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ELEPHANTINE

Volume 6 · 112 words · 1797 Edition

Elephants (anc. geog.), an island in the Nile to the south of Syene; with a cognominal town, where the navigation on the Nile ends, because because just below the less cataract. And here to the west of the Nile stood the last Roman garrison (Notitia Imperii).

in Roman antiquity, an appellation given to the books wherein were registered the transactions of the senate and magistrates of Rome, of the emperors or generals of armies, and even of the provincial magistrates; the births and classes of the people, and other things relating to the census.

They are supposed to have been so called, as being made of leaves of ivory or elephants tusks.