OF SOME

EVIDENCES STILL REMAINING,

WHICH ILLUSTRATE

THESE EARLY OCCURRENCES.

THE lower part of Egypt being annually overflowed, must have been liable to some alteration in a long course of years. Among other changes that it has undergone, it has suffered some in respect to its streams and canals. One of the principal of these, if not the very chief arm of the Nile, was the Canobic, or great channel; which is in many places dry, except at the time of the inundation: by this means, all the interamnian country which we have been speaking of, the nome of Cushan and part of the Heliopolitan province, is joined to the firm land, and constitutes a portion of Libya. The Nile, that was first divided at Cercasora between Ba- . bylon and the pyramids, is not separated till you come eighteen miles lower: so that the extreme part of Delta is now formed by some broken land, that probably belonged to the inferior part of the

antient Heliopolitan nome. By this means the extent of lower Egypt is in some degree abridged.

It may seem wonderful, if, after an interval of so many ages, and after such alterations, any traces should now remain of those early transactions that we have been speaking of. Yet I think some evidences may still be found amid the ruins of this antient kingdom. 27 Marcellinus observes that, though the Grecians, and particularly Seleucus Nicator, rebuilt many cities in Asia, and arbitrarily imposed names taken from their own language and country; yet the antient and original names given by the first founders of those places, and which were in the Assyrian tongue, were never intirely effaced. The same observation will hold good in respect to many places in Egypt. In a province, that seems to have been formerly part of the Heliopolitan nome, is a village at this day called Cofru Cossin, or "village of Cossin:" which, from its situation and the similitude of its name, I should think had a reference to the antient land of Goshen. The temple at Heliopolis was called Beth-shemesh

27 Nicator Seleucus-abusus multitudine hominum, quam tranquillis in rebus diutiùs rexit, ex agrestibus habitaculis urbes construxit, multis opibus firmas et viribus: quarum ad præsens pleræque licet Græcis nominibus appellentur, quæ iisdem ad arbitrium imposita sunt conditoris, primogenia tamen nomina non amittunt, quæ eis Assyria linguâ institutores veteres indiderunt. lib. 14. cap. 8.

or house of the sun;" and Ain-shems, or shemesh, the fountain of the same. In this district there is a place remaining, called Beer Shems; which is of the same purport: it signifies "the "well of the sun;" and is a lasting memorial of the antient religion of the place. I have mentioned that the Arabian nome was so denominated from Cushan, which was the same as Goshen. The Seventy calls this Gessem and Gesem; Artapanus 28 Kerσa and Kaira: and it is called by St. Jerome 19 Terra Gesen: where each writer denominates the place by the name that it went by in his own time. I make no doubt, but in the town of 30 Geeza we see the remains of the antient Gesen and Goshen ; as it has been at different times expressed. This may be proved from Herodotus. I have shewn that Goshen was the province of Cushan, and had a city of the same name: and that this province

28 Πρωτον μεν την Κεσσαν οικοδομησαι. Apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. lib. 9. cap. 27. Μετα δε ταυτα παραγενέσθαι τον τε πατέρα και τις αδελφές κομίζοντας πολλην ὑπαρξιν, και κατοικισθήναι εν τῇ Toλ Katav. Ibid. lib. 9. cap. 23. Constantine Manasses calls it Gosem: Eν γη Γοσεμ οικίζεται, χωρα της Αραβίας. pag 40. edit. Meurs.

29 Vol. 1. pag. 49. edit. Benedict. Paris. 1693. In the book of Judith of the Vulgate translation chap. 1. v. 9. it is called Jesse.

3o It is called Gizéy by Vansleb, Gize by Dr. Pocock, Geeza by Shaw, Chisi by Egmont and Heyman; and is the Algize of the Nubian geographer.

and city were the uppermost in lower Egypt, where the Nile divided. In this very nome Herodotus mentions a principal city, called by him Cercasorum, but by Strabo Cercasoura: which has undoubtedly suffered some change in its orthography and pronunciation; yet it is not so far sophisticated, but that its true etymology may be arrived at. The original name was Caer Cush Aur," the "Arabian city Aur:" the last term was the true name of the place, which was the antient city of Orus: the other, Carcusha, as well as Phaccusa (by which it is called by Ptolemy) being accidental terms, and gentile marks of distinction; the one given to distinguish its inhabitants, the other to denote its situation. Carcusa is therefore no more than the Cusean city, as Carour is the city of Ur or fire, by which it was sometimes called. Car or Caer, p, Kir, in most of the oriental languages signifies a city or fortress; as appears in Carchemish, Carthaida, Carteia, Carnaim: and, among the Britons of Phenician extraction, in Carlisle, Cuerdiff, Caerphilly, Caernarvon, and Caer-uriah in Cornwall. Herodotus is very particular in his description of Cercasorum, which he mentions as situated at the very extreme point of Delta; 31 παρα το οξυ το Δελτα, και παρα Κερκασώρον πολιν. And in another place he describes it still more ex

31 Lib. 2. cap. 97.

1

actly, by saying that it was at the point where the Nile was first divided ; 3 μεχρι Κερκάσαρε πολιος, κατ' ἦν σχίζεται ὁ Νειλος, ες το Πηλεσίον ρέων και ες Κανωβον. This is the exact situation of Geeza; which stands overagainst the pyramids (that are called from thence the pyramids of "Geeza) at the extreme part of Delta, in the antient Cusean province, where the Nile was of old divided into its two principal streams. If then there was no similitude of sound remaining, and the name had been totally changed or obliterated; yet the identity of the two places might be indisputably ascertained.

It is true, the town of Geeza, which I suppose to be situated at the extremity of an island, is by later writers mentioned as upon the western bank of the Nile; the Canobic branch, which once separated it from Lybia, being much diminished, and sometimes dried up. But Dr. Pocock still places it in an island; and at the vertex, as it stood of old. Whether this be the exact truth, I do not know; as it does not appear like an island in the account of that curious traveller " Norden. But it is a point

32 Lib. 2. сар. 15.

35

33 "Chi vuol videre le Piramidi, bisogna che passi il fiume, "et vada in un burgo, che gia fù Citta rimpetto al Cairo vec"chio, hoggi nomato Geza." Viaggi di Bremond. In Roma; 1679.

34 Travels. vol. 1. plate 7.

35*

Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie par F. Louis Norden. Fol. vol. 1. Planche 17.