Pithom (
Ancient Egyptian: ;
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
: ;
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
: or ) was an ancient city of Egypt. Multiple references in
ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
,
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
, and
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
'' Late Egyptian
Late Egyptian is the stage of the Egyptian language that was written by the time of the New Kingdom of Egypt around 1350 BC (the Amarna Period). Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian ...
name (from earlier ) "House of
Atum
Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology.
Name
Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to c ...
".
Biblical Pithom
Pithom is one of the cities which, according to
Exodus
Exodus or the Exodus may refer to:
Religion
* Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible
* The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan
Historical events
* Ex ...
, was built for the
Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...
of the oppression by the forced labor of the
Israelite
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
s. The other city was
Ramses; and 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 ...
adds a third, "''
On'', which is
Heliopolis." These cities are called by a Hebrew term rendered in the Authorized Version "treasure cities" and in the Revised Version "store cities." The Septuagint renders it "strong
r "fortified"cities." The same term is used of certain cities of
King Solomon in
I Kings
The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the boo ...
9:19 (comp. also
II 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 ...
16:4).
Graeco-Roman Heroöpolis
![Canal of the Pharaohs Map-en](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs_Map-en.svg)
Heroöpolis was a large city east of the
Nile Delta, situated near the mouth of the
Royal Canal which connected the
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...
with the
Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
. Although not immediately upon the coast, but nearly due north of the
Bitter Lakes
The Great Bitter Lake ( ar, البحيرة المرة الكبرى; transliterated: ''al-Buḥayrah al-Murra al-Kubrā'') is a large saltwater lake in Egypt that is part of the Suez Canal. Before the canal was built in 1869, the Great Bitter L ...
, Heroöpolis was of sufficient importance, as a trading station, to confer its name upon the arm of the Red Sea which runs up the Egyptian mainland as far as
Arsinoë (near modern
Suez
Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same bou ...
) -- the modern
Gulf of Suez
The Gulf of Suez ( ar, خليج السويس, khalīǧ as-suwais; formerly , ', "Sea of Calm") is a gulf at the northern end of the Red Sea, to the west of the Sinai Peninsula. Situated to the east of the Sinai Peninsula is the smaller Gulf of ...
. It was the capital of the 8th
nome of
Lower Egypt.
Location
Early on, the location of Pithom—just like the locations of other similar sites, such as
Tanis
Tanis ( grc, Τάνις or Τανέως ) or San al-Hagar ( ar, صان الحجر, Ṣān al-Ḥaǧar; egy, ḏꜥn.t ; ; cop, ϫⲁⲛⲓ or or ) is the Greek name for ancient Egyptian ''ḏꜥn.t'', an important archaeological site in the ...
—had been the subject of much conjecture and debate.
The 10th century Jewish scholar,
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''; ...
, identified the place in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch as
Faiyum
Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop, ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum ...
, southwest of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
.
Édouard Naville
Henri Édouard Naville (14 June 1844 – 17 October 1926) was a Swiss archaeologist, Egyptologist and Biblical scholar.
Born in Geneva, he studied at the University of Geneva, King's College, London, and the Universities of Bonn, Paris, a ...
and
Flinders Petrie
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egyp ...
were looking for Pithom along the
Wadi Tumilat
Wadi Tumilat ( Old Egyptian Tjeku/Tscheku/Tju/Tschu) is the dry river valley ( wadi) to the east of the Nile Delta. In prehistory, it was a distributary of the Nile. It starts near the modern town of Zagazig and the ancient town of Bubastis ...
, an arable strip of land serving as the ancient transit route between Egypt and Canaan across the Sinai—the biblical 'Way of
Shur'. In the spring of 1883, Naville believed he had identified Pithom as the archaeological site Tell El Maskhuta. The site of Pithom, as identified by Naville, is at the eastern edge of Wadi Tumilat, south-west of
Ismaïlia
Ismailia ( ar, الإسماعيلية ', ) is a city in north-eastern Egypt. Situated on the west bank of the Suez Canal, it is the capital of the Ismailia Governorate. The city has a population of 1,406,699 (or approximately 750,000, includi ...
. Petrie agreed with this identification. John S. Holladay Jr., a more recent investigator of the site, also supports this opinion.
Tell El Retaba
Eight miles west from Tell El Maskhuta is the site of Tell El Retabeh. This is approximately the midpoint of Wadi Tumilat.
Here was found a group of granite statues representing
Ramesses II
Ramesses II ( egy, rꜥ-ms-sw ''Rīʿa-məsī-sū'', , meaning "Ra is the one who bore him"; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Along with Thutmose III he is often regarded as ...
, two inscriptions naming ''Pr-Itm'' (Temple of Atum), storehouses and bricks made without straw. So archeologists (maybe wrongly) concluded that this was the site of
Pi-Ramesses
Pi-Ramesses (; Ancient Egyptian: , meaning "House of Ramesses") was the new capital built by the Nineteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses II (1279–1213 BC) at Qantir, near the old site of Avaris. The city had served as a summer palace under Set ...
