“This island is reached by small boat in a few minutes fi-om the landing-place. Cook’s tourists are first transported in comfortable boats to Elephantine and then to the bazaar at Assuân (small gratuity). A row round the island is recommended (1/2 hr.). The entire visit takes barely an hour. Elephantine was a place of great sanctity from a very early period among the ancient Egyptians. It formed a nome by itself with a capital, named like the entire island Ab and also Ab was the Egyptian for elephant, so that Elephantine is merely the Greek translation of a native name. The Arabs call it simply Gezîreh, i.e. island, or Gezîret Assûan; and it is also said to be named ez-Zâhir or ‘the blooming’. Though the vegetation is luxuriant in many spots, the writer never heard the last-given name applied to it.”1
“The Egyptian priests described the Source of the Nile as a mystery, that would only be revealed to the soul at the twelfth gate of the underworld; yet at the same time, they pointed out the ‘symbolical sources of the Nile’, so to speak, in the eddies among tile rocks of the cataracts to the S. of Elephantine. They named, these, i.e. the Kerti or sources of Elephantine. Herodotus heard of these from a scribe in the treasury of the temple of Athena at Sais. The Halicarnassian thought that the priest was but jesting when he told him that between Syene and Elephantine lay two lofty peaked mountains, Krophi and Mophi, from the midst of which gushed the bottomless sources of the Nile, one half of which flowed to the K. to Egypt, the other half to the S. to Ethiopia. — However foolish this opinion, which Seneca also reports, may appear, it was not pure invention, for the monuments inform us that the people were really taught to believe that the Egyptian Nile had his abode among the rapids to the S. of Elephantine. Some located it to the N. of the island of Bigeh-Senem (p. 297). Khnum, the god of cataracts, was revered before all other gods on this island; and next to him ranked Sati (a form of Isis-Sothis), because the beginning of the inundation coincided with the early rising of this constellation, and the cataract may be regarded as the threshold of the swollen Nile entering Egypt.”2
“In the year 1822 Mohammed ‘Ali, in order to build a palace for himself at Assuân, caused the destruction of the Temple of Khnum., built under Amenhotep III. of the 18. Dyn. near the S. end of the island, and also of a smaller Temple of Tutmes III., lying more to the N.W., and known as the N. temple. Travellers pass the latter on their way to the city, in whose N. outskirts it lay. The savants of the French Expedition saw this temple before its destruction and published views of it. Now all that is to be seen on the island are some huge heaps of ruins, a granite doorway of the time of Alexander I., and a granite Statue of Merenptah I. Blocks of stone and sculptured fragments lie around.”3
“The inhabitants of the two villages on the island, many of whom understand nothing but Nubian, offer coins, small antiquities (many imitations), and fragments of pottery with inscriptions (ostraca) for sale. The last-named are sometimes valuable; the inscriptions are written with[1] ink in Demotic, Greek, or Coptic characters. A roll containing poems by Homer was also discovered here.”4
“By far the most interesting object on the island is the *Nilometer, on the W. side facing Assuân, known to the Arabs as Miḳyâs. The learned court-astronomer of the Khedive, Mahmûd Bey, restored this well-preserved monument to use in 1870. Strabo gives the following excellent description, which is interesting to compare with the monument as it now exists.”5
“‘The Nilometer is a well built of regular hewn stones, on the bank of the Nile, in which is recorded the rise of the stream, not only the maximum but also the minimum and average rise, for the water in the well rises and falls with the stream. On the side of the well are marks, measuring the complete rise of the water and all the other degrees of its rising. These are observed and published for general information’.”6
“Readers are referred to our account of the Miḳyâs at Cairo (Vol. 1., p. 319). The Nilometer at Elephantine consists of a narrow roofless chamber, connected with the stream, and is reached by 52 steps in 6 flights. The lowest landing is reckoned as 4 Arabian ells or about 7 ft. above the lowest water level (the dirꜥa or Arabian ell being equal to 54 centimètres or about 21 1/3 inches). Above that point 13 ells are marked, so that the highest point marked is 30 ft. (17 Arab. ells) above the minimum water-level. Each ell is divided on the side of the well into 6 parts and 24 kirat. The 13 old Egyptian ells, each divided into 7 spans and 28 fingers, have a total length of 6,895 mètres (about 20 ft.), from which Mahmûd Bey obtained 53 centimètres as the equivalent for an ell instead of the previously accepted 52 1/2 centimètres. The water-level fluctuates actually between the top of the first ell and the seventeenth, i.e. has a range at Assuân of 16 ells of 54 centimètres each. The old and new marks are placed on every third step. From the sur- face of the water upwards are 11 marks, of which, however, only the half are necessary, as the Nile no longer rises higher.”7
“Close beside the river, farther to the N., lies a massive Roman Structure, built of hewn blocks from earlier edifices. Many of these blocks are covered with inscriptions of different dates, including fragmentary lists of offerings and festival calendars and a portion of a Nilometer. The rock-inscriptions close to the stream should also be noticed. They include inscriptions by Neferkara (Pepi), Unas, Antef aa, with one by Amenemha on the other side.”8
“The higher parts of the island command a fine *View of the black and brown, rough and smooth rocks of the cataract, among which the Nile, split up into many small branches, sometimes dashes in foaming energy, sometimes flows in unruffled calmness.”9