Arish

ʻArish or el-ʻArīsh (العريش elʕæˈɾiːʃ) is the capital and largest city (with 164,830 inhabitants ) of the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt, as well as the largest city on the Sinai Peninsula, lying on the Mediterranean coast northeast of Cairo and west of the Egypt-Gaza border. In Antiquity and Early Middle Ages the city was known as Rinokoroura (Ῥινοκόρουρα, ϩⲣⲓⲛⲟⲕⲟⲣⲟⲩⲣⲁ). ʻArīsh is located at the mouth of Wadi el-ʻArīsh, a long ephemeral watercourse. The Azzaraniq Protectorate is on the eastern side of ʻArīsh. There are several hypothetical possibilities for the origin of the modern name of the city, which is first mentioned under it in the 9th century. One possibility is that the name might be an Arab phonetic transcription of a pre-existing toponym. However, there is no name that fully qualifies as such, apart from the Ariza (Αριζα) of Hierokles, which is difficult to interpret. Another possibility is that the name el-Arish was given to a city that already existed in the Byzantine period. However, no Arab source mentions such a change of name for any city in the region, and there is no plausible explanation for this change. A third possibility is that the name el-Arish was created when a new settlement of some "huts" (عرش) was established in the 7th or 8th century. It is possible that the city of Rinokoloura fell into ruins in the first half of the 7th century, and a new community arose that the new inhabitants started to call el-Arish, after their poor living conditions. M. Ignace de Rossi derived the Arabic name from the Egyptian ϫⲟⲣϣⲁ(ⲓ), an analogue of Greek Rinocorura. A Coptic-Arabic colophon dating to 1616 mentions the writer "Solomon of Shorpo, son of Michael, from the city of Mohonon" (ⲥⲱⲗⲟⲙⲟⲛ ⲛϣⲱⲣⲡⲟ ⲡϣⲏⲣⲓ ⲙⲓⲭⲁⲏⲗ ⲛⲧⲉ ⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ ⲙⲟϩⲟⲛⲟⲛ); in the Arabic version, the writer is identified as being "of el-Arish". Timm raises the possibility that Shorpo (ϣⲱⲣⲡⲟ) may be another name for el-Arish. Herodotus describes a city named Ienysos (Ιηνυσος) located between Lake Serbonis and Kadytis.