Elephantine is an island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

 in the River Nile

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

, located just downstream of the First Cataract

Cataracts of the Nile

The cataracts of the Nile are shallow lengths of the Nile between Aswan and Khartoum where the surface of the water is broken by many small boulders and stones protruding out of the river bed, as well as many rocky islets. Aswan is also the Southern boundary of Upper Egypt...

 at the southern border of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

. This region is referred to as Upper Egypt because the land is higher than that near the Mediterranean

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 coast. The island may have received its name because it was a trading place for ivory

Ivory trade

The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, Asian and African elephants....

. Other theories claim that the island is named after its shape. It is easily verifiable that the island's shape is similar to that of an elephant's tusk. This is the meaning of the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 word elephas (ελέφας). The layout of islands in the area can be seen from hillsides along the Nile.

The island measures some 1200 metres (3,937 ft) from north to south and is about 400 metres (1,312.3 ft) across at its widest point. It is a part of the modern Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian city of Aswan

Aswan

Aswan , formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist centre...

.

Ancient Egypt

Known to the Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

ians as Abu or Yebu, the island of Elephantine stood at the border between Egypt and Nubia

Nubia

Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...

. 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

Tropic of Cancer

The Tropic of Cancer, also referred to as the Northern tropic, is the circle of latitude on the Earth that marks the most northerly position at which the Sun may appear directly overhead at its zenith...

, 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 BCE), the fort marked the southern border of Egypt.

According to Egyptian mythology

Egyptian mythology

Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...

, here 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

Triple deities

A triple deity is a deity associated with the number three. Such deities are common throughout world mythology; the number three has a long history of mythical associations. C. G...

 among the Egyptian pantheon

Egyptian pantheon

The Egyptian pantheon consisted of the many gods worshipped by the Ancient Egyptians. A number of major deities are addressed as the creator of the cosmos. These include Atum, Ra, Amun and Ptah amongst others, as well as composite forms of these gods such as Amun-Ra. This was not seen as...

 of deities. The Elephantine Triad included Satis and Anuket. Satis

Satis

In Egyptian mythology, Satis was the deification of the floods of the Nile River, and her cult originated in the ancient city of Swenet, now called Aswan on the southern edge of Egypt. Her name means she who shoots forth referring to the annual flooding of the river...

 was worshipped from very early times as a war goddess and protector of this strategic region of Egypt. When seen as a fertility goddess

Fertility goddess

A fertility deity is a god or goddess in mythology associated with fertility, pregnancy, and birth. In some cases these deities are directly associated with sex, and in others they simply embody related attributes...

, she personified the bountiful annual flooding of the Nile, which was identified as her daughter, Anuket

Anuket

In Egyptian mythology, Anuket was originally the personification and goddess of the Nile river, in areas such as Elephantine, at the start of the Nile's journey through Egypt, and in nearby regions of Nubia....

. The cult of Satis originated in the ancient city of Swenet. 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.

Temple

There are records of a temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...

 to Khnum on the island as early as the third dynasty

Third dynasty of Egypt

For the Sumerian Renaissance, see Third Dynasty of Ur.The Third Dynasty of ancient Egypt is the first dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Other dynasties of the Old Kingdom include the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth...

. Most of the southern tip of the island is taken up by the ruins of a later temple to him. This temple was completely rebuilt in the Late Period, during the thirtieth dynasty of Egypt

Thirtieth dynasty of Egypt

The Thirtieth Dynasty of ancient Egypt followed Nectanebo I's deposition of Nefaarud II, the son of Hakor. This dynasty is often considered part of the Late Period....

, just before the foreign rule that followed in the Graeco-Roman Period. The Greeks formed the Ptolemaic dynasty

Ptolemaic dynasty

The Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC...

 during their three-hundred-year rule over Egypt (from 305 BC to 30 BC) and maintained the ancient religious customs and traditions, albeit, often associating the Egyptian deities with their own. Egypt then became part of the Roman Empire and its religious traditions existed alongside those from many diverse cultures until AD 600. lol

In ancient times, the island was also an important stone quarry

Stone quarries of ancient Egypt

The stone quarries of ancient Egypt once produced quality stone for the construction of decorative monuments such as sculptures and obelisks. These quarries are now recognised archaeological sites...

 providing granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 materials that would be transported widely within Egypt for monuments and buildings.

Ongoing excavations by the German Archaeological Institute

German Archaeological Institute

The German Archaeological Institute is an institution of research within the field of archaeology , and a "scientific corporation", with parentage of the federal Foreign Office of Germany-Origin:...

 at the town have uncovered many findings that are now on display in the museum located on the island, including a mummified

Mummy

A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...

 ram of Khnum. Artifacts

Artifact (archaeology)

An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...

 dating back to predynastic times have been found on Elephantine.