. The excavations carried on by Naville for the
Egypt Exploration Fund
The Egypt Exploration Society (EES) is a British non-profit organization. The society was founded in 1882 by Amelia Edwards and Reginald Stuart Poole in order to examine and excavate in the areas of Egypt and Sudan. The intent was to study and an ...
uncovered a city wall, a ruined temple, and the remains of a series of brick buildings with very thick walls and consisting of rectangular chambers of various sizes, opening only at the top and without any entrances to one another.
Some scholars, such as
Manfred Bietak
Manfred Bietak (born in Vienna, 6 October 1940) is an Austrian archaeologist.[Kenneth Kitchen
Kenneth Anderson Kitchen (born 1932) is a British biblical scholar, Ancient Near Eastern historian, and Personal and Brunner Professor Emeritus of Egyptology and honorary research fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, Univ ...]
, have argued that this was the ancient Pithom. This opinion goes back to the 19th century, when
Alan Gardiner
Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner, (29 March 1879 – 19 December 1963) was an English Egyptologist, linguist, philologist, and independent scholar. He is regarded as one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century.
Personal life
G ...
first identified Pithom with the site of Tell El Retaba, and this was later accepted by
William F. Albright
William Foxwell Albright (May 24, 1891– September 19, 1971) was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, philologist, and expert on ceramics. He is considered "one of the twentieth century's most influential American biblical scholars."
...
, and Kenneth Kitchen. However,
John van Seters
John Van Seters (born May 2, 1935 in Hamilton, Ontario) is a Canadian scholar of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Ancient Near East. Currently University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, he was formerly ...
and
Neil Asher Silberman argue that Tell El Retaba was unoccupied during the period when we find monuments relating to a town called Pithom.
Naville identified all these locations as being in the region of
Tjeku (Sukkot), the 8th Lower Egypt
nome.
The joint
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
-
Slovak expedition has carried out a systematic research at Tell El Retaba since 2007. It is conducted with the cooperation of several institutions: Institute of Archaeology
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields o ...
, the
, the
Slovak Academy of Sciences
The Slovak Academy of Sciences ( sk, Slovenská akadémia vied, or SAV) is the main scientific and research institution in Slovakia fostering basic and strategic basic research. It was founded in 1942, closed after World War II, and then reestab ...
and the Aigyptos Foundation.
More recent analyses have demonstrated that the designation for the temple of
Atum
Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology.
Name
Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to c ...
, ''pr-itm'', can be found in inscriptions at both sites—both at Tell El Retaba and at Tell El Maskhuta. This seems to demonstrate that the name 'Pithom' was used originally for the earlier site, Tell El Retaba, before it was abandoned. And when the newer city of Tel El Maskhuta was built, the same name was applied to it as well – as the temple of Atum was moved to El Maskhuta. Thus, in effect, 'Pithom' was moved to a new location, which phenomenon is attested with some other cities as well, such as
Migdol.
Wadi Tumilat Project - Tell El Maskhuta
Modern excavations at Tel El Maskhuta were carried out by the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
'Wadi Tumilat Project' under the direction of John S. Holladay Jr. They worked over five seasons between 1978 and 1985. These excavations have shown that the history of Tel El Maskhuta is quite complex. There was a Middle Bronze IIB settlement there (18th-17th centuries BC), associated with the
Hyksos
Hyksos (; Egyptian '' ḥqꜣ(w)- ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''hekau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands") is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC).
T ...
, followed by a long break until the late 7th century BC, when there was rebuilding.
This construction at the end of the 7th century may have been carried out by Pharaoh
Necho II
Necho II (sometimes Nekau, Neku, Nechoh, or Nikuu; Greek: Νεκώς Β'; ) of Egypt was a king of the 26th Dynasty (610–595 BC), which ruled from Sais. Necho undertook a number of construction projects across his kingdom. In his reign, accordi ...
, possibly as part of his uncompleted canal building project from the Nile to the Gulf of Suez.
See also
*
*
List of ancient Egyptian sites
This is a list of ancient Egyptian sites, throughout all of Egypt and Nubia. Sites are listed by their classical name whenever possible, if not by their modern name, and lastly with their ancient name if no other is available.
Nomes
A nom ...
, including sites of temples
References
*
*
* Sarna, Nahum M. “Exploring Exodus: The Oppression,” Biblical Archaeologist, Volume 49: 1986 (2001 electronic ed.)
* M.I. Bakr and H. Brandl, "Various Sites in the Eastern Nile Delta: Tell el-Maskhuta", in: M.I. Bakr and H. Brandl, with F. Kalloniatis (eds.), ''Egyptian Antiquities from the Eastern Nile Delta'' (= Museums in the Nile Delta, vol. 2). Cairo/Berlin 2014, pp. 78 and 266-267, cat. 72. .
{{Authority control
Archaeological sites in Egypt
Ruins in Egypt
Torah cities
Former populated places in Egypt
Tell el-Maskhuta
Pithom ( Ancient Egyptian: ; Hebrew: ; Ancient Greek: or ) was an ancient city of Egypt. Multiple references in ancient Greek, Roman, and Hebrew Bible sources exist for this city, but its exact location remains somewhat uncertain. A number ...
Wadi Tumilat