Pelusium lay between the seaboard and the marshes of theNile Delta, about two-and-a-half miles from the sea. The port was choked by sand as early as the first century BC, and the coastline has now advanced far beyond its ancient limits that the city, even in the third century AD, was at least four miles from the Mediterranean.[5]
The principal product of the neighbouring lands wasflax, and thelinum Pelusiacum (Pliny's Natural History xix. 1. s. 3) was both abundant and of a very fine quality. Pelusium was also known for being an early producer of beer, known as the Pelusian drink.[6] Pelusium stood as a border-fortress, a place of great strength, on the frontier, protecting Egypt as regards toSyria and the sea. Thus, from its position, it was directly exposed to attack by any invaders of Egypt; it was often besieged, and several important battles were fought around its walls.
Pelusium was the easternmost major city ofLower Egypt, situated upon the easternmost bank of theNile, theOstium Pelusiacum, to which it gave its name.Pliny the Elder gives its location in relation to the frontier of Arabia: "At Ras Straki, 65 miles from Pelusium, is the frontier of Arabia. Then beginsIdumaea, andPalestine at the point where theSerbonian Lake comes into view. This lake... is now an inconsiderable fen."[8]
The Roman name "Pelusium" was derived from the Koine Greek name, and the Greek from a translation of the Egyptian one.[citation needed] It was variously known asSena andPer-Amun[9] (Late Egyptian andCoptic:ⲠⲉⲣⲉⲙⲟⲩⲛPeremoun) "House or Temple of the sun godAmun",Pelousion orSaien (Koinē Greek:Πηλούσιον or Σαῖν),Imperial Aramaic andHebrew:סִין,romanized: Sin, and Egyptian ArabicTell el-Farama).[1][7] According toWilliam Smith, it was theSin of theHebrew Bible inEzekiel 30:15. Smith surmised that the word in its Egyptian and Greek forms (Peremoun orPeromi;ΠήλοςPelos) had the connotation of a 'city made of mud' (omi, Coptic, "mud").[5]
The anonymous author of the AramaicPalestinian Targum translated the word "Rameses" in thePentateuch as meaningPelusin (Pelusium). It is not certain whether or not the 10th-century rabbi and scholarSaadia Gaon agreed with that determination, although he possessed another tradition of later making, writing thatRameses mentioned inNumbers 33:3, and inExodus 1:11 and12:37, as also inGenesis 47:11, refers toAin Shams.[10] Modern-day historical geographers associate ʻAin Shams withHeliopolis.
According to the 1st-century historianJosephus, Pelusium was situated on one of the mouths of the Nile.[11]
The following are the most notable events in the history of Pelusium :
Sennacherib, theNeo-Assyrian emperor, 720-715 BC, in the reign ofSethos the Aethiopian of the25th Dynasty of Egypt, advanced from theKingdom of Judah upon Pelusium, but retired without fighting from before its walls inIsaiah 31:8;Herodotus ii. 141;Strabo xiii. p. 604. His retreat was ascribed to the favor ofHephaestos towards Sethos, his priest. In the night, while the Assyrians slept, a host of field mice gnawed their bow-strings and shield-straps, who fled, and many of them were slain in their flight by the Egyptians. Herodotus saw in the temple of Hephaestos atMemphis, a record of this victory of the Egyptians: a statue of Sethos holding a mouse in his hand. The story probably rests on the fact that in the symbolism of Egypt, the mouse implied destruction. (Compare HorapolisHieroglyph. i. 50;Claudius Aelianus,De Natura Animalium vi. 41.)
The decisiveBattle of Pelusium (525 BC) which transferred the throne of thePharaohs toCambyses II, king of thePersians, was fought near Pelusium. The fields around were strewn with the bones of the combatants when Herodotus visited. He noted that the skulls of the Egyptians were distinguishable from those of the Persians by their superior hardness, a fact confirmed he said by the mummies. He ascribed this to the Egyptians' shaving their heads from infancy, and to the Persians covering them up with folds of cloth or linen. (Herodotus ii. 10, seq.); however, according to legend, Pelusium fell without a fight, by the simple expedient of having the invading army drive cats (sacred to the local goddessBast) before them. As Cambyses advanced at once to Memphis, Pelusium probably surrendered itself immediately after the battle. (Polyaen.Stratag. vii. 9.)
In 373 BC,Pharnabazus, satrap ofPhrygia, andIphicrates, the commander of theAthenian armament, appeared before Pelusium, but retired without attacking it,Nectanebo I, king of Egypt, having added to its former defences by laying the neighboring lands under water, and blocking up the navigable channels of the Nile by embankments. (Diodorus Siculus xv. 42;Cornelius Nepos,Iphicrates c. 5.)
Pelusium was attacked and taken by the Persians, c. 340 BC. The city contained at the time a garrison of 5,000 Greek mercenaries under the command ofPhilophron. At first, owing to the rashness of theThebans in the Persian service, the defenders had the advantage. But the Egyptian kingNectanebo II hastily venturing on a pitched battle, his troops were cut to pieces, and Pelusium surrendered to the Theban generalLacrates on honorable conditions. (Diodorus Siculus xvi. 43.)
