Syene

The Scriptural name for Aswan. It gives its name to a particular form of granite found there and hence called syenite. The name is derived from the hieroglyphic *sun*. It owed its ancient importance to its granite quarries, whence material for temples, obelisks, and statues was taken, and on account of its being a frontier town between Egypt proper and Nubia. In Ptolemaic times it was considered to lie immediately under the tropic, because it was noticed that during the summer solstice the rays of the sun fell vertically to the bottom of a well in the town. This well has not been discovered. Eratosthenes made use of this fact in his calculations for the measurement of the earth.