Elephantine island (History)

Elephantine is 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) from north to south, and is 400 metres (1,300 ft) across at its widest point. 

The island is located just downstream of the First Cataract, at the southern border of Upper Egypt with Lower Nubia. 

This region above is referred to as Upper Egypt because it is further up the Nile.

The island may have received its name after its shape, which in aerial views is similar to that of an elephant tusk, or from the rounded rocks along the banks resembling elephants.

Known to the ancient Egyptians as bw "Elephant" 

the island of Elephantine stood at the border between Egypt and Nubia. It was an excellent defensive site for a city and its location made it a natural cargo transfer point for river trade. 

This border is near the Tropic of Cancer, the most northerly latitude at which the sun can appear directly overhead at noon and from which it appears to reverse direction or "turn back" at the solstices.

Elephantine was a fort that stood just before the First Cataract of the Nile. During the Second Intermediate Period (1650–1550 BC), the fort marked the southern border of Egypt.

According to ancient Egyptian religion, Elephantine was the dwelling place of Khnum, the ram-headed god of the cataracts, who guarded and controlled the waters of the Nile from caves beneath the island. He was worshipped here as part of a late triad of Egyptian deities. This "Elephantine Triad" included Satis and Anuket. 

Satis was worshipped from very early times as a war goddess and protector of this strategic region of Egypt. When seen as a fertility goddess, she personified the bountiful annual flooding of the Nile, which was identified as her daughter, Anuket. The cult of Satis originated in the ancient city of Aswan. Later, when the triad was formed, Khnum became identified as her consort and, thereby, was thought of as the father of Anuket. His role in myths changed later and another deity was assigned his duties with the river. At that time his role as a potter enabled him to be assigned a duty in the creation of human bodies.

 A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT ELEPHANTINE 

The ancient town of Elephantine is represented nowadays by a mound with a maximum height of 12 m.

The oldest prehistoric settlement identified to date on this "east isle" belongs to the Naqada II Period or about 3500 BCE. Here the sanctuary of the antilope goddess Satet, who was known during the historic period as "Mistress of Elephantine," can be traced back at least to the subsequent Naqada III Period (ca. 3200 BCE).

 It is not clear whether the inhabitants of this early settlement were primarily Egyptianized Nubians, whose culture stretched at that time northwards above the First Cataract, or if the oldest Elephantine town was already an advance outpost of Egypt proper. 

it was a center for trade with the south, for Elephantine is situated at the northern end of the cataract region which was very difficult to navigate. 

In historic times, Elephantine was called Abu, a word that meant "ivoty" as well as "elephant." The town's name suggests the importance of ivory among the commodities that early Egypt was interested in obtaining by trade from the south.

 Even at this remote period, the prime landing spot was probably the bay, then protected by cliffs, at the north end of the east isle where nowadays the ferry from Aswan and the sailing boats of the villagers dock. 

With the formation of the unified Egyptian state at the latest (ca. 3000 BCE), the town acquired additional importance as the southernmost border town and as the source for rare hard stones quarried in the neighborhood. Aswan granite was especially prized; it was shipped downstream for use throughout Egypt. 

It is likely that the towered fortress on the highest ground of the east isle near the riverbank  was built in the course of the First Dynasty (ca.3000/2950-2800 BCE). As far as can be determined, the force that manned it was not made up from the local population, but composed of Egyptians instead. 

A little later the remaining settlement area was encircled by a brick wall that enclosed the entire southern part of the east isle . Open ground inside the wall was apparently reserved from the first for an anticipated increase in population that resulted from the dissolution of smaller settlements in the neighborhood and/or from an additional influx from the north. 

By the early Second Dynasty (ca.2800-2650 BCE), the rest of the east isle was included within fortifications,

 thereby establishing the maximum extent of the town for the entire Old Kingdom - i.e. for the next 600-700 years . The walls of the First Dynasty fortress began to disappear beneath the town where settlement became increasingly dense. The town in its entirety assumed the character of a fortified installation. This role is confirrned by the inclusion of the hieroglyph for "fortification" in writings of the town's name down into the Middle Kingdom. Administrative buildings, residential quarters, and various workshops have been identified in the Old Kingdom town on the basis of their distinctive plans and finds made in their ruins. 

