Being desirous, after the revelation of intimacy between prehistoric Crete and Egypt which the Cnossian excavations had made, to know if there were indeed no ‘Aegean’ remains in the Lower Delta, I searched the authorities for an account of the extant antiquities of its north central region—north, that is, of the ‘Berari’ railway, which links Dessuk on the Rosetta Nile with Sherbin on the Damietta arm. But in vain. Nor, for that matter, could I find any description of the scenery of the region itself, more detailed and recent than the romantic sketch of the marshes with which Heliodorus opened hisAethiopica. I had myself visited the extreme south-west corner of it in 1896, following in the steps of Messrs. Petrie and Griffith to Tell al-Farain; and the last named scholar had gone on thence a few miles north to the district of Tida. North and east of that point stretched unknown land. So I was forced to undertake an exploration of the region for myself. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies generously gave a grant in aid; and almost every kind of assistance was furnished on the spot by theSociété Anonyme du Behéra, through the great goodwill of its Managing Director Mr. E. W. P. Foster, C.M.G.

¹ SeePetrie,,Naukratis,i. p.93Google Scholar, and compare his remarks on our ignorance of the Delta,ibid. p. 1.

² The variations in the Nome-lists, as given by divers authorities, present an insoluble puzzle. Seee.g. the discrepancies between Strabo's list and the lists in theRevenue Papyrus of Ptolemy Philadelphus (cols. 31, 60, ed. B. P. Grenfell). No one of Ptolemy's five coastal Nomes, except the Mendesiac, appears in that Papyrus: but it is not impossible that Nome No. 7. in col. 31, Δέλτα, included one or more of them. Evidently there were frequent changes made in the distribution and nomenclature of Nomes, especially in the Delta, perhaps owing to gradual changes which took place in natural conditions by processes of reclamation. It is impossible to regard any list as final, but it is equally impossible not to regard certain lists,e.g. this in theRevenue Papyrus, as authoritative and comprehensive for the moments at which they were compiled.

³Ed. Parthey I. nos. 730–734. LaterNotitiae, seem to follow no geographical order; cf.Byz. Zeitsch.ii. p.25Google Scholar.

⁴ Cf.Amélineau,,Géog. de l'Égypte à l'Époque Copta, p.179Google Scholar.

⁵Athanasius ed.Migne,, p.619Google Scholar.

⁶ De Rougé published it first as app. to hisGéog. de la Basse Égypte. He had got his copy from Revillout.

⁷ SeeWüstenfeld's, trans, inAbh. d. Kön. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Göttingen, vol.xxv. Hist. Phil. Classe l.2Google Scholar.

⁸ At the end of his edition ofAbdallatif's,Relation de l'Égypte, pp.593Google Scholar, ff.

⁹ The signature of a bishop at the Council of Ephesus,Φλαβωνίας, is interpreted by an ancient gloss asΦραγώνϵως Αἰγύπτου (in the Coptic Acts ed. byBouriant,V. inMiss. Fr. au Caireviii.1Google Scholar, the reading isΠλακωνϵος); so perhaps there was some phonetic uncertainty about the sound, variously rendered by γ, υ, and β. In the Arabic form (if one may trust de Rougé and Amélineau for exact collation of MSS.) this sound appears variously asjim andḥâ: and in local pronunciation to-day there seemed to me to be the trace either of a softg or anain in this place.

¹⁰ Cf. also the occurrence of both names in the signatures to the Council of Ephesus.

¹¹ A see, also occurs both in the Equivalents List and thescalae; and Amélineau (p. 105) is probably right in locating it beyond Shabas and near the river. But its name must also be a survival of the old Nome title (Ptenetu in Pliny), and doubtless the place was a successor to Buto on the western side, as Phragonis on the eastern.

¹² The name probably occurs also in theAnon. Ravennas disguised asPessimines: but this does not help us to locate it.

¹³ I took this view myself at first, and still feel a difficulty in rejecting it. But there is not another unassigned site in the whole N. central Delta of sufficient obvious importance to be that of a Nome capital, except Tell al-Balamun close to the Damietta Nile (see below p. 11): and to place the capital of Sebennytes Inferior so far east is to introduce great difficulty into the understanding of Ptolemy's geographical arrangement of Nomes and Niles.

¹⁴ Seeinfra.

¹⁵ SeeB.M.,Coin Cat. Alexandria, p.343Google Scholar. The lower Sebennytic Nome had coins with distinct cult type, stamped a fact, which, even had Hierocles and the Notitia left any doubt, would serve to negative the proposal of Brugsch and de Rougé to identify Pachnemounis and Diospolis Inferior.

¹⁶ p. 802.

¹⁷ The new Survey shows the greatest length, N.W.—S.E., to be about 900 metres, and greatest breadth, 600 metres.

¹⁸ In Notitia I῾Ρεγέον occurs between῾Ελεαρχία andΠάραλος and it has been reasonably conjectured that this =Regio Maritima.

¹⁹ Reinaud's trans, ii. p. 161.

²⁰Athanasius, inFestal Letterxii probably indicates this bishopric asBucolia. Cf. hisLife of St. Antony49Google Scholar.

²¹Mr.Crum,W. E. has referred me to various authorities concerning this monastery, which are mentioned by him inEgypt Expl. Fund Arch. Report1899–1900 p.51Google Scholar, also toWansleben,, who visited the place in 1672 (Hist. de l'Église ďAlexandrie p.160)Google Scholar.

^{page 17 note 20} Ptolemy makes it clear that Sebennytus itself was not on this Nile, in spite of the name of the estuary; but was on the Athribitie. Perhaps the Sebennytic estuary was so called after the Lower Sebennytic Nome.

^{page 18 note 21} In spite of the easy confusion I do not feel sure that Herodotus' ‘Saitic’ mouth ought to be read Sanitic. He has no other name for the Taly, which certainly flowed very near Sais: for ‘Bolbitinic’ is the epithet of the estuary only, not of the stream.