Sais and its Ruins: Lost forever or still to be found?
A magnificent city known as Sais, once rose from the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. Situated on the Rosetta branch of the Nile River, where it divides as it travels to the Mediterranean Sea. It’s origins date back to Neolithic and pre-dynastic periods. From about 3000 BC, it was an important cult center for the goddess Neith. She was one of Egypt’s oldest and most revered deities. The temple temple contained the tombs of kings and even a god.
The city enjoyed a high period under the 26th Dynasty Kings (664-525). They made Sais their Capital until the Persian invasion of Cambyses. It continued to exist down into the Ptolemaic and Roman periods BC.
In the last two thousand years, Sais declined and was largely forgotten. Its temples and walls were demolished, it’s remains pilfered. Today nothing much remains, except a tiny village called Sa el-Hagar and a few scattered ruins.
A City of Learned Priests
In antiquity, Sais was renowned as a great centre of learning. It attracted many of the greatest minds of the time. Plato’s Timaeus and Critias record that Sais was where his ancestor Solon, the Greek Lawgiver, visited in 600BC. It was there he learned the story of Atlantis as recorded by Plato in the Timaeus.
In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizen’s have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene….To this city came Solon, and was relieved there with great honour; he asked the priests who were the most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old.
(Plato, Timeaus, See sources)
Although many centuries later, Plutarch also records that many of the wisest Greeks visited Sais. He mentions that Solon visited the city and spoke with the priests of the Temple of Neith. Solon went, as he says, “Where the Nile pours forth, its waters by the shore of Canopus.” (Plutarch, Life of Solon).
He also spent some time studying and discussing philosophy with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais, who were the most learned of the Egyptian priests.
(Plutarch, Life of Solon, p. 69)
The Temple of Neith and it’s Tombs
In the 5th century BC, another eminent visitor to the city was the Greek Historian Herodotus (484-425 BC). In Book II of his Histories, Herodotus provided a detailed account of the Temple of Neith/Ahtena. He describes its royal tombs, the temple complex with its colonnades and finely decorated pillars.
This is in the temple of Athena, very near to the sanctuary, on the left of the entrance. The people of Saïs buried within the temple precinct all kings who were natives of their district. [5] The tomb of Amass is farther from the sanctuary than the tomb of Apries and his ancestors; yet it, too, is within the temple court; it is a great colonnade of stone, richly adorned, the pillars made in the form of palm trees. In this colonnade are two portals, and the place where the coffin lies is within their doors. (Herodotus, The Histories, BK II, p. 169)
(Herodotus, The Histories, BK II, p. 169)
Herodotus also records that Sais and its temple of Neith, contained the tomb of the god Osiris. Osiris was the god of the afterlife and rebirth. He was one of the most important in all of Egypt, along with his son Horus and queen consort Isis. He provides a tantalising description of where his tomb was located.
There is also at Sais the burial-place of one whose name [Osiris] I think it impious to mention in speaking of such a matter; it is in the temple of Athena, behind and close to the length of the wall of the shrine.(Herodotus, The Histories, BKII, p. 170)
He also described other features including a sacred lake, a huge granite chamber and large carved sphinx’s which adorned the sanctuary of the temple.
The Ruins of Sais and its Temple: Might they still Exist?
In the last two thousand years, with the changing tides of history, Sais eventually declined and was largely forgotten. It remained a Christian Bishopric, likely up until the early 700s. Some parts of the city and its temple were said to have still existed in the 14th century. In the 19th Century, European explorers arrived and some account of Sais and what remained of its temple and ruins was made.
The temple of Neith seems to have survived in some form up until the 14th century when is was destroyed. Parts of the huge ‘chamber’ (Naos) are said to have been taken to Cairo and Rosetta…presumably to be used in the construction of a new structure there. Is it plausible that parts of the ‘chamber’ still exist today in another structure?
This may not be mere speculation. The Rosetta Stone is believed by archaeologists such as, Labib Habachi, to have originally come from Sais. This explains the lack of remains at Sais. It begs the obvious question: what other ruins were removed from Sais and taken to Rosetta or Cairo? The recycling of materials from ancient structures to use in construction during Medieval period is well attested.
