Zoan

Zo´an, an ancient city of Lower Egypt, situated on the eastern side of the Tanitic branch of the Nile. Zoan is of considerable Scriptural interest. It was one of the oldest cities in Egypt, having been built seven years after Hebron, which already existed in the time of Abraham (Num 13:22; comp. Gen 22:2). It seems also to have been one of the principal capitals, or royal abodes, of the Pharaohs (Isa 19:11; Isa 19:13; Isa 30:4); and accordingly ’the field of Zoan,’ or the fine alluvial plain around the city, is described as the scene of the marvelous works which God wrought in the time of Moses (Psa 78:12; Psa 78:43). The destruction predicted in Eze 30:14, has long since befallen Zoan. The ’field’ is now a barren waste; a canal passes through it without being able to fertilize the soil; ’fire has been set in Zoan;’ and the royal city is now the habitation of fishermen, the resort of wild beasts, and infested by reptiles and malignant fevers. The locality is covered with mounds of unusual height and extent, full of the fragments of pottery which such sites usually exhibit. These extend for about a mile from north to south, by about three-quarters of a mile. The area in which the sacred enclosure of the temple stood, is about 1500 feet by 1250, surrounded by the mounds of fallen houses, whose increased elevation above the site of the temple is doubtless attributable to the frequent change in the level of the houses to protect them from the inundation, and the unaltered position of the sacred buildings. There is a gateway of granite and fine grit-stone to the enclosure of this temple, bearing the name of Rameses the Great. Though in a very ruinous condition, the fragments of walls, columns, and fallen obelisks sufficiently attest the former splendor of the building to which they belonged. The obelisks are all of the time of Rameses the Great (B.C. 1355). The name of this king most frequently occurs; but the ovals of his successor Pthamen, of Osirtasen III, and of Tirhakah, have also been found. The time of Osirtasen III ascends nearly to that of Joseph, and his name, therefore, corroborates the Scriptural account of the antiquity of the town. Two black statues, and a granite sphinx, with blocks of hewn and occasionally sculptured granite, are among the objects which engage the attention of the few travelers who visit this desolate place. The modern village of San consists of mere huts, with the exception of a ruined kasr of modern date.

A very ancient city of Lower Egypt, Num 13:22, on the east side of the Tanitic arm of the Nile, and called by the Greeks Tanis, now San. It was a royal city, Isa 19:11,13 ; 30:4, and gave its name to the level country around it, in which were wrought the first mighty works of God by Moses, Psa 78:12,43 . Vast heaps of ruined temples, obelisks, sphinxes, etc., attest the ancient grandeur of this city, and its ruin according to prophecy, Eze 30:14 .\par

Zo’an. (place of departure). An ancient city of lower Egypt, called Tanis by the Greeks. It stood on the eastern bank of the Tanitic branch of the Nile. Its name indicates a place of departure from a country, and hence it has been identified with Avaris (Tanis, the modern San). The capital of the Shepherd dynasty in Egypt, built seven years after Hebron and existing before the time of Abraham. It was taken by the Shepherd kings in their invasion of Egypt, and by them rebuilt, and garrisoned, according to Manetho, with 240,000 men. This cite is mentioned in connection with the plagues in such a manner as to leave no doubt that it is the city spoken of in the narrative in Exodus as that where Pharaoh dwelt, Psa 78:42-43, and where Moses wrought his wonders on the field of Zoan a rich plain extending thirty miles toward the east. Tanis gave its name to the twenty-first and twenty-third dynasties and hence its mention in Isaiah. Isa 19:13; Isa 30:4.

(The present "field of Zoan" is a barren waste, very thinly inhabited. "One of the principal capitals of Pharaoh is now the habitation of fishermen the resort of wild beasts, and infested with reptiles and malignant fevers." There have been discovered a great number of monuments here which throw light upon the Bible history. Brugsch refers to two statues of colossal size of Mermesha of the thirteenth dynasty, wonderfully perfect in the execution of the individual parts and says that memorials of Rameses the Great lie scattered broadcast like the mouldering bones of generations slain long ago. The area of the sacred enclosure of the Temple is 1500 feet by 1250. -- Editor).

Tanis. Now San. From Hebrew root, "moved tents," i.e. the place of departure. On the E. of the Tanitic branch of the Nile. "Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt" (Num 13:22), a notice implying the two had a common founder. Zoan was probably built, or rebuilt, by the Hyksos or shepherd kings (Salatis is named as the builder), connected with the Palestinian Anakim, as a fortress of defense on their eastern frontier. Thothmes II great-grandson of Aahmes, the original persecutor of Israel, resided at Zoan. Psa 78:12; Psa 78:43, speaks of "the field of Zoan" as the scene of Jehovah’s marvelous deeds, signs, and wonders in Egypt. It was a very large city, strongly fortified.

