Zo´an, an ancient city of Lower Egypt, situated on the eastern side of the Tanitic branch of the Nile. Zoan is of considerable Scriptural interest. It was one of the oldest cities in Egypt, having been built seven years after Hebron, which already existed in the time of Abraham (; comp. ). It seems also to have been one of the principal capitals, or royal abodes, of the Pharaohs (; ; ); and accordingly 'the field of Zoan,' or the fine alluvial plain around the city, is described as the scene of the marvelous works which God wrought in the time of Moses (; ). The destruction predicted in , has long since befallen Zoan. The 'field' is now a barren waste; a canal passes through it without being able to fertilize the soil; 'fire has been set in Zoan;' and the royal city is now the habitation of fishermen, the resort of wild beasts, and infested by reptiles and malignant fevers. The locality is covered with mounds of unusual height and extent, full of the fragments of pottery which such sites usually exhibit. These extend for about a mile from north to south, by about three-quarters of a mile. The area in which the sacred enclosure of the temple stood, is about 1500 feet by 1250, surrounded by the mounds of fallen houses, whose increased elevation above the site of the temple is doubtless attributable to the frequent change in the level of the houses to protect them from the inundation, and the unaltered position of the sacred buildings. There is a gateway of granite and fine grit-stone to the enclosure of this temple, bearing the name of Rameses the Great. Though in a very ruinous condition, the fragments of walls, columns, and fallen obelisks sufficiently attest the former splendor of the building to which they belonged. The obelisks are all of the time of Rameses the Great (B.C. 1355). The name of this king most frequently occurs; but the ovals of his successor Pthamen, of Osirtasen III, and of Tirhakah, have also been found. The time of Osirtasen III ascends nearly to that of Joseph, and his name, therefore, corroborates the Scriptural account of the antiquity of the town. Two black statues, and a granite sphinx, with blocks of hewn and occasionally sculptured granite, are among the objects which engage the attention of the few travelers who visit this desolate place. The modern village of San consists of mere huts, with the exception of a ruined kasr of modern date.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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