Elephantiné (Arab. Gezirat Aswān, or Gezirat-ez-Zahr, 'isle of flowers'), a small island of the Nile, 'a mosaic of vivid green, golden sand, and black syenite,' lying opposite to Assonan (q.v.), the ancient Syene, on the confines of Egypt and Nubia, in 24° 5' N. lat., and 32° 34' E. long. The ruins of the ancient city are traced in a large mound near the modern villages. From this island the Greek mercenaries were sent into Ethiopia by Psammetichus I. to recall the Egyptian deserters, and it was garrisoned in the times of the Pharaohs, Persians, and Romans. The island was anciently called Ab, or the 'ivory island,' from its having been the entrepôt of the trade in that precious material. The most important ruins, preserved till 1822, when they were mainly demolished to build a vandal governor's palace, were a late granite gateway of the time of Alexander III.; and a small temple dedicated to Khnum, the god of the country, and Sati, the goddess of the inundation, which was built by Thothmes III. and his successors down to Amenhotep III. Another remarkable edifice (also destroyed in 1822) was the Roman Nilometer, mentioned by Strabo, which appears to have been built in the time of the Cæsars; several inscriptions still preserved record the heights of inundation from the time of Augustus to Severus. The island had the honour of giving a dynasty (the 5th) to Egypt, and was the capital of the first nome of the Southern Kingdom; the inscriptions on the rocks attest the adoration paid by Seti I., Psammetichus II., and other monarchs, to the local deities. Other interesting monuments have been found on this island; amongst which may be cited part of a calendar recording an important chronological datum—the date of the rising of the star Sothis, marking the beginning of the Egyptian year, in the reign of Thothmes III. (1445 B.C.); a Roman quay; and numerous inscribed potsherds—principally receipts in the Greek language—given by the farmers of the taxes in the reign of the Antonines. The population of the island is at present exclusively Nubian.
See Wilkinson; Champollion; Mariette, Mon. of Upper Egypt; Brugsch, Hist. of Egypt under the Pharaohs; Birch, Hist. of Anc. Pottery, Guide to First and Second Egyptian Rooms in the British Museum; A. B. Edwards, A Thousand Miles up the Nile.