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صا الحجر (Ṣā al-Ḥajar)

صا الحجر (Ṣā al-Ḥajar, also called Sa El-Hagar) is the name of a village in al-Gharbīyah Nome, Misr (Egypt) atop the site of ancient Sʒw (Zau)1, later Sai2, Σάϊς (Sáïs), Saïs and Sais. Once boasting a famous temple to the goddess Neith and status as the eighth largest city in the world,3 now not much remains of the old city. It dwindled to a village by the 17th century CE.4

NameYearPopulationPolitical entity
Sʒw650 BCE48,0003Km.t (Kemet or Egypt)

External references

Sa El-Hagar village and remains of Sʒw (Zau or Sais)

Historical maps

map showing part of Km.t (Kemet or Egypt) 650 BCE

map showing part of the Persian Malkate (Persian Empire) 430 BCE

map showing part of the Ptolemaïkè Basileía (Ptolemaic Egypt) 200 BCE

map showing part of Senatvs Popvlvsqve Romanvs (the Roman Empire) 100 CE

map showing part of Rhomania (Romania or the Byzantine Empire) 361 to 500 CE

map showing part of Ĕrānshahr (Sassianian Empire) 622 CE

map showing part of al-Khilafah al-'Abbasiyyah al-Islamiyyah (Abbasid Empire) 800 CE

map showing part of Miṣr (Tulunid Egypt) 900 CE

map showing part of al-Fāṭimiyyūn (Fatimid Empire) 1000 to 1100 CE

map showing part of the Sultanate of Miṣr and Sūriyya (Ayyubid Empire) 1200 CE

map showing part of the Sulṭanat al-Māmalīk (Mamluk Empire) 1300 to 1500 CE

map showing part of the Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye (Ottoman Empire) 1600 to 1700 CE

map showing part of Égypte (Egypt), which was part of France, 1800 CE

map showing part of Egypt, which was occupied by the UK, 1900 CE

map showing eastern Miṣr, 2000 CE

Footnotes

1. The vowels are conventional among Egyptologists but are not intended to represent the vowel sounds of the times. The initial 'A' was chosen merely because the character represented as ʒ was the first letter in the Egyptian alphabet.
2. Spelling taken from Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq (3rd ed., Penguin Books, 1992). I interpreted this to be Aramaic Samekh for purposes of the glyph on the map.
3. Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987), Tables of the World's Largest Cities.
4. www.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/intro.html, accessed 3/3/2012.