The remains of edifices and obelisks (ten or twelve,) the stone of which was brought from Syene, are numerous covering an area a mile in diameter N. to S., bearing mostly the name of Rameses II. It was the rendezvous for the armies of the Delta, and an imperial city in the 12th dynasty. It answers to Avaris the capital of the Hyksos, who gave it its Hebrew name; both Avaris (Ha-Awar, Pa-Awar, "the house of going out") and Zoan mean "departing." This Pharaoh had warred successfully against the Shasous, the nomadic tribes adjoining, and so his residing in N.W. Egypt would be important at that time.

Moses’ exposure must have been in a branch of the Nile not infested by crocodiles, for neither would the parents have exposed him nor would Thermuthis ("the great mother", a designation of Neith the deity of Lower Egypt), Pharaoh’s daughter, have bathed in a place infested by them; therefore not at Memphis where anciently they were common, but at Zoan on the Tanitic branch, near the sea, where crocodiles are never found, probably the western boundary of the district occupied by Israel. Amosis or Aahmes captured Zoan or Avaris from the shepherd kings, their last stronghold after ruling (See EGYPT for 511 years. It was well adapted as the place from whence to carry out measures for crushing Israel (Exodus 2).

Tanis was famous for flax (Pliny, 19:1), compare the mention of flax, Exo 9:31. Anciently a rich plain, "the marshes" or "pasture lands," stretched due E. as far as Pelusium 30 miles off, gradually narrowing toward the E. and watered by four of the seven branches of the Nile, the Pathmitic, Mendesian, Tanitic, and Pelusiac. Now it is in part covered by the lake Menzeleh through the subsidence of the Mediterranean coast.

Here came the ambassadors of Hezekiah seeking alliance (Isa 30:4). On Sevechus’ withdrawal from Lower Egypt Tethos of the priestly caste became supreme, having Zoan for his capital, 718 B.C. In his contests with the military caste "the princes of Zoan became fools," though famed for wisdom (Isa 19:13). God threatens (Eze 30:14), "I will set fire in Zoan," etc., namely, by Nebuchadnezzar. It is now a barren waste, the canal through it giving no fertility; the capital of several Pharaohs, now the abode of fishermen, exposed to wild beasts and malignant fevers. The oldest name found is Sesertesen III, of the 12th dynasty; the latest is that of Tirhakah. The 21st dynasty was called Tanite from it.

Zoan (zô’am), low region? or place of departure? A city of lower Egypt; called by the Greeks Tanis—now San. Zoan was an exceedingly ancient city, built seven years after Hebron. Num 13:22. The "field of Zoan" was the place of God’s wonders. Psa 78:12; Psa 78:43. When Isaiah wrote, it would appear to have been one of the chief cities in Egypt, as he speaks of "the princes of Zoan." Isa 19:11; Isa 19:13; Isa 30:4. Ezekiel foretells the fate of the city in the words: "I will set fire in Zoan." Eze 30:14. There are no other Scripture references to Zoan. Zoan has been satisfactorily identified with the ancient Avaris and Tanis and the modern San. Very interesting discoveries have been made there within a few years. Among the inscriptions has been found one with the expression Sechet Tanet, which exactly corresponds to the "field of Zoan." Psa 78:43. The mounds which mark the site of the town are remarkable for their height and extent, and cover an area a mile in length by three-fourths of a mile in width. The sacred enclosure of the great temple was 1500 feet long and 1250 feet wide. This temple was adorned by Rameses H. There are some dozen obelisks of great size, all fallen and broken, with numerous statues. "The whole constitutes," says Macgregor, "one of the grandest and oldest ruins in the world."

[Zo’an]

City in Lower Egypt, built seven years after Hebron. It was the capital of the Hyksos or shepherd kings of Egypt. It was here that Moses and Aaron met with Pharaoh and here the ’plagues’ were wrought; for it was in the ’field of Zoan’ that God did marvellous things. The place was denounced by God, and He said its princes had become fools. Num 13:22; Psa 78:12; Psa 78:43; Isa 19:11; Isa 19:13; Isa 30:4; Eze 30:14. Identified with the site of the ancient city TANIS, built over the ruins of Zoan, and now called San, about 31° 2’ N, 31° 54’ E.

