Aswan

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (Retd.)
For tribe see Aswa
Location of Aswan on the Course of River Nile

Aswan (Hindi:असवान, Egyptian Arabic: أسوان‎‎ Aswān; Ancient Egyptian: Swenett; Coptic: ⲥⲟⲩⲁⲛ Souan; Ancient Greek: Συήνη Syene), formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.

Location

Aswan is located just north of the Aswan Dams on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract.

Variants of name

Jat Gotras Namesake

Origin of name

  • Aswan probably gets name from Aswa, an ancient tribe inhabiting the Swat valley. Aswa means horse in Sanskrit. The name probably was given by the Scythians.
  • Aswan is the ancient city of Swenett, which in antiquity was the frontier town of Ancient Egypt facing the south. Swenett is supposed to have derived its name from an Egyptian goddess with the same name.[1] This goddess later was identified as Eileithyia by the Greeks and Lucina by the Romans during their occupation of Ancient Egypt because of the similar association of their goddesses with childbirth, and of which the import is "the opener". The ancient name of the city also is said to be derived from the Egyptian symbol for trade,[2] or market.[3]

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[4] mentions Troglodytice....Juba states, too, that the inhabitants who dwell on the banks of the Nile from Syene as far as Meroë, are not a people of Æthiopia, but Arabians; and that the city of the Sun, which we have mentioned29 as situate not far from Memphis, in our description of Egypt, was founded by Arabians.

29 Heliopolis, described in B. v. c. 4.

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[5] mentions....The Roman arms also penetrated into these regions in the time of the late Emperor Augustus, under the command of P. Petronius,8 a man of Equestrian rank, and prefect of Egypt. That general took the following cities, the only ones we now find mentioned there, in the following order; Pselcis,9 Primis, Abuncis, Phthuris, Cambusis, Atteva, and Stadasis, where the river Nile, as it thunders down the precipices, has quite deprived the inhabitants of the power of hearing: he also sacked the town of Napata.10 The extreme distance to which he penetrated beyond Syene was nine hundred and seventy miles; but still it was not the Roman arms that rendered these regions a desert.

8 Dion Cassius calls him Caius Petronius. He carried on the war in B.c. 22 against the Æthiopians, who had invaded Egypt under their queen Candace. He took many of their towns.

9 Du Bocage is of opinion that this place stood not far from the present Ibrim.

10 Supposed by Du Bocage to have stood in the vicinity of the modern Dongola.

History

Aswan is the ancient city of Swenett, later known as Syene, which in antiquity was the frontier town of Ancient Egypt facing the south. Swenett is supposed to have derived its name from an Egyptian goddess with the same name.[6] This goddess later was identified as Eileithyia by the Greeks and Lucina by the Romans during their occupation of Ancient Egypt because of the similar association of their goddesses with childbirth, and of which the import is "the opener". The ancient name of the city also is said to be derived from the Egyptian symbol for "trade",[7] or "market".[8]

Because the Ancient Egyptians oriented toward the origin of the life-giving waters of the Nile in the south, Swenett was the first town in the country, and Egypt always was conceived to "open" or begin at Swenett.[9] The city stood upon a peninsula on the right (east) bank of the Nile, immediately below (and north of) the first cataract of the flowing waters, which extend to it from Philae. Navigation to the delta was possible from this location without encountering a barrier.

The stone quarries of ancient Egypt located here were celebrated for their stone, and especially for the granitic rock called Syenite. They furnished the colossal statues, obelisks, and monolithal shrines that are found throughout Egypt, including the pyramids; and the traces of the quarrymen who wrought in these 3,000 years ago are still visible in the native rock. They lie on either bank of the Nile, and a road, 6.5 kms in length, was cut beside them from Syene to Philae.

