Road station
Sinottum
etwa bei Abu Radi
Sinottum stands where the ink has faded so badly that the name is hard to read: the printed edition of 1598 gave Sinoitum, that of 1753 Sinottum, and an inspection of the parchment in 2001 suggested the letters vi instead. One proposal sees here the Serapeum of Saqqara near Memphis, which Strabo found among drifting sand dunes, its sphinxes buried up to their heads. The sanctuary was also called Sinopion, from an Egyptian name meaning seat of Apis; Greeks heard Sinope in it, the Black Sea town from which an early Ptolemy, after a dream, was said to have fetched a statue of Serapis.