The modern village of San is a small collection of mud hovels, situated on the banks of a canal, which was once the Tanitic branch of the Nile. Near the village there are huge mounds which contain a ruined temple and other ancient remains. The place has been to a large extent explored by Mr W. M. Flinders Petrie, and the Memoir containing his interesting results is published by the Egypt Exploration Fund.
Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression, seems to have fixed upon Zoan and made it a new capital, because by its position it commanded the northern route to Syria and placed the king, after the conquest of that country, in easy communication with all his dominions. It was also close to the very centre of the Hyksos rule, which was only lately ended.
The Hyksos were the so-called Shepherd Kings, who appear to have come from the Arabian desert, or perhaps beyond, and established themselves in Lower Egypt at a period when native rule was weak. "The monuments of the Hyksos are among the most curious in Egypt; and it is to San that we owe the greater number of those brought to light. They are all distinguished by an entirely different type of face from any that can be found on other Egyptian monuments, a type which cannot be attributed to any other known period; and it is therefore all the more certain that they belong to the foreign race. Another peculiarity is that they are without exception executed in black or grey granite. The Hyksos only held the Delta, and occasionally more or less of Middle Egypt, and so they had no command of the red granite quarries of Assouan, which remained in the power of the native rulers. Whether the black granite came from Sinai or from the Hammamat district is not certain." Mr F. Ll. Griffith, the coadjutor of Mr Flinders Petrie, mentions several interesting monuments of a kind peculiar to this people. One is a group
