Kasion (Egypt)

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Sirbonischer See and Kasion

Kasion ( Greek  Κάσιον ὄρος , Latin Casius Mons ) is the ancient name for a sand formation on the coast of Egypt that is conspicuous in the otherwise completely flat environment. It lies east of Pelusium between the Sirbonian Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. On its mountain there was a sanctuary of Zeus Casios . On the west side was the tomb of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus , who 48 BC. Was murdered nearby when he set foot on Egyptian soil while fleeing from Gaius Iulius Caesar .

location

Strabo gives the following description of the area in his Geographika :

The area of ​​Gaza is barren and sandy and this is even more true of the adjoining region, where the Sirbonian Sea is located, which extends almost parallel to the sea. In between there is a narrow strip of land that extends to the so-called ekrhegma. The length of the strip is 200 and the greatest width 50 stages. The ekrhegma is filled with earth. Then another strip of land follows to Kasion and then to Pelusium.
The Kasion is a sandy hill without water that forms a headland. There is the tomb of Pompey and on top of it is the sanctuary of Casion. Nearby is the place where Pompey was betrayed and murdered by the Egyptians. Then comes the road to Pelusium, where Gerra lies, and the so-called Schanze des Chabrias and the pits near Pelusium, which are formed by the overflow of the Nile into low and marshy places.

This description clearly locates Mount Kasion somewhere on the spit of Lake Sirbon. But there is only one elevation of some height, namely a (solidified) dune almost 30 m high in the middle of the spit, and this is where Kasion is located to this day. Strabo distinguishes Kasion from Gerra just as clearly.

The problem is that there are no corresponding finds and ruins, which is why the existence of a sanctuary and a city at this point is doubted.

Now the French Egyptologist Jean Clédat suggested a different location and verified it with excavation finds. According to this, the Kasion should be an approximately 13 m high sand hill near Mahemdiah , which corresponds to the old Gerra, 15 km east of Pelusion. There he found a Roman bath, a small (9.6 × 6 m) Tetrastylos temple and cemeteries, two from Roman and two from Byzantine times, as well as a grave inscription for a person named Kasios and a small sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Kasios . The difficulty is that this finding directly contradicts Strabo's testimony.

In ancient times , the entire area around Lake Sirbon was called Kasiotis , which speaks for the considerable regional importance of Kasion and the cult of Zeus Kasios , so there may well have been more than one sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Kasios in the region. In fact, in 1911, Jean Clédat found another temple of Zeus Kasios on a hill called Tell el-Faramah near Pelusium.

City of Kasion

At the foot of the mountain was the ancient city of Kasios ( Κάσιος , Latin Casius ), which was the seat of a bishopric in Christian times and to which the titular bishopric of Casius goes back.

swell

literature

  • Campbell Bonner : Harpokrates (Zeus Kasios) of Pelusium. In: Hesperia , Vol. 15, No. 1 (January-March 1946), pp. 51-59
  • René Cagnat: Le Casios et le lac Sirbonis. In: Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1905, No. 6, pp. 602–611 [1]
  • Jean Clédat: Recherches et fouilles au Mont Casios et au lac Sirbonis. In: Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1909, issue 10, pp. 764-774 [2]
  • Jean Clédat: Le temple de Zeus Cassios à Péluse. In: Annales du service des antquites de L'Egypte Cairo 1914. XII, pp. 79-85
  • Arthur Bernard Cook : Zeus: a study in ancient religion. Vol. 2, Part 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1925, pp. 907, 981, 984f
  • William Bodham Donne:  Casius Mons . In: William Smith : Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London 1854.
  • Antoine Salac: ΖΕΥΣ ΚΑΣΙΟΣ. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique Vol. 46 (1922), pp. 160-189
  • Herbert Verreth: Kasion, Kasiotes and Kasiotikos. In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik , Vol. 158, 2006, pp. 235–239
  • Herbert Verreth: The northern Sinai from the 7th century BC to the 7th century AD. A guide to the sources. Leuven, 2006, Vol. 1, pp. 413-511 Online

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Strabon, Geôgraphiká. XVI.2.32f.
  2. ↑ ἔκρεγμα "discharge", "breakthrough"
  3. ↑ 37 km
  4. ↑ 9.25 km
  5. ↑ ZB in: Richard Talbert (Ed.): Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World . Princeton 2000, map
  6. ^ Wolfgang Helck : Lexicon of Egyptology. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1984, Vol. 5, Sp. 629-634. Compare also Eliezer D. Oren: Migdol: A New Fortress on the Edge of the Eastern Nile Delta. In: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 256 (Fall 1984), pp. 7-44.
  7. ^ Cook: Zeus. 1925, p. 985.
  8. ^ Clédat: Zeus Cassios. 1914.
  9. ^ Clédat: Le temple de Zeus Cassios. 1914.

Coordinates: 31 ° 13 '  N , 33 ° 5'  E