{"id":582,"date":"2010-01-24T21:11:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T21:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/?p=582"},"modified":"2025-09-21T07:50:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T06:50:24","slug":"sais-addendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/sais-addendum\/","title":{"rendered":"Sa\u00efs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sa\u00efs <\/strong>was a city on the Nile delta that, according to archaeology, existed at least from 3000 BC. Diodorus Siculus<\/a> claimed that Sa\u00efs had been built by the Athenians before the flood of Deucalion<\/a> (H<\/em>istories 5.57<\/em>). The present settlement is called Sa el Hagar. According to Frank Joseph<\/a>(e)<\/sup>, Leo Frobenius<\/a> made this identification a century ago. However, L. Taylor Hansen<\/a> mistakenly identified Sa\u00efs with Port Said! [<\/sup>572<\/a>.24]<\/sup><\/p>\n

The Septuagint version of the Bible<\/a> identifies\u00a0Sa\u00efs\u00a0with Pelusium, mentioned in Ezekiel 30:12-15. During the 7th<\/sup> century BC it became the capital of the pharaohs of the 26th<\/sup> Dynasty. Egerton Sykes<\/a> suggested different dates(f)<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

R. Reese wrote “The ancient city dates back to 3,000 B.C, however, habitation at the site extends back to the pre-dynastic and Neolithic period, from at least 4,200 B.C. It was the provincial capital of the fifth nome of Lower Egypt, known as Sap-Meh. During the twenty-fourth dynasty of Egypt, spanning from 732\u2013720 BC, Sais was the seat of power. At that time, it was known as Zau<\/em>(d)<\/sup>.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Sa\u00efs is the Egyptian city where Solon<\/a> originally learned of the story of Atlantis. It housed the principal shrine of the Egyptian goddess Neith<\/a> who has been identified with Athene<\/a>. The Greek writer Charax of Pergamon (c. 200 AD) reflected this connection when he wrote that the citizens of Sa\u00efs referred to themselves as Athenai and Diodorus Siculus states that the Athenians claim to have originally come from Sa\u00efs. There is an ancient if disputed, tale that Cecrops<\/a>, the first king of Athens established the city with colonists from Sa\u00efs.<\/p>\n

This of course conflicts with Plato, who, in Timaeus (23e) informs us that the city of Sa\u00efs\u00a0(not Egypt, as some assume) was founded one thousand years after<\/em><\/strong> the city of Athens or 8,000 years before Solon’s visit. This, however, creates a problem, as it suggests that Athens was founded at the same time that it fought and defeated a powerful long-established invader!<\/p>\n

No remains of the temples, with their celebrated inscribed pillars, have as yet been discovered. However, excavations are proceeding under the sponsorship of the Egypt Exploration Society and the University of Durham led by Dr Penelope Wilson(b)<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

A 2021 article(c)<\/sup> reviewing the history of Sa\u00efs noted that\u00a0“<\/em>The city enjoyed a high period under the 26th Dynasty Kings (664-525), who 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, however, Sais declined and was largely forgotten, its temples and walls demolished, its remains pilfered. Today nothing much remains except a tiny village called Sa el-Hagar, some garbage heaps and a few scattered ruins.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The whole matter of the relevance of\u00a0Sa\u00efs to the Atlantis story has been challenged by a theory on the Internet(<\/sup>a<\/sup>)<\/sup> that Sa\u00efs\u00a0and Tanis were in fact the same location. A starting point is the fact that the current village of Sa el Hagar adjacent to the ruins of Sa\u00efs\u00a0has a counterpart at Tanis where there is a village called San el Hagar. Drawing on the writings of Strabo, Herodotus and the Bible some have concluded that the two cities were one. Immanuel Velikovsky<\/a> proposed this idea in his Ramses II and His Time <\/em>[832<\/a>.209]<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

(a)<\/sup> https:\/\/h2g2.com\/forums\/A148907\/conversation\/view\/F19585\/T7572591\/page\/1\/<\/a><\/p>\n

(b)<\/sup> https:\/\/www.dur.ac.uk\/penelope.wilson\/sais.html<\/a><\/p>\n

(c)<\/sup> https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230123202816\/https:\/\/www.ancientscribbles.com\/2021\/01\/ruins-of-sais-and-temple-where-to-be-found.html<\/a><\/p>\n

(d)<\/sup> The Pharaonic Royal City of Sais Leaves Few Clues for Researchers | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(e)<\/sup> Atlantis Rising <\/em>\u00a0Magazine #20\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(f)<\/sup> Sykes’ Atlantis<\/em> AT142 p.47<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sa\u00efs was a city on the Nile delta that, according to archaeology, existed at least from 3000 BC. Diodorus Siculus claimed that Sa\u00efs had been built by the Athenians before the flood of Deucalion (Histories 5.57). The present settlement is called Sa el Hagar. According to Frank Joseph(e), Leo Frobenius made this identification a century […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[606,47,292,965,265,124,106,4479,1747,1485,1714,1713,990,1716,146,393,1715],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-athene","tag-bible","tag-deucalion","tag-diodorus-siculus","tag-egerton-sykes","tag-frank-joseph","tag-immanuel-velikovsky","tag-l-taylor-hansen","tag-leo-frobenius","tag-neith","tag-penelope-wilson","tag-sa-el-hagar","tag-sais","tag-san-el-hagar","tag-solon","tag-strabo","tag-tanis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64708,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/64708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}