The Egyptian Eastern Border Region in Assyrian Sources

Abstract

The places Magdali, Ishupri, and Kar-Banīti, known from seventh-century Assyrian sources, can be situated in the Egyptian eastern border region, but it is impossible to provide a closer identitication. In the list of twenty Egyptian kinglets reinstated by Assurbanipal in 667 B.C. the occurrence of both the city of Si⊃nu and Sa⊃nu and the double mention of the city of Natho raise serious problems. The comparison of Assurbanipal's Prism C and Prism A, however, shows that this list is in fact a compilation of two different lists and that both Si⊃nu and Sa⊃nu are identical with Tanis, that there is only one Natho in the Egyptian Delta, and that the city of Hininsi is identical with Herakleous Polis magna and not with Herakleous Polis parva Despite several previous attempts of identification Tcharou (Sile) or Pelousion is not mentioned in the Assyrian documents.