The oldest ruins still standing on the island are a granite step pyramid

Step pyramid

Step pyramids are structures which characterized several cultures throughout history, in several locations throughout the world. These pyramids typically are large and made of several layers of stone...

 from the third dynasty

Third dynasty of Egypt

For the Sumerian Renaissance, see Third Dynasty of Ur.The Third Dynasty of ancient Egypt is the first dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Other dynasties of the Old Kingdom include the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth...

 and a small shrine, built for the local sixth-dynasty

Sixth dynasty of Egypt

The sixth dynasty of ancient Egypt is often combined with Dynasties III, IV and V under the group title the Old Kingdom.-Pharaohs:...

 nomarch

Nomarch

Nomarchs were the semi-feudal rulers of Ancient Egyptian provinces. Serving as provincial governors, they each held authority over one of the 42 nomes into which the country was divided. Both nome and nomarch are terms derived from the Greek nomos, meaning a province or district...

, Hekayib. There were forty-two such provinces created as regional governments that dated from the Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The term itself was...

 through the Roman Period.

Elephantine calendar

A rare calendar

Calendar

A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...

, known as the Elephantine Calendar of Things, dating to the reign of Thutmose III

Thutmose III

Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his stepmother, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh...

, was found in fragments. Also on the island is one of the oldest nilometer

Nilometer

A Nilometer was a means of measuring the River Nile's clarity and for measuring the water level of the Nile river during the annual flood season....

s in Egypt, last reconstructed in Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 times and still in use as late as the nineteenth century CE. Ninety steps that lead down to the river are marked with Hindu-Arabic, Roman

Roman numerals

The numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:...

, and hieroglyphic numerals. Inscriptions carved deeply into the rock during the seventeenth dynasty

Seventeenth dynasty of Egypt

The Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Second Intermediate Period. The Seventeenth Dynasty dates approximately from 1580 to 1550 BC.-Rulers:...

 can be seen at the water's edge.

Prior to 1822, there were temples to Thutmose III

Thutmose III

Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his stepmother, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh...

 and Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III

Amenhotep III also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...

 on the island. At that time they were destroyed by the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 government. Both temples were relatively intact prior to the deliberate demolition.

Jewish presence

The Elephantine papyri

Elephantine papyri

The Elephantine Papyri are a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts dating from the 5th century BC. They come from a Jewish community at Elephantine, then called Yeb, the island in the Nile at the border of Nubia, which was probably founded as a military installation in about 650 BC during...

 are caches of legal documents and letters written in Aramaic, which document a community of Jewish soldiers, with perhaps an admixture of Samaritan

Samaritan

The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...

s, stationed here during the Persian occupation of Egypt. They maintained their own temple (also see House of Yahweh), evincing polytheistic beliefs, which functioned alongside that of Khnum,.
The association of the God of Israel with Khnum, a Ram-headed deity, is reminiscent of the blowing the Ram horn at Rosh Hashana Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah , , is the Jewish New Year. It is the first of the High Holy Days or Yamim Nora'im which occur in the autumn...

. ).

The Jewish community at Elephantine was probably founded as a military installation circa 650 BCE during Manasseh

Manasseh of Judah

Manasseh was a king of the Kingdom of Judah. He was the only son of Hezekiah with Hephzi-bah. He became king at an age 12 years and reigned for 55 years. Edwin Thiele has concluded that he commenced his reign as co-regent with his father Hezekiah in 697/696 BC, with his sole reign beginning in...

's reign, to assist Pharaoh Psammetichus I

Psammetichus I

Psamtik I , was the first of three kings of that name of the Saite, or Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. His prenomen, Wah-Ib-Re, means "Constant [is the] Heart [of] Re." The story in Herodotus of the Dodecarchy and the rise of Psamtik is fanciful...

 in his Nubian campaign (See Investigating the Origin of the
Ancient Jewish Community at Elephantine: A Reviewhttp://www.ancientsudan.org/articles_jewish_elephantine.html. ) The documents cover the period 495 to 399 BCE.

Nilometers

There are two nilometer

Nilometer

A Nilometer was a means of measuring the River Nile's clarity and for measuring the water level of the Nile river during the annual flood season....

s on the Elephantine island. The more famous one is a corridor nilometer associated with the Temple of Satis

Satis

In Egyptian mythology, Satis was the deification of the floods of the Nile River, and her cult originated in the ancient city of Swenet, now called Aswan on the southern edge of Egypt. Her name means she who shoots forth referring to the annual flooding of the river...

, with a stone staircase that descends down the corridor. There are many markings and symbols on the two walls of the nilometer for measuring the water level of the Nile. The other nilometer is a rectangular basin located at the southern tip of the island, near the Temple of Khnum and opposite of the Old Cataract Hotel. It is probably older of the two. One of the nilometers is mentioned by Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

, a Greek historian, though it is not certain which one.
Many sources claim that the fabled Well of Erastothenes, famous for the calculation of the circumference of Earth by Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist.He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it...

, was located on the island. Strabo does mention that there was a particular well that was used for observing that Syene lies on the Tropic of Cancer, but the reference is to a well in Syene (Aswan), not on Elephantine. Neither of the nilometers on Elephantine is suitable for the purpose, but the well in Syene is apparently lost.
In addition to the archaeological site, the island today houses the Aswan Museum

Aswan

Aswan , formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist centre...

 at the southern extreme of the island, a sizable population of Nubia

Nubia

Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...

ns in three villages in the middle, and a large, luxury hotel at the downstream, northern end.