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 ( Psalms 78:13; Psalms 78:43 , Isaiah 19:11; Isaiah 19:13 , 30, Ezekiel 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 Numbers 13:22 cannot be explained as yet.
F. Ll. Griffith.