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Caphtor ( he, ''Kaftōr'') is a locality mentioned in the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
, in which its people are called Caphtorites or Caphtorim and are named as a division of the ancient Egyptians. Caphtor is also mentioned in ancient inscriptions from
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
,
Mari, and
Ugarit
)
, image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg
, image_size=300
, alt =
, caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit
, map_type = Near East#Syria
, map_alt =
, map_size = 300
, relief=yes
, location = Latakia Governorate, Syria
, region = F ...
. Jewish sources placed Caphtor in the region of
Pelusium
Pelusium ( Ancient Egyptian: ; cop, /, romanized: , or , romanized: ; grc, Πηλουσιον, Pēlousion; la, Pēlūsium; Arabic: ; Egyptian Arabic: ) was an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to ...
, though modern sources tend to associate it with localities such as
Cilicia
Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...
,
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, or
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
.
[Strange, J. ''Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation'' (Leiden: Brill) 1980]
Jewish accounts
The Caphtorites are mentioned in the
Table of Nations
The Generations of Noah, also called the Table of Nations or Origines Gentium, is a genealogy of the sons of Noah, according to the Hebrew Bible (Genesis ), and their dispersion into many lands after the Flood, focusing on the major known socie ...
,
Book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...
() as one of several divisions of
Mizraim
Mizraim (; cf. Arabic مصر, ''Miṣr'') is the Hebrew and Aramaic name for the land of Egypt, with the dual suffix ''-āyim'', perhaps referring to the "two Egypts": Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Mizraim is the dual form of matzor, meaning a "moun ...
(Egypt). This is reiterated in the
Books of Chronicles
The Book of Chronicles ( he, דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third sect ...
() as well as later histories such as
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
' ''
Antiquities of the Jews
''Antiquities of the Jews'' ( la, Antiquitates Iudaicae; el, Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία, ''Ioudaikē archaiologia'') is a 20-volume historiographical work, written in Greek, by historian Flavius Josephus in the 13th year of the re ...
'' i.vi.2,
[Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews - Book i, Chapter vi, Section 2, partial: Now all the children of Mesraim, being eight in number, possessed the country from Gaza to Egypt, though it retained the name of one only, the Philistim; for the Greeks call part of that country Palestine. As for the rest, Ludicim, and Enemim, and Labim, who alone inhabited in Libya, and called the country from himself, Nedim, and Phethrosim, and Chesloim, and Cephthorim, we know nothing of them besides their names; for the Ethiopic war, Antiq. b. ii. chap. x.which we shall describe hereafter, was the cause that those cities were overthrown.] which placed them explicitly in Egypt and the ''
Sefer haYashar'' 10 which describes them living by the Nile. A migration of the Philistines from Caphtor is mentioned in the
Book of Amos
The Book of Amos is the third of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Old Testament (Tanakh) and the second in the Greek Septuagint tradition. Amos, an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, Harris, Stephen L., ''Understanding the Bible''. Palo Alto ...
().
Josephus, (''Jewish Antiquities'' I, vi)
using extra-Biblical accounts, provides context for the migration from Caphtor to Philistia. He records that the Caphtorites were one of the Egyptian peoples whose cities were destroyed during the
Ethiopic War
Thutmose II (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis II, Thothmes in older history works in Latinized Greek; Ancient Egyptian: /''ḏḥwty.ms''/ ''Djehutymes'', meaning "Thoth is born") was the fourth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egy ...
.
Tradition regarding the location of Caphtor was preserved in the Aramaic
Targums
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
and in the commentary of
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
which place it at
Caphutkia Caphutkia (also Capotakia or Kapotakia) in Aramaic קפוטקיא, קפוטקאי, קפודקאי, (later Katpatuka in Old Persian) was the name used in some mediaeval Jewish and Syriac writings for the town in the vicinity of the former Ptolemaic c ...
in the vicinity of
Damietta
Damietta ( arz, دمياط ' ; cop, ⲧⲁⲙⲓⲁϯ, Tamiati) is a port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt, a former bishopric and present multiple Catholic titular see. It is located at the Damietta branch, an easter ...
(at the eastern edge of the
Nile delta
The Nile Delta ( ar, دلتا النيل, or simply , is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Po ...
near classical
Pelusium
Pelusium ( Ancient Egyptian: ; cop, /, romanized: , or , romanized: ; grc, Πηλουσιον, Pēlousion; la, Pēlūsium; Arabic: ; Egyptian Arabic: ) was an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to ...
). This view is supported by the tenth century biblical exegete
Saadia Gaon
Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...
