ASSUAN  , or AswAN, a

town of Upper Egypt on the east bank of the Nile, facing Elephantine Island below the First Cataract, and 590 M . S. of Cairo by rail . It is the capital of a province of the same name—the southernmost province of Egypt . Population (1907) 16,128 . The principal buildings are along the river front, where a broad embankment has been built . Popular among Europeans as a winter health resort and tourist centre, Assuan is provided with large modern hotels (one situated on Elephantine Island), and there is an English church . South-east of the railway station are the ruins of a temple built by Ptolemy Euergetes, and still farther south are the famous granite quarries of Syene . On Elephantine Island are an ancient nilometer and other remains, including a granite gateway built under Alexander the Great at the temple of the local ram-headed god Chnubis or Chnumis (Eg . Khnum), perhaps on account of his connexion with Ammon (q.v.) ; two small but very beautiful temples of the XVIIIth Dynasty were destroyed there about 1820 . In the hill on the opposite side of the river are tombs of the VIth to XIIth dynasties, opened by Lord Grenfell in 1885–1886 . The inscriptions show that they belonged to frontier-prefects whose expeditions into Nubia, &c., are recorded in them . Three and a half miles above the town, at the beginning of the Cataract, the Assuan Dam stretches across the Nile .

This great

engineering work was finished in December 1902 (see IRRIGATION: Egypt; and NILE) . Above the dam the Nile presents the appearance of a vast lake . Consequent on the rise of the water-level several islands have been wholly and others partly submerged, among the latter Philae (q.v.) . On the 'east bank opposite Philae is the village of Shellal, southern terminus of the Egyptian railway system and the starting point of steamers for the Sudan . In ancient times the chief city, called Yeb, capital of the frontier nome, the first of the Upper Country, was on the island of Elephantine,. guarding the entrance to Egypt . But, owing to the cataract, the main route for traffic with, the south was by land along the eastern shore . Here, near the granite quarries—whence was obtained the material for many magnificent monuments—there grew up another city, at first dependent on'and afterwards successor to the island town . This city was called Swan, the Mart, whence came the Greek Syene and Arabic Aswan . Syene is twice mentioned (as Seveneh) in the prophecies of Ezekiel, and papyri, discovered on the island, and dated in the reigns of Artaxerxes and Darius II . (464–404 B.c.), reveal the existence of a colony of Jews, with a temple to Yahu (Yahweh, Jehovah), which had been founded at some time before the con-quest of Egypt by Cambyses in 523 B.C . They also mention the great frontier garrison against the Ethiopians, referred to by Herodotus . Syene was one of the bases used by Eratosthenes in his calculations for the measurement of the earth .

In

Roman times Syene was strongly garrisoned to resist the attacks of the desert tribes . Thither, in virtual banishment, Juvenal was sent as prefect by Domitian . In the early days of Christianity the town became the seat of a bishopric, and numerous ruins of Coptic convents are in the neighbourhood . Syene appears also to have flourished under its first Arab rulers, but in the 12th century was raided and ruined by Bedouin and Nubian tribes . On the conquest of Egypt by the Turks in the 16th century, Selim I. placed a garrison here, from whom, in part, the present townsmen descend . As the southern frontier town of, Egypt proper, Assuan in times of peace was the entrepot of a consider-able trade with the Sudan and Abyssinia, and in 188o its trade was valued at L2,000,000 annually . During the Mandia (1884-1898) Assuan was strongly garrisoned by Egyptian and British troops . Since the defeat of the khalifa at Omdurman: and the fixing (1899) of the Egyptian frontier farther south, the military value of Assuan has declined . For the Jewish colony see A . H . Sayce and A . E .

Cowley, Aramaic Papyri discovered at Assuan (Oxford, 1906) ; E . Sachau, Drei Aramaische papyrus-Urkunden eus Elephantine (Berlin, 1907) . For the dam see W . Willcocks, The Nile Reservoir Dam at Assuan (London, 1901) . (F . LL .