📷 Ahmed Amin · Pexels
Where in the world
Egypt
Elephantine
Egyptian · Egypt
Field notes
- civilizations
- Egyptian
- types
- City · Temple
- occupied
- 3,000 BCE — 400 CE
- country
- Egypt
The site
Elephantine is an island in the Nile forming part of Aswan in Upper Egypt, occupied from around 3000 BCE to 400 CE as an Egyptian city and temple site. Excavations here recovered a remarkable trove of Aramaic papyri and ostraca documenting a mercenary community that kept its own temple to Yahweh, coexisting and clashing with local Egyptian religion until the temple's destruction in 410 BCE. It became a World Heritage Site in 1979.