, and by
Benjamin of Tudela
Benjamin of Tudela ( he, בִּנְיָמִין מִטּוּדֶלָה, ; ar, بنيامين التطيلي ''Binyamin al-Tutayli''; Tudela, Kingdom of Navarre, 1130 Castile, 1173) was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, an ...
, the twelfth-century Jewish traveller from Navarre, who both wrote that Damietta was Caphtor.
The Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 37:5 (page 298 in the 1961 edition of Maurice Simon's translation) says that the "Caphtorim were dwarfs".
In archaeological sources
Mari Tablets
A location called ''Kaptar'' is mentioned in several texts of the Mari Tablets and is understood to be reference to Caphtor. An inscription dating to c. 1780-1760 BCE mentions a man from Caphtor (''a-na Kap-ta-ra-i-im'') who received
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
from
Mari. Another Mari text from the same period mentions a Caphtorite weapon (''kakku Kap-ta-ru-ú''). Another records a Caphtorite object (''ka-ta-pu-um Kap-ta-ru-ú'') which had been sent by king
Zimrilim __NOTOC__
Zimri-Lim (Akkadian: ''Zi-im-ri Li-im'') was king of Mari c. 1775–1761 BCE.
Zimri-Lim was the son or grandson of Iakhdunlim, but was forced to flee to Yamhad when his father was assassinated by his own servants during a coup. He ha ...
of the same period, to king Shariya of Razama. A text in connection with
Hammurabi
Hammurabi (Akkadian: ; ) was the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from to BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered Elam and the city-states ...
mentions Caphtorite (''k
-a-ta-ri-tum'') fabric that was sent to Mesopotamia via Mari. An inventory thought to be from the same era as the previous texts mentions a Caphtorite vessel (''GAL kap-ta-ri-tum'') (probably a large jug or jar).
Ras Shamra Texts
An
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
text from the archives of
Ugarit
)
, image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg
, image_size=300
, alt =
, caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit
, map_type = Near East#Syria
, map_alt =
, map_size = 300
, relief=yes
, location = Latakia Governorate, Syria
, region = F ...
(modern Ras Shamra, Syria) contains a possible reference to Caphtor: it mentions a ship that is exempt from duty when arriving from a place whose name is written with the
Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...
signs ''KUR.DUGUD.RI''. ''KUR'' is a determinative indicating a country, while one possible reading of the sign ''DUGUD'' is , whence the name of the place would be ''Kabturi'', which resembles Caphtor.
Within
Ugaritic
Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologis ...
inscriptions from the
Amarna
Amarna (; ar, العمارنة, al-ʿamārnah) is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Ph ...
period, ''k-p-t-r'' is mentioned and understood to be Caphtor: A poem uses ''k-p-t-r'' as a
parallel
Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to:
Computing
* Parallel algorithm
* Parallel computing
* Parallel metaheuristic
* Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel
* Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of IBM ...
for Egypt (''H-k-p-t'') naming it as the home of the god
Kothar-wa-Khasis
Kothar-wa-Khasis ( uga, 𐎋𐎘𐎗𐎆𐎃𐎒𐎒, Kothar-wa-Khasis) is an Ugaritic god whose name means "Skillful-and-Wise" or "Adroit-and-Perceptive" or "Deft-and-Clever". Another of his names, ''Hayyan hrs yd'' means "Deft-with-both-hands" ...
the Ugaritic equivalent of the Egyptian god
Ptah
Ptah ( egy, ptḥ, reconstructed ; grc, Φθά; cop, ⲡⲧⲁϩ; Phoenician: 𐤐𐤕𐤇, romanized: ptḥ) is an ancient Egyptian deity, a creator god and patron deity of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the h ...
.
Prior to the discovery of the reference to ''H-k-p-t'' scholars had already considered the possibility of ''iy Caphtor'' found in Jeremiah being the Semitic cognate of "Egypt".
Egyptian inscriptions
The name ''k-p-t-ȝ-r'' is found written in hieroglyphics in a list of locations in the
Ptolemaic Ptolemaic is the adjective formed from the name Ptolemy, and may refer to:
Pertaining to the Ptolemaic dynasty
* Ptolemaic dynasty, the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter
* Ptolemaic Kingdom
Pertaining ...
temple of Kom Ombo
The Temple of Kom Ombo is an unusual double temple in the town of Kom Ombo in Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt. It was constructed during the Ptolemaic dynasty, 180–47 BC. Some additions to it were later made during the Roman period.
Architectur ...
in
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south.
In ancient ...
and is regarded as a reference to Caphtor.
