the prophets of
his country, and fulfilled by the avenging hand of Heaven. But
it was now several centuries since the mighty Zoan had been
levelled with the dust; and a scene of desolation had succeeded
to the abundance and wealth of a metropolis. The situation,
however, of San, or Tanis, would very naturally point it out
to any military possessor of the country as a desirable spot for
a port or fortress—near the skirts of the Desert, in the high
road from Pelusium to Alexandria. It is mentioned in the
Itinerary of Antoninc, as being half-way between Heracleo-
* This island, which is in the North, eastern part of the lake Menzaleh, we had in-
tended to visit on our return to Daraietta, but a strong northerly wind prevented us
from approaching it.
polis
guides told us that they were placed there by the women of the
village, who assembled on the mound to celebrate their feasts
and holidays ; when they raise these altars, as charms, to pre-
serve the healths of any one of their family to whom they are
most attached.
San must have fallen very much from its antient grandeur
even in the time of Vespasian. Josephus, in relating the jour-
ney of Titus into Syria, calls Tanis r/m Kohlx^* a certain small
city, as some have translated it, but more properly " a fortress."
This expression has made some geographers suppose that Jose-
phus, under that name, alluded to the present island of Tennys *,
which in later times was called Thennesus, and is described as
being then an island ; whose inhabitants subsisted only by their
trade, and were even obliged to fetch from other parts the ma-
terials for building their houses.
It is singular indeed that Josephus should designate in this
way the ruins of a vast city, which had been rendered so con-
spicuous by the curses denounced against it by the prophets of
his country, and fulfilled by the avenging hand of Heaven. But
it was now several centuries since the mighty Zoan had been
levelled with the dust; and a scene of desolation had succeeded
to the abundance and wealth of a metropolis. The situation,
however, of San, or Tanis, would very naturally point it out
to any military possessor of the country as a desirable spot for
a port or fortress—near the skirts of the Desert, in the high
road from Pelusium to Alexandria. It is mentioned in the
Itinerary of Antoninc, as being half-way between Heracleo-
* This island, which is in the North, eastern part of the lake Menzaleh, we had in-
tended to visit on our return to Daraietta, but a strong northerly wind prevented us
from approaching it.
polis