Swenett was equally important as a military station as that of a place of traffic. Under every dynasty it was a garrison town; and here tolls and customs were levied on all boats passing southwards and northwards. Around AD 330, the legion stationed here received a bishop from Alexandria; this later became the Coptic Diocese of Syene.[10] The city is mentioned by numerous ancient writers, including Herodotus,[11] Strabo,[12] Stephanus of Byzantium, (s. v.) Ptolemy,[13] Pliny the Elder,[14] Vitruvius,[15] and it appears on the Antonine Itinerary (p. 164). It also is mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Isaiah.[16]

The latitude of the city that would become Aswan – located at 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. They noted that the sun's disc was reflected in a well at noon. This statement is only approximately correct; at the summer solstice, the shadow was only 1/400th of the staff, and so could scarcely be discerned, and the northern limb of the Sun's disc would be nearly vertical. However, Eratosthenes used this information together with measurements of the shadow length on the solstice at Alexandria to perform the first known calculation of the circumference of the Earth.

The Nile is nearly 650 m wide above Aswan. From this frontier town to the northern extremity of Egypt, the river flows for more than 1,200 kms without bar or cataract. The voyage from Aswan to Alexandria usually took 21 to 28 days in favourable weather.

Expansion of Scythian culture

Route of Silk Road

The expansion of Scythian culture stretching from the Hungarian plains and the Carpathians to the Chinese Kansu Corridor and linking Iran, and the Middle East with Northern India and the Punjab, undoubtedly played an important role in the development of the Silk Road. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, and their distinctive triangular arrowheads have been found as far south as Aswan. These nomadic peoples were dependent upon neighbouring settled population for a number of important technologies, and in addition to raiding vulnerable settlements for these commodities, also, encouraged long distance merchants as a source of income through the enforced payment of tariffs. Soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road.

Jat History

James Todd[17] writes that the origin of the Scythic nations, as related by Diodorus; . when it will be observed the same legends were known to him which have been handed down by the Puranas and Abulghazi.

The Scythians had their first abodes on the Araxes.[18] Their origin was from a virgin born of the earth[19] of the shape of a woman from the waist upwards, and below a serpent (symbol of Budha or Mercury) ; that Jupiter had a son by her, named Scythes," whose name the nation adopted. Scythes had two sons, Palas and Napas (qu. the Nagas, or Snake race, of the Tatar genealogy ?), who were celebrated for their great actions, and who divided the countries ; and the nations were called after them, the Palians (qu. Pali ?)[20] and Napians. They led their forces as far as the Nile on Egypt, and subdued many nations. They enlarged the empire of the Scythians as far as the Eastern ocean,

[p. 71]: and to the Caspian and lake Moeotis. The nation had many kings, from whom the Sacans (Sakae), the Massagetae ( Getae or Jats), the Ari-aspians (Aswas of Aria), and many other races. They overran Assyria and Media . [21] , overturning the empire, and transplanting the inhabitants to the Araxes under the name of Sauro-Matians. [22]

As the Sakae, Getae, Aswa, and Takshak are names which have crept in amongst our thirty-six royal races, common with others also to early civilization in Europe.


James Todd[23] writes that To the Indu race of Aswa (the descendants of Dvimidha and Bajaswa), spread over the countries on both sides the Indus, do we probably owe the distinctive appellation of Asia. Herodotus [24] says the Greeks denominated Asia from the wife of Prometheus ; while others deduce it from a grandson of Manes, indicating the Aswa descendants of the patriarch Manu. Asa, Sakambhari, Mata, is the divinity Hope, ' mother-protectress of the Sakha,' or races. Every Rajput adores Asapurna, ' the fulfiller of desire ' ; or, as Sakambhari Devi (goddess protectress), she is invoked previous to any undertaking.

The Aswas were chiefly of the Indu race ; yet a branch of the Suryas also bore this designation. It appears to indicate their celebrity as horsemen. [25] All of them worshipped the horse, which they sacrificed to the sun. This grand rite, the Asvamedha, on

[p. 77]: the festival of the winter solstice, would alone go far to exemplify their common Scythic origin with the Getic Saka, authorising the inference of Pinkerton, " that a grand Scythic nation extended from the Caspian to the Ganges."