The reference to ''k-p-t-ȝ-r'' should not be confused with other inscriptions at the temple and from earlier sites mentioning a locality called ''Keftiu'' listed amongst lands to the northeast of Egypt and having different spelling and pronunciation, although it has been conjectured by some scholars that this is also a reference to Caphtor.
Attempts to identify Caphtor with Keftiu go back to the 19th century and argue that ''r'' changed to ''y'' in the Egyptian language. However the name ''k-p-t-ȝ-r'' more closely resembling "Caphtor" is from the (late) Ptolemaic era and still has the "r" and references to "Keftiu" occur separately at the same site. Those arguing for the identification suggest that ''k-p-t-ȝ-r'' is an Egyptian transliteration of the Semitic form of the name and that "Keftiu" is the true Egyptian form.
Sayce had however already argued in the 19th century that the names in the text in which ''k-p-t-ȝ-r'' occurs were not transliterations of the Semitic forms. Other scholars have disagreed over whether this can be said for the occurrence of ''k-p-t-ȝ-r''.
The equation of Keftiu with Caphtor commonly features in interpretations that equate Caphtor with Crete, Cyprus, or a locality in Anatolia.
Jean Vercoutter
Jean Vercoutter (20 January 1911 – 16 July 2000) was a French Egyptologist. One of the pioneers of archaeological research into Sudan from 1953, he was Director of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale from 1977 to 1981.
Biography
Bo ...
in the 1950s had argued, based on an inscription of the tomb of
Rekhmire
Rekhmire was an ancient Egyptian noble and official of the 18th Dynasty who served as "Governor of the Town" ( Thebes) and Vizier during the reigns of Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II, circa 1400 BCE. He was the nephew of Vizier User, who took offi ...
that Keftiu could not be set apart from the "islands of the sea" which he identified as a reference to the
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...
. However in 2003, Vandesleyen pointed out that the term ''wedj wer'' (literally "great green") which Vercoutter had translated "the sea" actually refers to the vegetation growing on the banks of the Nile and in the Nile Delta, and that the text places Keftiu in the Nile Delta.
This issue is not settled though. In Caphtor / Keftiu: a New Investigation, John Strange argues that the late geographical lists referenced in the preceding paragraph cannot be taken at face value, as they appear to be "random" collections of antique place names, and contain other corruptions and duplicates.
Translation
The
Targum
A targum ( arc, תרגום 'interpretation, translation, version') was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ''Tanakh'') that a professional translator ( ''mǝturgǝmān'') would give in the common language of the ...
s translate Caphtor into Aramaic as ''Kaputkai'', ''Kapudka'' or similar i.e.
Caphutkia Caphutkia (also Capotakia or Kapotakia) in Aramaic קפוטקיא, קפוטקאי, קפודקאי, (later Katpatuka in Old Persian) was the name used in some mediaeval Jewish and Syriac writings for the town in the vicinity of the former Ptolemaic c ...
explained by
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
as being
Damietta
Damietta ( arz, دمياط ' ; cop, ⲧⲁⲙⲓⲁϯ, Tamiati) is a port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt, a former bishopric and present multiple Catholic titular see. It is located at the Damietta branch, an easter ...
on the coastland of Egypt.
[John Lightfoot, ''From the Talmud and Hebraica, Volume 1'',Cosimo, Inc., 2007][The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible, Amos 9:7](_blank)
/ref>[''Navigating the Bible'', World ORT, 2000, commentary ''Caphtorim'']
Referencing Katpatuka, the Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...
translated the name as "Kappadokias" and the Vulgate
The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...
similarly renders it as "Cappadocia". The seventeenth-century scholar Samuel Bochart
Samuel Bochart (30 May 1599 – 16 May 1667) was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet. His two-volume '' Geographia Sacra seu Phaleg et Canaan'' (Caen 1646) exerted a profound in ...
understood this as a reference to Cappadocia
Cappadocia or Capadocia (; tr, Kapadokya), is a historical region in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It largely is in the provinces Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde.
According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Revo ...
in Anatolia but John Gill writes that these translations relate to Caphutkia.
Modern identifications
From the 18th century onwards commentators attempted several identifications of Caphtor which increasingly disregarded the traditional identification as an Egyptian coastal locality in the vicinity of Pelusium. These included identification with Coptus, Colchis
In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia (country), Georgia.
Its population, the Colchians a ...
, Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
, Cappadocia
Cappadocia or Capadocia (; tr, Kapadokya), is a historical region in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It largely is in the provinces Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde.
According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Revo ...
in Asia Minor, Cilicia
Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...
, and Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
.
