SIWA lies thickly covered with “the Dust of History,” and its story is difficult to trace. For certain periods one is able to collect information on the subject, but during many centuries nothing is known. Some of the leading sheikhs have in their possession ancient documents and treaties which have been handed down through many generations from father to son. There is also an old Arabic history of Siwa, which appears to have been written some time during the fifteenth century, kept by the family whose members have always held a position corresponding to that of a town clerk, but this old history is so interwoven with curious legends and fables that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. I used to sit in the garden of the old sheikh who owned the book and listen while he read. He was a venerable but rascally old fellow in flowing white robes, the green turban of a “Haj,” and huge horn spectacles. The book itself was a muddled collection of loose sheets of manuscript kept in a leather bag. Roughly the history of Siwa can be divided into four periods. The first, which is also the greatest period, dates from the foundation of the Temple of Jupiter Ammon. The second period begins at the Mohammedan invasion in the seventh century A.D. The third period commences with the subjugation of Siwa by Mohammed Ali, early in the nineteenth century; and the fourth and last period is the history of Siwa during the Great War. (1) FIRST PERIOD THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER AMMON According to the late Professor Maspero, the great authority on Egyptian antiquities, the oasis of Siwa was not connected with Egypt until about the sixteenth century B.C. In about 1175 B.C. the Egyptian oases, of which Siwa is one, were colonized by Rameses III, but very little authentic information is available on the history of Siwa until it came definitely under the influence of Egypt in the sixth century B.C. Mr. Oric Bates, in his exhaustive work, _The Eastern Libyans_, states that the original deity of the oasis was a sun god, a protector of flocks, probably with the form of a bull. The African poet Coreippus, mentions a ram-headed Libyan divinity called Gurzil who was represented as being the offspring of the original prophetic God of Siwa. His priests fought in battles, and the emblem of the god was carried by the Libyans in the fray. A sacred stone at Siwa is referred to by Pliny, which when touched by an irreverent hand stirred at once a strong and harmful sand-wind. The theory of sun worship, and the idea of an evil wind directed by some spirit in a stone is substantiated by the local customs and legends which are prevalent in Siwa at the present time.