External links

References

  1. ↑ Baines, John; Malek, Jaromir (March 1983). Atlas of Ancient Egypt (Cultural Atlas). New York, NY: Facts On File Inc. p. 240. ISBN 9780871963345.
  2. ↑ Suʻād Māhir (1966). Muhafazat Al Gumhuriya Al Arabiya Al Mutaheda wa Asaraha al baqiah fi al asr al islamim. Majlis al-Aʻlá lil-Shuʼūn al-Islāmīyah.
  3. ↑ James Henry Breasted (1912). A History of Egypt, from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 7.
  4. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 34
  5. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 35
  6. ↑ Baines, John; Malek, Jaromir (March 1983). Atlas of Ancient Egypt (Cultural Atlas). New York, NY: Facts On File Inc. p. 240. ISBN 9780871963345.
  7. ↑ Suʻād Māhir (1966). Muhafazat Al Gumhuriya Al Arabiya Al Mutaheda wa Asaraha al baqiah fi al asr al islamim. Majlis al-Aʻlá lil-Shuʼūn al-Islāmīyah.
  8. ↑ James Henry Breasted (1912). A History of Egypt, from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 7.
  9. ↑ Baines, John; Malek, Jaromir (March 1983). Atlas of Ancient Egypt (Cultural Atlas). New York, NY: Facts On File Inc. p. 240. ISBN 9780871963345.
  10. ↑ Dijkstra, J. Harm F. Religious Encounters on the Southern Egyptian Frontier in Late Antiquity (AD 298-642).
  11. ↑ (ii. 30)
  12. ↑ (ii. p. 133, xvii. p. 797, seq.)
  13. ↑ (vii. 5. § 15, viii. 15. § 15)
  14. ↑ ii. 73. s. 75, v. 10. s. 11, vi. 29. s. 34)
  15. ↑ (De architectura, book viii. ch ii. § 6)
  16. ↑ Ezekiel 29:10, 30:6; Isaiah 49:12
  17. ↑ James Todd Annals/Chapter 6 Genealogical history of the Rajput tribes subsequent to Vikramaditya, Vol I, pp.70-71
  18. ↑ The Arvarma of the Puranas ; the Jaxartes or Sihun. The Puranas thus describe Sakadwipa or Scythia. Diodorus (Mb. ii.) makes the Hemodus the boundary between Saka-Scythia and India Proper.
  19. ↑ Ila, the mother of the Lunar race, is the earth personified. Ertha of the Saxons ; e'pa of the Greeks ; ard in Hebrew [?].
  20. ↑ The Pali character yet exists, and appears the same as ancient fragments of the Buddha inscriptions in my possession : many letters assimilate with the Coptic.</
  21. ↑ The three great branches of the Indu (Lunar) Aswa bore the epithet of Midia (pronounced Mede), viz. Urumidha, Ajamidha, and Dvimidha. Qu. The Aswa invaders of Assyria and Media, the sons of Bajaswa, expressly stated to have multiplied in the countries west of the Indus, emigrating from their paternal seats in Panchalaka ? (Midha means ' pouring out seed, prolific,' and has no connexion with Mede, the Madai of Genesis X. 2 ; the Assyrian Mada.]
  22. ↑ Sun-worshippers, the Suryavansa.
  23. ↑ James Todd Annals/Chapter 6 Genealogical history of the Rajput tribes subsequent to Vikramaditya, Vol I, pp.76-77
  24. ↑ iv. 45 [Asia probably means ' land of the rising sun.']
  25. ↑ Aswa and haya are synonymous Sanskrit terms for ' horse ' ; asp in Persian ; and as applied by the prophet Ezekiel [xxxviti. 6] to the Getic invasion of Scythia, a.c. 600 : " the sons of Togarmah riding on horses " ; described by Diodorus, the period the same as the Takshak invasion of India.
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