In 333 BC, Pelusium opened its gates toAlexander the Great, who placed a garrison in it under the command of one of those officers entitled Companions of the King. (Arrian,Exp. Alex. iii. 1, seq.; Quintus Curtius iv. 33.)
In 173 BC,Antiochus Epiphanes utterly defeated the troops ofPtolemy Philometor under the walls of Pelusium, which he took and retained after he had retired from the rest of Egypt. (PolybiusLegat. § 82; Hieronym.in Daniel. xi.) On the fall of the Syrian kingdom, however, if not earlier, Pelusium had been restored to thePtolemies.
In 55 BC, again belonging to Egypt,Mark Antony, as cavalry commander to theRoman proconsulGabinius, defeated the Egyptian army, and made himself master of the city.Ptolemy Auletes, in whose behalf the Romans invaded Egypt at this time, wished to put the Pelusians to the sword; but his intention was thwarted by Mark Anthony. (Plut.Anton. c. 3; Valerius Max. ix. 1.)
In 30 BC, more than half a year after his victory atActium,Augustus appeared before Pelusium, and was admitted by its governorSeleucus within its walls.
In 115-117 AD, during theDiaspora Revolt, the Jews are said to have taken control of the waterways near Pelusium.
In 501 AD, Pelusium suffered greatly from the Persian invasion of Egypt (Eutychius, Annal.).
In 639, Pelusium offered a protracted, though, in the end, an ineffectual resistance to the arms ofAmr ibn al-As. As on former occasions, the surrender of the key of the Delta was nearly equivalent to the subjugation of Egypt itself.
In ca. 870, Pelusium is mentioned as a major port in the trade network of theRadhanite merchants.
In 1118,Baldwin I of Jerusalem razed the city to the ground, but died shortly afterwards of food poisoning after eating a plateful of the local fish.
The sultans who ruled Pelusium followingthe Crusades, however, generally neglected the harbors, and from that period Pelusium, which had long been on the decline, almost disappeared from history.
The first excavations in Pelusium started in 1910 and were conducted by French EgyptologistJean Cledat, who also drew the plan of the whole site. In the 1980s, work was carried out by Egyptian researchers directed by Mohammed Abd El-Maksoud as well as French linguist and historian Jean-Yves Carrez-Maratray. The Egyptian expedition uncoveredRoman baths withmosaics, dated to the 3rd century. Due to the planned construction of the Peace Canal, which was to cross the site, salvage excavations were commenced in 1991. Each of the several institutions from all over the world which took part in the project was assigned its sector in the area of Pelusium and its vicinity, i.e., the so-called Greater Pelusium. The Egyptian team explored theRoman theatre and theByzantinebasilica; the Swiss carried out a survey; the British worked in the southern part of the site, and the Canadian in the western.[12] From 2003 to 2009, an expedition from thePolish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw conducted research in the so-called Great Theater from the 2nd/3rd century and residential buildings of a later date.[2] The Polish-Egyptian team also carried out restoration and reconstruction works in the theater.[13]
In 2019, besides the main streets of Pelusium city, a 2,500-square-metre Graeco-Roman building made of red brick and limestone was revealed by the Egyptian archeological mission. Interior design of the building contained the remnants of three 60 cm-thick circular benches. According to archaeologistMostafa Waziri, the building was very likely used to hold meetings for the citizens′ representatives or headquarters for the Senate Council of Pelusium.[14][15]
In 2022 archaeologists found the remains of a temple ofZeus-Kasios.[16] Researchers knew about the temple, since in early 1900 Jean Cledat had found Greek inscriptions that showed the existence of the temple, but this was the first time that ruins of the temple were found.[17]
Of the six military roads formed or adopted by the Romans in Egypt, the following are mentioned in theItinerarium of Antoninus as connected with Pelusium:
From Memphis to Pelusium. This road joined the great road fromPselcis inNubia atBabylon, nearly opposite Memphis, and coincided with it as far asScenae Veteranorum. The two roads,viz. that from Pselcis to Scenae Veteranorum, which turned off to the east atHeliopolis, and that from Memphis to Pelusium, connected the latter city with the capital of Lower Egypt, Trajan's canal, andArsinoe, near Suez, on theSinus Heroopolites (modernGulf of Suez).
Since its twentieth century establishment as Metropolitan titular archbishopric,Pelusium of the (Greek) Melkites has had the following incumbents, all of this highest rank :
^Talbert, Richard J. A., ed. (15 September 2000).Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 70, 74.ISBN978-0-691-03169-9.
^"Holy Archdioceses".Patriarchate of Alexandria.Archived from the original on 2 April 2014. Retrieved14 December 2020.
Egypt
Donne, William Bodham (1857)."Pelusium". InSmith, William (ed.).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. pp. 572–573.