In September 1828, Jean-Francios Champollion visited Sais to study the ruins. On his previous visit to Egypt, he famously translated the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone. At Sais, he made a detailed map of the site. This included the layout of what appear to be walls, temples, tombs and other ruins (see below). He also made a drawing of the site, which details a Necropolis. He wanted to return to excavate the site, but died unexpectedly in 1832.
Later, the 19th century Egyptologist, Richard Lepsius, came to Sais as part of the Prussian expedition. He surveyed the site and “noted traces of a temple inside an enclosure wall.” These traces may be the archaeological footprint of the Temple of Neith. They certainly agree with the findings of other early surveys of the ruins at Sais. These findings also mention a ‘temple’ and an ‘enclosure wall’.
After these resourceful expeditions, much of what remained at Sais was unfortunately pilfered by locals and removed by European treasure hunters.
The Ruins and a Memory of Things Long Since Past
When Egyptologist Georg Ebers (1837-1898) arrived in Sais in the late 19th century, nothing much remained. Despite this, he provided a significant personal commentary about Sais and its ruins when he visited the site. His ‘minds eye’ account of Sais at the time of its splendour, is particularly mesmerising and haunting.
The writer of these pages attempted many years since to realise in his mind’s eye the now vanished city of Sais as it was at the time of its splendour, to people its temples with priests and sacred animals, its streets with a living humanity, its palaces with princes and potentates. It is impossible to describe the feelings which stirred his soul as he trod the soil of the venerable spot, while the fallen edifices stood before his fancy, and the illustrious dead rose again before his dreaming spirit.
He continues, relating what he saw as he walked amongst the ruins of the once splendid city:
Wandering and searching through the wide extent of ruins he could find no trace of those noble buildings – not a hall, not a room, not a pillar – nothing but an ancient rampart wall, which for colossal dimensions has not its fellow even in Egypt. It consists of huge unburnt bricks, and encloses the meagre remains of the once magnificent city…
Below he refers to the temple of Neith and the Lake that was in the surrounds.
The lake undoubtedly lay within the precincts of the temple of Neith, the divine mother, the Female Principle in the life of the Cosmos and of man. She was Nature, whose mysterious order must remain a secret to the sons of earth.
Her statue bore the inscription, “I am all in all; the Past, the Present, and the Future, and my veil hath no mortal ever raised.” (Georg Ebers, Egypt: descriptive, historical, picturesque, p. 71-73)
Towards the end, he reflects ruefully upon the passage of time and the desolate plains which contain the only visible remains of Sais.
And now! A chill runs through our veins as we look down on the deserted plain and the wretched heaps of grey ruins that surround us. Sais was still important enough to be mentioned as a bishopric in the first centuries after Christ; but after that its existence is forgotten. Its memory, however, must continue to live in the minds of men. (Georg Ebers, Egypt: descriptive, historical, picturesque, p. 74)
Although nothing much remains of Sais today, Georg Ebers mesmerising account, provides some shape to the ruins that have vanished. His tantalising descriptions give us a sense of what the city of Sais and its temple must have looked like at its height in the 6th century BC. In writing his ‘mind’s eye’ account, he ensured its memory would be preserved and “continue to live in the minds of men”.
Postscript: What may yet be found…
Penny Wilson, of Egyptian Exploration Society (EES) has carried out excavations at Sais as part of the Delta Survey project. She excavated an area known as the Great Pit, located south of the Northern Enclosure. There she found evidence that suggests this pit was the location of Sais’ major temples and royal tombs.
It seems that the Great Pit may, in fact, have been the location of one of Sais’ major temples. If so, then we also suspect that Sais’ royal tombs would once have been in this area. (https://www.world-archaeology.com/features/sais/)
Bibliography
Books:
Ebers, Georg,Egypt: descriptive, historical, picturesque, Trans Clara Bell, Cassell & Co London 1887, Electronic Ed Published by Rice University, Houston Tx, 2006
Herodotus, The Histories, A.D. Godley, Ed.
Plutarch, The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, Trans Ian Scott-Kilvert, Penguin, 1960
Websites/Blogs:
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html
https://community.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/intro.html
Image http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/nile_delta_1450_bc.htm
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text
Large Greco-Roman building found north of Cairo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sais%2C_Egypt
Sais