Written by Fabio Calo
Çelebi at İsvan/Aswan
Geography and Textual Problems
Aswan and the castle of Aswan are described extensively in the Seyāḥatnāme. In Prokosch’s 1994 German translation, Çelebi is curiously approaching Aswan from the south, from the “Ruinenstadt Sinbel”, which Prokosch identifies with Abu Simbel, about 446 kilometres south of Aswan. He had previously travelled there from the “Festung Kolombo” – Kom Ombo –, about 46 kilometres north of Aswan. Even if one assumes that Çelebi travelled about 500 kilometres from Kom Ombo directly to Abu Simbel, then turne north and made station at Aswan before travelling back south, the times he gives would not match. He claims to have made the trip from Kom Ombo to Abu Simbel in three hours, the trip back to Aswan in six hours on land (seven in the English translation).1 Whether the “seven torturous hours” they travelled to Aswan account for the entirety of the trip from Sinbas/Abu Simbel to Aswan, or just for the way from the graveyard of Saints they visited on the way, is unclear.2 However: The newer Edition of Dankoff, Tezcan, and Sheridan calls this last station before Aswan simply the “city of Sinbas” (the identity or location of which could not be found out for this article).3 A possible explanation for this ambivalence is that the Sinbas/Sinbel in question was not actually Abu Simbel, but another town about three hours south of Kom Ombo, six hours north of Aswan. However, it adds to the confusion that in Prokosch’s German translation, Evliya calls Aswan a ‘Sudanese’ city,4 an attribute that is not given in the English translation.5 To solve this problem, a thorough study of the history of the manuscript in its original language would be required which goes beyond the aim of this short article. What needs to be emphasized is that every consultation of Çelebi’s report on Aswan should take these difficulties into account.
Biography and Work · Geography and Textual Problems · Archaeology and Mythology · Cityscape, Economy, and Population · Aswan Castle