no other god. According to Manetho, the Shepherds, after 511 years of rule, were expelled from all Egypt and shut up in Avaris, whence they were allowed to de- part by capitulation by either Amosis or Thummosis (Aahmes or Thothmes IV), the first and seventh kings of the eighteenth dynasty. The monuments show that the honor of ridding Egypt of the Shepherds belongs to Aahmes. Kameses II embellished the great temple of Tanis, and was followed by his son Menptah.
After the fall of the empire, the first dynasty is the twenty-first, called by Manetho that of Tanites. Its history is obscure, and it fell before the stronger line of Bubastites, the twenty-second dynasty, founded by Shi- shak. The expulsion of Set from the pantheon, under the twenty-second dynasty, must have been a blow to Tanis, and perhaps a religious war occasioned the rise of the twenty- third. The twenty-third dynasty is called Tanite, and its last king is probably Sethos, the contemporary of Tirhakah, mentioned by Herodotus. See Egypt.
3. Fro7n the Bible we learn that Zoan was one of the oldest cities in Egypt, having been built seven years after Hebron, which already' existed in the time of Abraham (Numb, xiii, 22; comp. Gen. xxii, 2). It seems also to have been one of the principal capitals, or royal abodes, of the Pharaohs (Isa. xix, 11, 13); and accordingly " the field of Zoan, "or the fine alluvial plain around the city, is described as the scene of the marvel- lous works which God wrought in the time of Moses ( Psa. Ixxviii, 12, 33). Tanis once more appears in sacred history as a place to which came ambassadors, either of Hoshea or Ahaz, or else possibly Hezekiah: "For his princes were at Zoan, and his messengers came to Ilanes" (Isa. xxx, 4). As mentioned with the frontier town Tahpanhes, Tanis is not necessarily the capital. But the same prophet perhaps more distinctly points to a Tanite line when saying, in " the burden of Egypt," "The princes of Zoan are become fools; the princes of Noph are deceived" (xix, 13). The doom of Tanis is foretold by Ezekiel : "I will set fire in Zoan" (Ezek. xxx. 14), where it occurs among the cities to be taken by Nebuchadnezzar.
HI. Description and Remains. — Anciently a rich plain extended due east as far as Pelusium, about thirty miles distant, gradually narrowing towards the east, so that in a south-easterly direction from Tanis it was not more than half this breadth. The whole of this plain, about as far south and west as Tanis, was anciently known as " the Fields" or " Plains," " the Marshes" {ra "E\»/, 'W^iapxia), or " the pasture-lands" (BoiifcoXia). Through the subsidence of the Mediterranean coast, it is now al- most covered by the great lake Menzaleh. Of old it was a rich marsh-land, watered by four of the seven branches of the Nile, the Pathmitic, Mendesian, Tanitic, and Pe- lusiac, and swept by the cool breezes of the Mediter- ranean.
At present "the plain of San is very extensive, but thinly inhabited; no village exists in the immediate vicinity of the ancient Tanis; and, when looking from the mounds of this once splendid city towards the dis- tant piilms of indistinct villages, we perceive the desola- tion spread around it. The 'field' of Zoan is now a bar- ren waste; a canal passes through it without being able to fertilize the soil; 'fire' has been set in 'Zoan;' and one of the i)rincipal, capitals or royal abodes of tlie Pha- raohs is now the haliitation of fishermen, the resort of wild beasts, and infested with reptiles and malignant fevers." It is "remarkable for the height and extent of its mounds, which are upwards of a mile from north to south, and nearly three quarters of a mile from east to west. The area in which the sacred enclosure of the temple stood is about 1500 feet by 1250, surrounded by mounds of fallen houses. The temple was adorned by Rameses II with numerous obelisks and most of its sculptures. It is very ruinous, but its remains prove its former grandeur. The number of its obelisks, ten or twelve, all now fallen, is unequalled, and the labor of
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transportinfic them from Syene shows the lavish mag- nificence of the Egyptian itings. The oldest name found here is that of Sesertesen III of the twelfth dy- nasty, the latest that of Tirhakah" (Wilkinson, Iftiiid- 600 A-, p. 221, 222). Two black statues and a granite sphinx, with blocks of hewn and occasionally sculpt- ured granite, are among the objects which engage the attention of the few travellers who visit this desolate place. The modem village of San consists of mere huts, with the exception of a ruined kasr of modern date (id. Modern Egypt, i, 449-452; Narratire of the ScottLih Dejmtation, p. 72-76). Recentlj' M. Mariette has made excavations on this site and discovered remains of the Shepherd period, showing a markedly characteristic style, especially in the representation of face and figure, but of Egyptian art, and therefore afterwards appropri- ated by the Egyptian kings. The bilingual or rather trilingual inscription of Ptolemy III (Euergetes I) is of very great interest. See Lepsius, Das hilingue Decret von Kanopus (Bel. 18C7) ; Reinisch und Rosier, Die zwei- sprachifje Tnschrift von Tunis (Vienna, eod.) ; Proceed- ings of the Amer. Oriental Society, May, 1870, p. viii; Bibliotheca Sacra, xxiv, 771 ; xxvi, 581.