Written by Fabio Calo

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Çelebi at İsvan/Aswan

Cityscape, Economy and Population

Evliya speaks about “70 or 80 great saints buried beneath lofty domes” next to a village on his way to Aswan from Sinbas/Sinbel/Abu Simbel.¹ Due to the heat of the day, he did not explore them one by one (he just singles out the tomb of one Shaikh ʿUmar Raja ʾi²/Scheich ʿÖmer-i Ricaʿi³) and instead just summarily honoured them by reciting a Quran sura.⁴ This calls to mind the so-called ‘Fatimid Cemetery’ just outside Aswan, but this archaeological site is actually located a bit south of Aswan and the English translation of Çelebi explicitly states that they continued their journey along the Nile afterwards before reaching Aswan.⁵ Later, he speaks about a conglomeration of burial monuments at Aswan that also evokes that association:

“In ihrer [i.e. Aswan’s] ambraduftenden Erde liegen nicht nur viele hunderttausend bedeutende Heilige und berühmte Märtyrer, sondern auch Gefährten des Propheten, die bei der Eroberung gefallen sind, so daß die Zahl der Kuppeln jedes Maß überschreitet.”⁶

Evliya gives the city’s population in his own time as “700 flourishing households,” with “no stone-built structures.”⁷ The remnants of the ancient cityscape where still visible in the residential areas he saw in Aswan. Here, the English and the German translations give differing interpretations:

“Some are houses built from the ancient ruins.”⁸

“Einige Bewohner bewohnen alte verfallene Häuser, die sie restauriert und saniert haben.”⁹

The ruins of older buildings gave Evliya an impression of the city’s former appearance:

“In ancient times it was such a great urban conglomeration that buildings and columns like the Vault of Khawarnaq¹⁰ stretched a distance of three hours along the Nile, with thousands of lofty domes and khans and hammams and covered markets and talismanic structures and marvellous buildings, as though just completed by the hands of the master builder. But now these are nests for crows and pigeons and resound with caws and cries. In winter the birds all leave their nests and fly off to coastal climes, and then the Kunuz Arabs come and take up residence in these ruins.”¹¹

Another monument caught the eye of the Ottoman traveller:

“Dort, wo die Festung İsvan an das Ufer des Nils heranreicht, steht ein zyklopisches Bauwerk, das einer Stadtmauer gleicht und das der Volksmund ‚die Mauer des alten Zauberers‘ nennt. Jeder Stein ist ein gewaltiger Block, vierzig bis fünfzig Ellen im Geviert und so hoch wie die Kuppel eines Bades. Alle diese riesigen Steinblöcke sind mit Eisenklammern und Blei so miteinander verbunden, daß man gar keine Fuge sieht. Der Bau ist gleich dem Alexanderwall¹² wie aus einem einzigen Stück gemacht. Außerdem gibt es in der Einöde von isvan noch so viele und so wunderbare Baudenkmäler, daß dem Betrachter der Verstand ganz verwirrt wird.”¹³

Interesting from an economic point of view are the hot springs and natural resources that Evliya mentions:

“Aswan is the Darband¹⁴ of the Nile, the place of the Shallalat Straits,¹⁵ above which the river is divided into seven islands. These islands have various mines, such as naphtha and tar and pitch, sulphur and lead and sulphur water, and there are hot springs – the envy of kings – that provide an immediate cure to anyone with mange or leprosy. But there are no structures built on them. When the Nile flood comes it inundates all the islands and leaves no trace of the mines or hot springs.”¹⁶

He then goes on to explain that at the annual flooding of the Nile great amounts of those substances were washed away dying the river in green and red colour as it flows to Cairo.¹⁷ Around Aswan there were also rich deposits of emeralds,¹⁸ but their enormous economic potential was, according to Evliya, not being realized:

“The governor of Girga, ʿAli Bey, exploited this mine and had precious items crafted from emeralds – goblets and cups, a dagger hilt and a mace, and the front and rear pommels of a saddle. The Nubians told me that ʿAli Bey grew fabulously wealthy from emeralds. ‘But we,’ they went on to say, ‘are destitute, for we have no ability to work the mine. It requires commitment on the part of a ruler and an enormous investment of resources.’ So now the emerald mine is idle. There are 40 other types of mines in the Aswan mountains, but they don’t know how to extract the ore.”¹⁹

Moving further down the First Cataract area, Evliya saw further remnants of earlier settlements. He gives interesting explanations for their subsequent desertion:

“The Aswan side of Shallal²⁰ used to be so prosperous that gardens like paradise bordered on Aswan. Even now there are myriad traces of buildings. They turned to ruins because of the prophet Moses’s curse on the pharaohs and his diviners and magicians, in accordance with the Qur’anic verse, Everything perishes except His face.²¹ At present there are 200 flourishing houses amidst the ruins. There are the remains of two great Friday mosques, but they are not splendidly built like other Friday mosques, although they are not completely deprived of congregations. One is the Mosque of Dayr Sayf b. Dhuʾl-Yazan, the other is the Mosque of ʿUmar. Otherwise there is no building, whether khan or hammam or marketplace. Actually, it is impossible to live here because of the roar of the Nile. People have to shout at one another like sergeants-at-arms in order to be heard. Indeed, when I stopped here to rest because of the heat, I got dizzy from the noise. So one reason why the place is in ruins is that the inhabitants cannot live in peace due to the thundering of the Nile. Another reason that people have fled is that their rugs and clothes would get damp and spoiled from the constant spray.”²²

In Prokosch’s translation, those reasons for the desertion of that settlement is not presented as a mere assumption on Evliya’s account:

“Nach einer Überlieferung haben die Bewohner die Gegend auch deshalb verlassen, weil sie bei dem donnerähnlichen Tosen des Stromes keine Ruhe finden konnten und weil der Nil ständig Wasser versprüht, das wie Regen fällt, so daß Teppiche und Kleider verfaulen.”²³

But no source for this is given.

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Biography and Work · Geography and Textual Problems · Archaeology and Mythology · Cityscape, Economy, and Population · Aswan Castle

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Sources