City
Tyconpoli
Siût, Assiût (Miller) · Asyut (Barrington)
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Tyconpoli hides a copyist's slip: in medieval script an L with a crossbar looks much like a T, and the town is really Lykonpolis, Greek for 'city of the wolves'. It is Asyut in Egypt, on the west bank of the Nile, where a narrowing of the river made it the gateway to Upper Egypt; its Egyptian name meant 'watchman'. The local gods were Upuaut and Anubis, dog-like figures the Greeks took for wolves, and dog mummies were buried in the cliffs west of the town. The philosopher Plotinus was born here, and in late antiquity it became a centre of Coptic Christianity.