Tahpanhes or Tehaphnehes; he, תַּחְפַּנְחֵס, translit=Taḥpanḥēs or he, תְּחַפְנְחֵס, translit=Tǝḥafnǝḥēs; known by the Ancient Greeks as the ( Pelusian) Daphnae ( grc, Δάφναι αἱ Πηλούσιαι) and Taphnas () in 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 ...

, now Tell Defenneh) was a city in ancient Egypt. It was located on

Lake Manzala Lake Manzala ( ar, بحيرة المنزلة ''baḥīrat manzala''), also Manzaleh, is a brackish lake, sometimes called a lagoon, in northeastern Egypt on the Nile Delta near Port Said and a few miles from the ancient ruins at Tanis.Dinar, p.51 ...

on the Tanitic branch of the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, 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 ...

, about 26 km (16 miles) from

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 ...

. The site is now situated on the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...

Name

The meaning of the name remains uncertain although it appears to be of an

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 ...

origin. Biblical scholar

John L. McKenzie John Lawrence McKenzie (1910–1991) was an American Catholic biblical scholar. Biography McKenzie was born on October 9, 1910, in Brazil, Indiana, the first of the six children of Myra (Daly) and Harry McKenzie. John McKenzie became the premie ...

refers the name to ''T-h-p-nhsj'' meaning ''Fortress of the Nubian'', while William Albright adds it means ''Fortress of Pinehas''. Daressy and

Spiegelberg Spiegelberg is a municipality in the Rems-Murr district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. History Spiegelberg's name comes from a glassworking manufactory built in the town in 1699 that produced mirrors from 1705 to 1794. Geography The municipal ...

connect the name with the hieroglyphic word ''Tephen''.

History

King Psammetichus (664–610 BC) established a garrison of foreign mercenaries at Daphnae, mostly

Caria Caria (; from Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; tr, Karya) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionians, Ionian and Dorians, Dorian Greeks colonized the west of i ...

ns and

Ionia Ionia () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian ...

n Greeks (

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

ii. 154). According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

, the Jews from

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

fled to this place after the death of

Gedaliah Gedaliah, Gedalia, Gedallah Hirsch, E. G. and Greenstone, J. H. (1906)Gedallah Jewish Encyclopedia or Gedalya(h) ( or ; he, גְּדַלְיָּה ''Gəḏalyyā'' or ''Gəḏalyyāhū'', meaning " Jah has become Great") was, according to the n ...

and settled there for a time (

Jeremiah Jeremiah, Modern: , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning " Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish ...

2:16; Jeremiah 43:7,8,9; 44:1; ;

Ezekiel Ezekiel (; he, יְחֶזְקֵאל ''Yəḥezqēʾl'' ; in the Septuagint written in grc-koi, Ἰεζεκιήλ ) is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Ezekiel is acknow ...

). After Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC, the Jewish refugees, including

, came to Tahpanhes (

Jeremiah 43 Jeremiah 43 is the forty-third chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains prophecies attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. This ch ...

– 44). A platform of

brickwork Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by s ...

, which has been tentatively described as the pavement at the entry of

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 an ...

's palace, has been discovered at this place. "Here," says the discoverer,

William 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 Egypt ...

, "the ceremony described by Jeremiah ; 'brick-kiln' (i.e. pavement of brick) took place before the chiefs of the fugitives assembled on the platform, and here

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-kudurri-uṣur'', meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir"; Biblical Hebrew: ''Nəḇūḵaḏneʾṣṣar''), also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling ...

spread his royal pavilion". When

Naucratis Naucratis or Naukratis (Ancient Greek: , "Naval Command"; Egyptian: , , , Coptic: ) was a city and trading-post in ancient Egypt, located on the Canopic (western-most) branch of the Nile river, south-east of the Mediterranean sea and the city o ...

was given the monopoly of Greek traffic by

Amasis II Amasis II ( grc, Ἄμασις ; phn, 𐤇𐤌𐤎 ''ḤMS'') or Ahmose II was a pharaoh (reigned 570526 BCE) of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the successor of Apries at Sais. He was the last great ruler of Egypt before the Persian conquest ...

(570–526 BC), the Greeks were removed from Daphnae and its prosperity never returned; in Herodotus' time the deserted remains of the docks and buildings were visible. The site was discovered by

Sir William Matthew 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 Egypt ...

in 1886; it was then known by natives as Qasr Bint al-Yahudi, the "Castle of the Jew's Daughter".Volume 14
''

The Antiquary ''The Antiquary'' (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all prac ...

'', 1886 There is a massive fort and enclosure; the chief discovery was a large number of fragments of pottery, which are of great importance for the chronology of vase-painting, since they must belong to the time between Psammetichus and Amasis, i.e. the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 6th century BC. They show the characteristics of Ionian art, but their shapes and other details testify to their local manufacture. Egyptologist

David Rohl The New Chronology is an alternative chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers beginning with ''A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History'' in 1995. It contradicts mainstream ...

proposed to identify Tahpanhes with the biblical location of

Baal-zephon Baal-zephon ( he, ''Baʿal Ṣəfōn''; Akkadian: ''Bēl Ḫazi'' ( dIM ḪUR.SAG); Ugaritic: ''baʿlu ṣapāni''; Hurrian: '' Tešub Ḫalbağe''; Egyptian: ''bꜥr ḏꜣpwnꜣ''), was the form of the Canaanite storm god Baʿal ( "The Lord") ...

Notes

References

*WMF Petrie, "Tanis II., Nebesheh, and Defenneh" (the ''Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund'', 1888) * . *{{eastons, title=Tahpanhes Hebrew Bible cities Archaeological sites in Egypt Former populated places in Egypt

Name

History

See also

Notes

References