๐ช๐ฌ Aswan is a city in the south of Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate.
Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract. The modern city has expanded and includes the formerly separate community on the island of Elephantine.
Aswan includes five monuments within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae (despite Aswan being neither Nubian, nor between Abu Simbel and Philae); these are the Old and Middle Kingdom tombs of Qubbet el-Hawa, the town of Elephantine, the stone quarries and Unfinished Obelisk, the Monastery of St. Simeon and the Fatimid Cemetery. The city's Nubian Museum is an important archaeological centre, containing finds from the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia prior to the Aswan Dam's flooding of all of Lower Nubia.
The city is part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the category of craft and folk art. Aswan joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2017.
History Aswan is the ancient city of Swenett, later known as Syene, which in antiquity was the frontier town of Ancient Egypt facing the south. Swenett is supposed to have derived its name from an Egyptian goddess with the same name. This goddess later was identified as Eileithyia by the Greeks and Lucina by the Romans during their occupation of Ancient Egypt because of the similar association of their goddesses with childbirth, and of which the import is "the opener". The ancient name of the city also is said to be derived from the Egyptian symbol for "trade", or "market".
Because the Ancient Egyptians oriented themselves toward the origin of the life-giving waters of the Nile in the south, and as Swenett was the southernmost town in the country, Egypt always was conceived to "open" or begin at Swenett. The city stood upon a peninsula on the right (east) bank of the Nile, immediately below (and north of) the first cataract of the flowing waters, which extended to it from Philae. Navigation to the delta was possible from this location without encountering a barrier.
The stone quarries of ancient Egypt located here were celebrated for their stone, and especially for the granitic rock called syenite. They furnished the colossal statues, obelisks, and monolithic shrines that are found throughout Egypt, including the pyramids; and the traces of the quarrymen who worked in these 3,000 years ago are still visible in the native rock. They lie on either bank of the Nile, and a road, 6.5ย km (4.0ย mi) in length, was cut beside them from Syene to Philae.
Swenett was equally important as a military station and for its position on a trade route. Under every dynasty it was a garrison town; and here tolls and customs were levied on all boats passing southwards and northwards. Around 330, the legion stationed here received a bishop from Alexandria; this later became the Coptic Diocese of Syene. The city is mentioned by numerous ancient writers, including Herodotus, Strabo, Stephanus of Byzantium, Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder, Vitruvius, and it appears on the Antonine Itinerary. It may also be mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Isaiah.
The Nile is nearly 650ย m (0.40ย mi) wide above Aswan. From this frontier town to the northern extremity of Egypt, the river flows for more than 1,200ย km (750ย mi) without bar or cataract. The voyage from Aswan to Alexandria usually took 21 to 28 days in favorable weather.
Archaeology In April 2018, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of the head of the bust of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius at the Temple of Kom Ombo during work to protect the site from groundwater.
In September 2018, the Egyptian Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany announced that a sandstone sphinx statue had been discovered at the temple of Kom Ombo. The statue, measuring approximately 28ย cm (11ย in) in width and 38ย cm (15ย in)) in height, likely dates to the Ptolemaic Dynasty.
Archaeologists discovered 35 mummified remains of Egyptians in a tomb in Aswan in 2019. Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini and El-Enany both reported that the tomb, where the remains of ancient men, women and children were found, dates back to the Greco-Roman period between 332 BC and 395 AD. While the findings assumed belonging to a mother and a child were well preserved, others had suffered major destruction. Other than the mummies, artifacts including painted funerary masks, vases of bitumen used in mummification, pottery and wooden figurines were revealed. Thanks to the hieroglyphics on the tomb, it was detected that the tomb belongs to a tradesman named Tjit.
Piacentini commented โIt's a very important discovery because we have added something to the history of Aswan that was missing. We knew about tombs and necropoli dating back to the second and third millennium, but we didn't know where the people who lived in the last part of the Pharaonic era were. Aswan, on the southern border of Egypt, was also a very important trading cityโ.
Stan Hendrick, John Coleman Darnell and Maria Gatto in 2012 excavated petroglyphic engravings from Nag el-Hamdulab in Aswan which featured representations of a boat procession, solar symbolism and the earliest depiction of the White Crown with an estimated dating range between 3200BC and 3100BC.
In February 2021, archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced significant discoveries at an archaeological site called Shiha Fort in Aswan, namely a Ptolemaic period temple, a Roman fort, an early Coptic church and an inscription in hieratic script. According to Mostafa Waziri, the crumbling temple was decorated with palm leaf carvings and an incomplete sandstone panel that described a Roman emperor. Researcher Abdel Badie states more generally that the church contained ovens used to bake pottery, four rooms, a long hall, stairs, and stone tiles.
Northern Tropic boundary The latitude of the city that would become Aswan โ located at 24ยฐ 5โฒ 23โณ โ was an object of great interest to the ancient geographers and mathematicians. They believed that it was seated immediately under the tropic, and that on the day of the summer solstice, a vertically positioned staff cast no shadow. They noted that the sun's disc was reflected in a deep well (or pit) at noon. This statement is only approximately correct; at the summer solstice, the shadow was only 1โ400 of the staff, and so could scarcely be discerned, and the northern limb of the Sun's disc would be nearly vertical. More than 2200 years ago, Greek polymath Eratosthenes used this information to calculate earth's circumference.
