The exact site of Pelusium is not fully determined. It has been thought to be marked by mounds near Burg et-Tineh, now called El-Farma, and not Et-Tineh. This is disputed by Capt. Spratt, who supposes that the mound of Abu-Khiyar indicates where it stood. This is further inland, and apparently on the west of the old Pelusiac branch, as was Pelusium. It is situate be- tween Farraii and Tel-Defeimeh. Whatever may have been its exact position, Pelusium must have owe<l its strength not to any great elevation, but to its being placed in the midst of a plain of marsh-land and mud, never easy to traverse. The ancient sites in such al- luvial tracts of Egypt are in general onh' sufficiently raised above the level of the plain to preserve them from being injured by the inundation. It lay among swamps and morasses on the most easterly estuary of
the Nile (which received from it the name of Ostium Pelusiacum), and stood twenty stades from the Med- iterranean (Strabo, xvi, 760 ; xvii, 801,802; Pliny, //w/. Nat. v, 11). The site is now onlj' approachable by boats during a high Nile, or by land when the summer sun has dried tlie mud left by the inundation ; the remains consist only of mounds and a few fallen columns. The climate is very unwholesome (Wilkinson, Mod. Egypt. i, 406. 444; Savary, Letters on Egypt, i, let. 24; Henni- ker. Travels).
The antiquity of the town of Sin may perhaps be inferred from the mention of " the wilderness of Sin" in the journeys of the Israelites (Exod. xvi, 1 ; Numb, xxxiii, 11). It is remarkable, however, that the Israel- ites did not immediately enter this tract on leaving the cultivated part of Egypt, so that it is held to have been within the Sinaitic peninsula, and therefore it may take its name from some other place or country than the Egyptian Sin. (See No. 2.)
Pelusium is noticed (as above) by Ezekiel, in one of the prophecies relating to the invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, as one of the cities which should then suffer calamities, with, probably, reference to their later history. The others spoken of are Noph (Memphis), Zoan (Tanis), No (Thebes), Aven (Heliopolis), Pi-be- seth (Bubastis), and Tehaphnehes (Daphnte). All these, excepting the two ancient capitals, Thebes and Mem- phis, lay on or near the eastern boundary ; and, in the approach to Memphis, an invader could scarcely ad- vance, after capturing Pelusium and Daphna;, with- out taking Tanis, Bubastis, and Heliopolis. In the most ancient times Tanis, as afterwards Pelusium, seems to have been the key of Egypt on the east. Bu- bastis was an important position from its lofty mounds, and Heliopolis as securing the approach to Memphis. The prophet speaks of Sin as "the stronghold of Egypt" (xxx, 15). This place it held from that time until the period of the Romans. Pelusium appears to have been the perpetual battle-field between the Egyp- tians and their foreign enemies. As early as the time of Rameses the Great, in the 14th century B.C., we find Sin proving itself to be what the prophet termed it, " the strength of Egypt." One of the Sallier papyri in the British Museum contains a record of the war be- tween the Egyptians and the Sheta; and the victory which Rameses gained in the neighborhood of Pelusium is detailed at length. The importance of this victory may be gathered from the fact that the Sheta are said to have made their attack with 4500 chariots. As Di- odorus specifies the number of this Pharaoh's army, which he says amounted to 60,000 infantry, 24,000 cav- alry, and 27,000 chariots of war, it is no wonder that he was enabled successfullj- to resist the attacks of the Sheta. Diodorus also mentions that Rameses the Great " defended the east side of Egypt against the irruptions of the Syrians and Arabians with a wall drawn from Pelusium through the deserts, as far as to Heliopolis, for the space of 1500 furlongs." He gives a singular account of an attempt on the part of his younger brother to murder this great Pharaoh, when at Pelusium after one of his warlike expeditions, which was happily frus- trated by the adroitness of the king (Diod. Sic. i, 4). Herodotus relates (ii, 141) that Sennacherib advanced against Pelusium, and that near Pelusium Cambyses defeated Psammenitus (iii, 10-13). In like manner the decisive battle in which Ochus defeated the last native king, Nectanebos (Nckht-nebf), was fought near this city. It was near this place that Pompey met his death, being murdered by order of Ptolemy, whose pro- tection he had claimed (Hist. Bell. Akxaud. p. 20, 27; Livy, xlv, 11 ; Josephus, Ant. xiv, 8, 1 ; War, i, 8, 7; i, 9, 3). It is perliaps worthy of note that Ezekiel twice mentions Pelusiiun in tlie prophecy which contains the remarkable and signally fulfilled sentence, "There shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt" (xxx, 13). As he saw the long train of calamities that were to fall upon the country, Pelusium may weU have stood out as
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the chief place of her successive humiliations. Two Persian coiiquests and two submissions to strangers — first to Alexaiuler, and then to Augustus — may explain the especial misery foretold of this city : " Sin phall suffer great anguish" (Ezek. xxx, 1(5).