TANIS. - An ancient Egyptian city, about 25 km from present-day es-Salihijjah, near the village of Şan el-Hağar, on a canal formerly part of the Tanitic branch of the Nile.
According to Num. 13, 23, T. (Heb. Şo'an) was founded seven years after Hebron; but its origins must be more remote. Characteristic of it is the cult of the god Seth, Hyksos (v.); famous is the sanctuary of this god founded by Ramses II; its ruins survive on the site; important sculptural remains are in the Cairo Museum.
Ps. 77, 12 and 43 recalls the plains of T., where God wrought marvelous things at the time of the Exodus. During the XXI dynasty T. was the capital of the country for more than a century, so that Is. 19, 11 and 13 attaches particular importance to the « princes of T. ». In 667 B.C. it was sacked by Assurbanipal and later by Nabuchodonosor (hence the prophecy of Ez. 30, 14-18). In the time of Strabo (XVII, 802) it was still a flourishing city; in the second half of the 1st century A.D. (Fl. Giuseppe, Bell. Iud., IV, 11, 5) it was in decline.