By: Emil G. Hirsch, W. Max Muller

An important Egyptian city of great antiquity, almost as old as Hebron (Num. xiii. 22). The "princes of Zoan" are ranked in Isa. xix. 11, 13 with those of Noph (Memphis), and the city itself is mentioned in Ezek. xxx. 14 together with No (Thebes). The Israelitish embassies to it (Isa. xxx. 4) may imply that it was the residence of Pharaoh, and a similar allusion may possibly be traced in Ps. lxxviii. 12, 43, unless "the field of Zoan" is a poetic designation of Egypt in general.

Zoan (Hebr. ; the Egyptian "Ẓa'ne" [older form, "Ẓa'net"]; the Coptic "Ja[a]ne," "Jani"; and the "Tanis" of the Greeks) was situated in the Delta on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, not far from the modern lake of Menzalah and the northeastern frontier of Egypt. The ruins, excavated by Mariette in 1860 and, more thoroughly, by Petrie in 1883, have yielded monuments ranging from the sixth dynasty to the Roman period, when the city, once a royal residence, especially of the twenty-first or "Tanitic" dynasty, began to degenerate into the fishing-village represented by the modern Ṣan al-Ḥajar.

Bibliography:

Petrie, Tanis, London, 1885-87.

ZOAN.—A city in the N.E. of Lower Egypt (Egyp. Zani, Gr. Tanis).—It is now San el-Hagar, one of the most important of the ancient sites in Lower Egypt, with ruins of a great temple. The 21st Dyn. arose in Tanis, and it was probably a favourite residence of the Pharaohs, though it is now in the midst of a barren salt marsh, with only a few fishermen as inhabitants. Ramasses ii. placed in the temple a colossus of himself in granite, the greatest known, which Petrie calculates from the fragments to have measured 92 feet in height. Zoan is not mentioned in Genesis, but elsewhere (Psa 78:13; Psa 78:43, Isa 19:11; Isa 19:13, 30, Eze 30:14) it appears as almost or quite the capital of Egypt, perhaps as being the royal city nearest to the frontier. Tanis was very ancient: the curious reference to its building in Num 13:22 cannot be explained as yet.

F. Ll. Griffith.

zō´an (צען, cō‛a; Τανίς, Tanı́s):

1.    Situation

2.    Old Testament Notices

3.    Early History

4.    Hyksos Monuments

5.    Hyksos Population

6.    Hyksos Age

7.    Description of Site

1. Situation:

The name is supposed to mean “migration” (Arabic, tsan). The site is the only one connected with the history of Israel in Egypt, before the exodus, which is certainly fixed, being identified with the present village of San at the old mouth of the Bubastic branch of the Nile, about 18 miles Southeast of Damietta. It should be remembered that the foreshore of the Delta is continually moving northward, in consequence of the deposit of the Nile mud, and that the Nile mouths are much farther North than they were even in the time of the geographer Ptolemy. Thus in the times of Jacob, and of Moses, Zoan probably lay at the mouth of the Bubastic branch, and was a harbor, Lake Menzaleh and the lagoons near Pelusium having been subsequently formed.

2. Old Testament Notices:

The city is only once noticed in the Pentateuch (Num 13:22), as having been built seven years after Hebron, which existed in the time of Abraham. Zoan was certainly a very ancient town, since monuments of the VIth Egyptian Dynasty have been found at the site. It has been thought that Zoar on the border of Egypt (Gen 13:10) is a clerical error for Zoan, but the Septuagint reading (Zógora) does not favor this view, and the place intended is probably the fortress Zar, or Zor, often mentioned in Egyptian texts as lying on the eastern borders of the Delta. Zoan is noticed in the Prophets (Isa 19:11, Isa 19:13; Isa 30:4; Eze 30:14), and its “princes” are naturally mentioned by Isaiah, since the capital of the XXIIInd Egyptian Dynasty (about 800 to 700 BC) was at this city. In Psa 78:12, Psa 78:43 the “field (or pastoral plain) of Zoan” is noticed as though equivalent to the land of GOSHEN (which see).