Education In 2012, the Aswan University was inaugurated, which is headquartered in the city. Aswan is also home to the Aswan Higher Institute of Social Work, which was established in 1975.
Transport The city is crossed by the Cape to Cairo Road, which connects it to Luxor and Cairo to the north, and Abu Simbel and Wadi Halfa to the south. Also important is the Aswan-Berenice highway, which connects with the ports of the Red Sea.
Aswan is linked to Cairo by the Cape to Cairo Railway, which also connects it with Wadi Halfa. The railway is incomplete towards the south.
Other key transport infrastructures are the Port of Aswan, the largest river port in the region, and Aswan International Airport.
Aswan has a population of over 351,332 people. Aswan also forms the centre of the wider Aswan Governorate which has a population of over 1,501,000 people.
To set up a UBI Lab for Aswan see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork
Aswan is a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network for Craft and Folk Art see: https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities
Twin Towns, Sister Cities Aswan has links with:
๐จ๐ณ Banan, China ๐จ๐ณ Chongqing, China ๐บ๐ธ Sonoma, USAUNESCO Creative Cities for Craft and Folk Art include: ๐ธ๐ฆ Al-Ahsa ๐ต๐พ Areguรก ๐ช๐ฌ Aswan ๐ต๐ช Ayacucho ๐ต๐ญ Baguio ๐ฆ๐ซ Bamiyan ๐ฆ๐ซ Bamyan ๐ฎ๐ท Bandar Abbas ๐ต๐น Barcelos ๐ฎ๐น Biella ๐บ๐ฟ Bukhara ๐ช๐ฌ Cairo ๐ต๐น Caldas da Rainha ๐ฎ๐น Carrara ๐ต๐น Castelo Branco ๐น๐ญ Chiang Mai ๐ช๐จ Chordeleg ๐ช๐จ Durรกn ๐ฎ๐น Fabriano ๐ง๐ฌ Gabrovo ๐ป๐ณ Hoi An ๐ฟ๐ฆ Howick ๐ฐ๐ท Icheon ๐ฎ๐ท Isfahan ๐ญ๐น Jacmel ๐ฎ๐ณ Jaipur ๐ฐ๐ท Jinju ๐ง๐ท Joรฃo Pessoa ๐ฏ๐ต Kanazawa ๐ท๐บ Kargopol ๐น๐ท Kรผtahya ๐ซ๐ท Limoges ๐จ๐ฉ Lubumbashi ๐ฏ๐ด Madaba ๐ฉ๐ด Monte Cristi ๐ง๐ธ Nassau ๐ง๐ซ Ouagadougou ๐บ๐ธ Paducah ๐ฎ๐ฉ Pekalongan ๐ง๐ฏ Porto-Novo ๐ฒ๐ฝ San Cristรณbal de las Casas ๐บ๐ธ Santa Fe ๐ฆ๐ช Sharjah ๐ฆ๐ฟ Sheki ๐น๐ฌ Sokodรฉ ๐น๐ญ Sukhothai ๐น๐ญ Sukhothai Thani ๐ฎ๐ฉ Surakarta ๐ฒ๐ฆ Tรฉtouan ๐จ๐บ Trinidad ๐น๐ณ Tunis ๐ฒ๐ณ Ulaanbaatar ๐ช๐ช Viljandi
๐น๐ผ Changhua City 24.067
๐ฎ๐ณ Pratapgarh 24.03
๐ฒ๐ฝ Victoria de Durango 24.024
๐บ๐ฆ Yevpatoria 33.361
๐น๐ท Altฤฑndaฤ 32.867
๐น๐ท Keรงiรถren 32.867
๐บ๐ฌ Wakiso Town 32.837
๐บ๐ฌ Mukono Town 32.75
Locations Near: Aswan 32.8989,24.0884
๐ช๐ฌ Luxor 32.647,25.696 d: 180.5
๐ช๐ฌ Qus 32.767,25.933 d: 205.6
๐ช๐ฌ Qina 32.717,26.167 d: 231.8
๐ช๐ฌ Qena 32.717,26.167 d: 231.8
๐ช๐ฌ Kharga 30.55,25.433 d: 280.4
๐ช๐ฌ Hurghada 33.8,27.25 d: 363
๐ช๐ฌ Assiut 31.167,27.183 d: 385.5
๐ช๐ฌ Asyut 31.167,27.183 d: 385.5
Antipodal to: Aswan -147.101,-24.088
๐ต๐ซ Papeete -149.566,-17.537 d: 19243
๐ฆ๐ธ Pago Pago -170.701,-14.279 d: 17312.8
๐ผ๐ธ Apia -171.76,-13.833 d: 17188.5
๐น๐ด Nuku'alofa -175.216,-21.136 d: 17115.4
๐บ๐ธ Hilo -155.089,19.725 d: 15067
๐บ๐ธ Maui -156.446,20.72 d: 14931
๐บ๐ธ Kahului -156.466,20.891 d: 14911.9
๐บ๐ธ Maui County -156.617,20.868 d: 14911.2