Toward the end of Dynasty III, a large complex whose most distinctive feature was a small stepped pyramid was built on the "west isle." Similar structures are documented from the same period at other major centers in Upper and Middle Egypt. Like the fortification of Dynasty I, this complex was certainly a project of the central authority. Its function may well have been connected with the acquisition and distribution of goods. The pyramid would seem to represent the fictive presence of the king and may have been associated with the cult of the ruler's statue. 

The idea for such a complex was, however, of short duration, for by the later Fourth Dynasty (ca. 2600-2450 BCE) workshops had encroached on the area, 

and from Dynasty V (ca. 2450-2300 BCE), the expanding cemetery of the town covered it . 

In the course of the Old Kingdom, the temple of the town's goddess Satet was repeatedly renovated on its original site,

 

but the basic form was retained in its essentials: a modest mudbrick building fronted by a courtyard . Numerous votive gifts, from royal and non-royal donors alike, are preserved from this period. 

Noteworthy among them is a granite naos commissioned by Pepy I for the statue of the goddess. It stood in the renovated precinct of the early Sixth Dynasty (ca. 2300-2150 BCE). Inscriptions on one of the boulders that flank the sanctuary document visits by other kings of Dynasty VI to Elephantine and to the temple where Khnum, the ram-headed god of the cataract region, also seems to have been revered alongside Satet beginning in this period. 

The dissolution of the Egyptian state in the First Intermediate Period (ca. 2150-2040 BCE) apparently resulted in increased importance for Elephantine within Upper Egypt. 

The kinglets who resided in Thebes during the early Eleventh Dynasty repeatedly renewed Satet's temple. For the first time, worked stone was used in some quantity . 

About 2025 BCE, Monthuhotep II, who reunited Egypt to become the first ruler of the Middle Kingdom, ordered the complete rebuilding of the sanctuary. He also added    complex for the celebration of the festival to mark the onset of the inundation which the Egyptians believed originated at Elephantine. 

Toward the end of the old Kingdom, the growth of the settlement area beyold the old fortifications was facilitated by filling in the depression between the east and west isles. With the strengthening of central authority under Monthuhotep II and during the early Twelfth Dynasty (ca.1990-1785 BCE), this p.q."ti increased in intensity . 

Sesostris I pushed southwards from Elephantine to the Second Cataract and incorporated Lower Nubia into the Egyptian state' Because of this southward expansion, Elephantine ceased for to serve as a border town during the next centuries, but simultaneously it became even more important as an administrative and trading center for commerce from beyond ihe First Cataract.

 Sesostris I ordered the replacement of the Satet Temple that Monthuhotep II had commissioned scarcely a centuly earlier.

 Sesoitris I's plan called for a richly decorated structure made of stone, and, nearby, a festival courtyard to enable the town's population to celebrate the onset of the inundation . 

Probably at this time, the cataract god Khnum acquired his own temple on higher ground in the town center. 

In the course of Dynasty XI, a sanctuary of a different kind came into being a bit northwest of ihe Satet Temple. It owed its origin to the worship of a governor of Elephantine named Heqa-ib. He had apparently- so proved his üorth in the difficult period at the end of the Old Kingdom that he came tp be worshipped as a local saint after his death. His cult chapel, modest at first, was renewed in Dynasty XI and then again at the beginning of Dynasty XIi . 

For some time thereafter, the governors of the town erected their own -emorial chapels alongside Heqa-ib's, to complement their rockcut tombs on Qubbet el-Hawa. Numerous other officials dedicated stelae and statues in Heqa-ib's sanctuary, too. 

The Egyptian state disintegrated for a second time at the end of the Middle KingdäÄ. The second Intermediate Period (ca. 1650-1550 BCE) saw the retuin of Egypt's southern border to Elephantine for a time,

 until the kings of the early Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1550-1300 BCE) undertook the reconquest of Nubia, pushing south beyond the Fourth Cataract. 

For Elephäntine, a period of prosperity began. It was probably at this time that the town began to expand again to take in an indeterminate amount of territory to the north that now extends under the modern village  island's museum . 

Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III (ca. 7490-7440 BCE) commissioned new änd larger temples for both Khnum and Satet. The cult of the ram god, who was worshipped throughout Egy

Pt,overtook that of satet at Elephantine in Dynasty xvlll, and in Dynasties XIX and XX (1300-1080 ecr), hit temple at the site was expanded even further.  Elephantine. Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (ca. 2050 - 1550 BCE) 

 Amenhotep III (ca. 1400-1365 BCE) erected a way station for the divine barques on the processional way between the harbor and the temples of the town, apparently in connnection with renovation of the installations for the festival of the inundation. The ttimples and the economic institutions associated with them occupied almost a third of the preserved area of the New Kingdom town

 (. It is probably no coi{rcidence that Syene, as the modern town of Aswan was then known, is first mentioned in Egyptian texts of this period, suggesting that the site on the mainland had begun to assume importance alongside Elephantine. 

On the island, there may have been a concurrent development that saw the construction of some country estates to the north of the town. A way station which Ramses II built outside the town to the northwest could be indicative of this trend. 

With the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1080-710 BCE) Nubia became independent. That development and frequent outbreaks of intemal conflict within Egypt led to Elephantine's resumption of heightened military importance. 

The rulers of this period and the kings that followed as Dynasty XXV (ca. 710-664 BCE) are documented at Elephantine only by stelae. 

By contrast, the rulers of Dynasty XXVI resumed work on the town's temples. Khnum's precinct acquired an elaborately laid-out Nilometer at the riverbank 

Shortly before the Persian conquest put an end to the dynasty, King Amasis added a colonnade in front of Satet's temple. Egypt in its entirety experienced foreign rule for the first time during the Persian occupation of 525-404 BCE. 

The invaders employed Aramaic-Jewish colonists, who had already lived on Elephantine before the Persian conquest, as mercenaries among the troops stationed on the island. This suggests that the force was intended to police the indigenous Egyptian population, as well as to protect Egypt against the threat from the south.

 

The rebuilding of the Khnum Temple in Dynasty XXX left hardly any remains of the fahweh temple that served the colony, but a series of important papyri documenting the community was recovered from nearby houses.

 The last indigenous dynasty, the thirtieth, witnessed the beginning of another prosperous era for Elephantine that persisted under the Ptolemies and, from 30 BCE, under Roman rule. 

Nectanebo I (380-362 BCE) added to the Khnum Temple of the New Kingdom. Nectanebo II (360-340 BCE) planned a large, new precinct of which the temple proper and a small forecourt were completed during his reign. 

The Ptolemies (305-30 BCE) - Ptolemy VI and VIII in particular - continued the project which was finally completed under Augustus with a large terrace on the riverbank . Work on a new Satet Temple was undertaken by Ptolemy VI. The plan, which foresaw a considerably smaller temple than Khnum's, nevertheless 

 The evolution of Elephantine to.a temple town seems to have red during the Graeco-Roman periöd to the increaÄing concentration of commerce and administration on the mainland. with ihe trrumph of Christianity in the early Fourth Century,-\

 Syene/Aswan eclipsed Elephantine-o""" ""a for an. The island town simultaneously lost its rä1" u, a färtress. wn"., in the earry Fifth Century a cohort of the Eastern Roman Empire -u, ,tutiorred on the island to strengthen the border against maraudingä .

 the troops occupied-the large courtyard of ihe Khnum temlle and transformed it into a fortified camp. The dismantling of Elephantine's several temples to obtain building material had already begun by-this time. scarcely more than the foundations of even rne. ra.rge..mam temples survived in situ,

 

while the smaller installations entirely disappeared. 

Arabic sources of the early tuidäie Äles report the existence of a monastery and two churches on the island. The remains of a small church of the early Sixth Century survived in the courtyard of Khnum's temple. some buirding elements iro* u lurgu ;;riii;u if somewhat later date were found in the miäst of the settleme"tirgg"rür,j *,ut it once stood there. with the.increasing Islamization of Egyptlini, lu""t, chrirtiu^ pha.se in Elephantine,s histor/ aia not long ""j,1i". E;.tly when the settlement ceased to exist cat..,bt be determinä witl, pre.irt"iu""uuse the uppermost levels of {r3 mo11n{are not preserved, bui its demise probably occurred scarcely later than the Thirteenth or Fourteenth centurv.