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ZOAN.—A city in the N.E. of Lower Egypt (Egyp. Zani, Gr. Tanis).—It is now San el-Hagar, one of the most important of the ancient sites in Lower Egypt, with ruins of a great temple. The 21st Dyn. arose in Tanis, and it was probably a favourite residence of the Pharaohs, though it is now in the midst of a barren salt marsh, with only a few fishermen as inhabitants. Ramasses ii. placed in the temple a colossus of himself in granite, the greatest known, which Petrie calculates from the fragments to have measured 92 feet in height. Zoan is not mentioned in Genesis, but elsewhere (Psa_78:13; Psa_78:43, Isa_19:11; Isa_19:13, 30, Eze_30:14) it appears as almost or quite the capital of Egypt, perhaps as being the royal city nearest to the frontier. Tanis was very ancient: the curious reference to its building in Num_13:22 cannot be explained as yet.
F. Ll. Griffith.