The identification with Coptus is recorded in Osborne's ''A Universal History From The Earliest Account of Time'', where it is remarked that many suppose the name to have originated from Caphtor. While this interpretation agrees with tradition placing Caphtor in Egypt it disregards the tradition that it was a coastland (''iy'' rendered island in some Bible translations) and more precisely Caphutkia; and this contradiction is noted in Osborne. It is now known that the name Coptus is derived from Egyptian ''Gebtu'' which is possibly not associated with the name Caphtor.
![Name-Keftiu-at-Abydos-Ramses-Temple](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Name-Keftiu-at-Abydos-Ramses-Temple.jpg)
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
''kftı͗w'' (conventionally vocalized as ''Keftiu'') is attested in numerous inscriptions. The 19th-century belief that Keftiu/Caphtor was to be identified with Cyprus or Syria shifted to an association with Crete under the influence of Sir Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on t ...
. It was criticized in 1931 by G. A. Wainwright, who located ''Keftiu'' in Cilicia
Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...
, on the Mediterranean shore of Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
, and he drew together evidence from a wide variety of sources: in geographical lists and the inscription of Tutmose III
Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, was the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty. Officially, Thutmose III ruled Egypt for almost 54 years and his re ...
's "Hymn of Victory", where the place of ''Keftiu'' in lists appeared to exist among recognizable regions in the northeasternmost corner of the Mediterranean, in the text of the "Keftiuan spell" ''śntkppwymntrkkr'', of ca 1200 BCE, in which the Cilician and Syrian deities Tarku (the Hittite sun god), Sandan (the Cilician and Lydian equivalent of Tarku), and Kubaba
Kubaba (in the ''Weidner'' or ''Esagila Chronicle''), sux, , , is the only queen on the ''Sumerian King List'', which states she reigned for 100 years – roughly in the Early Dynastic III period (ca. 2500–2330 BC) of Sumerian history. A co ...
were claimed,[Wainwright 1952:199.] in personal names associated in texts with ''Keftiu'' and in Tutmose's "silver shawabty
The ushabti (also called shabti or shawabti, with a number of variant spellings) was a funerary figurine used in ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The Egyptological term is derived from , which replaced earlier , perhaps the nisba of "'' ...
vessel of the work of Keftiu" and vessels of iron, which were received as gifts from Tinay in northern Syria. Wainwright's theory is not widely accepted, as his evidence shows at most a cultural exchange between Keftiu and Anatolia without pinpointing its location on the Mediterranean coast.
In 1980 J. Strange drew together a comprehensive collection of documents that mentioned ''Caphtor'' or ''Keftiu''. He writes that crucial texts dissociate ''Keftiu'' from "the islands in the middle of the sea", by which Egyptian scribes denoted Crete.
The stone base of a statue during the reign of Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III ( egy, jmn-ḥtp(.w), ''Amānəḥūtpū'' , "Amun is Satisfied"; Hellenized as Amenophis III), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. According to different ...
includes the name ''kftı͗w'' in a list of Mediterranean ship stops prior to several Cretan cities such as Kydonia
Kydonia or Cydonia (; grc, Κυδωνία; lat, Cydonia) was an ancient city-state on the northwest coast of the island of Crete. It is at the site of the modern-day Greek city of Chania. In legend Cydonia was founded by King Cydon (), a son ...
, Phaistos
Phaistos ( el, Φαιστός, ; Ancient Greek: , , Minoan: PA-I-TO?http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/download/11991/4031&ved=2ahUKEwjor62y3bHoAhUEqYsKHZaZArAQFjASegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw1MwIv3ekgX-SxkJrbORipd ), also transliterated as Phaestos, ...
, and Amnisos
Amnisos, also Amnissos and Amnisus (Greek: or ; Linear B: 𐀀𐀖𐀛𐀰 ''A-mi-ni-so''), is the current but unattested name given to a Bronze Age settlement on the north shore of Crete that was used as a port to the palace city of Knossos. I ...
, showing that the term clearly refers to the Aegean.
See also
* Avim
Notes
References
* Hertz J.H. (1936) The Pentateuch and Haftoras. Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, London.
*Strange, J. ''Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation'' (Leiden: Brill) 1980. Reviewed by J.T. Hooker, ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 103 (1983), p. 216.
*
*
* {{bibleref, Jeremiah, 47:4, KJV
External links
Who Were the Keftiu?
Hebrew Bible nations
Sea Peoples
Hebrew Bible places
Prehistoric Crete
Former populated places in Cilicia
Ancient Cappadocia
Prehistoric Cyprus
Noach (parashah)
Mizraim