Aswan/Aswad

[Shatnerfan]

A contestant on the BBC2 game show Beg, Borrrow or Steal was aked where the Aswan Dam was.

He guessed the Nile 'because Aswan sounds like Aswad,' so he assumed it was in an Arabic counrty. (I know Aswad are Jamaican but it is the Arabic word for black, I think)

Is there any connection between Aswan and Aswad?

[Peter Pedant]

sort of because they are darkish in Aswan?

The short answer is no. I work with a few Egyptians and I will ask and check.

Aswan is the arabic name of the town in Hellenic Egypt (ruled by the ptolemies of whcih the last one was Cleopatra) The greek name was Syene

Hundreds of years later, The Arabs conquered Egypt and arabised the names. The Arab conquest of Egypt is in itself FASCINATING because at the time they were Christians (but heretics, their creed omitted the word 'filioque' and they believed that Christ was one nature - monophysite - and they didnt believe in the homoousion but the homoiousion instead (Theres an extra i in it which changes the meaning radically)). The chief traitor whose name was not recorded because it was so horrific a thing to do - al muqarqas - was probably da daaar wait for it, the Patriarch. He thought he would get a better deal from the Muslims than he could from Constantinople. Ho humm

[Peter Pedant]

yes Aswan

You know there are two dams? Those damned Brits built a low one in 1906

temperate climate, Nilometer

Syene - and Alexandria were the two places Eratosthenes noted on midsummer's day, the angle between the upright and the sun, and worked out accurately the Earth's circumference

Tomb of Aga Khan, St Simeons monastery - not the famous one - Nobles' Tombs, Nubian museum

Museum on the Island, kalabasha

Yes sir quite a lot to see if you go there

[andy hughes]

Just to be even more pedantic - Aswad are not from Jamaca, they were formed in Ladbroke Grove in Londont. Their lead singer Brinsley Forde was a child actor on the BBC children's series 'The Double Deckers', and he is a native of Guyana.