BASANI´TES MONS(Βασανίτου λίθου ὄρος, Ptol. 4.5.27), formed a portion of the rocky boundary of the Nile Valley to the east. It lay about lat. 23° N., between Syene and Berenice on the Red Sea. In its immediate neighbourhood were probably the Castra Lapidariorum of the Notitia Imperil. The stone (Βάσανος), from which the mountain derived its name, was the Lapis Lydius of Pliny (Plin. Nat. 36.20.22), and was used in architecture for cornices of buildings, for whetstones, and also in the assay of metals. Geologists doubt whether the Basanus were basalt or hornblende.
[W.B.D]