3. Early History:

Zoan was the capital of the Hyksos rulers, or “shepherd kings,” in whose time Jacob came into Egypt, and their monuments have been found at the site, which favors the conclusion that its plain was that “land of Rameses” (Gen 47:11; Exo 12:37; see RAAMSES) where the Hebrews had possessions under Joseph. It is probably the site of Avaris, which lay on the Bubastic channel according to Josephus quoting Manetho (Apion, I, xiv), and which was rebuilt by the first of the Hyksos kings, named Salatis; for Avaris is supposed (Brugsch, Geog., I, 86-90, 278-80) to represent the Egyptian name of the city Ha-uar-t, which means “the city of movement” (or “flight”), thus being equivalent to the Semitic Zoan or “migration.” It appears that, from very early times, the pastoral peoples of Edom and Palestine were admitted into this region. The famous picture of the Amu, who bring their families on donkeys to Egypt, and offer the Sinaitic ibex as a present, is found at Beni Ḥasan in a tomb as old as the time of Usertasen II of the XIIth Dynasty, before the Hyksos age. A similar immigration of shepherds (see PITHOM) from Aduma (or Edom) is also recorded in the time of Menepthah, or more than four centuries after the expulsion of the Hyksos by the XVIIIth, or Theban, Dynasty.

4. Hyksos Monuments:

Besides the name of Pepi of the Vlth Dynasty, found by Burton at Zoan, and many texts of the XIIth Dynasty, a cartouche of Apepi (one of the Hyksos kings) was found by Mariette on the arm of a statue apparently of older origin, and a sphinx also bears the name of Khian, supposed to have been an early Hyksos ruler. The Hyksos type, with broad cheek bones and a prominent nose, unlike the features of the native Egyptians, has been regarded by Virchow and Sir W. Flower as Turanian, both at Zoan and at Bubastis; which agrees with the fact that Apepi is recorded to have worshipped no Egyptian gods, but only Set (or Sutekh), who was also adored by Syrian Mongols (see HITTITES). At Bubastis this deity is called “Set of Rameses,” which may indicate the identity of Zoan with the city Rameses.

5. Hyksos Population:

In the 14th century BC the city was rebuilt by Rameses II, and was then known as Pa-Ramessu. The Hyksos rulers had held it for 500 years according to Manetho, and were expelled after 1700 BC. George the Syncellus (Chronographia, about 800 AD) believed that Apepi (or Apophis) was the Pharaoh under whom Joseph came to Egypt, but there seems to have been more than one Hyksos king of the name, the latest being a contemporary of Ra-Sekenen of the XIIIth Dynasty, shortly before 1700 BC. Manetho says that some supposed the Hyksos to be Arabs, and the population of Zoan under their rule was probably a mixture of Semitic and Mongolic races, just as in Syria and Babylonia in the same ages. According to Brugsch (Hist of Egypt, II, 233), this population was known as Men or Menti, and came from Assyria East of Ruten or Syria. This perhaps connects them with the Minyans of Matiene, who were a Mongolic race. This statement occurs in the great table of nations, on the walls of the Edfu temple.

6. Hyksos Age:

The Hyksos age corresponds chronologically with that of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon, and thus with the age of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham and Jacob - time when the power of Babylon was supreme in Syria and Palestine. It is very natural, therefore, that, like other Semitic tribes even earlier, these patriarchs should have been well received in the Delta by the Hyksos Pharaohs, and equally natural that, when Aahmes, the founder of the XVIIIth Egyptian Dynasty, took the town of Avaris and expelled the Asiatics, he should also have oppressed the Hebrews, and that this should be intended when we read (Exo 1:8) that “there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.” The exodus, according to the Old Testament dates, occurred in the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty (see EXODUS) when Israel left Goshen. The later date advocated by some scholars, in the reign of Menepthah of the XIXth Dynasty, hardly agrees with the monumental notice of the immigration of Edomites into the Delta in his reign, which has been mentioned above; and in his time Egypt was being invaded by tribes from the North of Asia.

7. Description of Site:

Zoan, as described by G. J. Chester (Mem. Survey West Palestine, Special Papers, 1881, 92-96), is now only a small hamlet of mud huts in a sandy waste, West of the huge mounds of its ancient temple; but, besides the black granite sphinx, and other statues of the Hyksos age, a red sandstone figure of Rameses II and obelisks of granite have been excavated, one representing this king adoring the gods; while the names of Amen, Tum and Mut appear as those of the deities worshipped, in a beautiful chapel in the temple, carved in red sandstone, and belonging to the same age of prosperity in Zoan.

The city of Zoan was one of Egypt’s great cities (Eze 30:14). It was located in the Nile Delta (Psa 78:12), was very old (Num 13:22), and for several hundred years was Egypt’s capital (Isa 19:11). It was probably the city earlier known as Rameses (see EGYPT; RAMESES).