Herodotus (ii. 158) describes the canal made by Necho to connect the Red Sea with the Nile as starting ‘a little above Bubastis’ (now Zagazig), and passing ‘Patumos, a city in the Arabian nome’ (Πάτουμον τὴν ᾿Αραβίην πόλιν). ‘Arabia,’ οἱ the Arabian nome, was the 20th nome of Lower Egypt, called Sopd-Qemhes in Heypban, whose capital was Qosem or Goshen, now Saft el-Henna. Patumos is evidently the Pa-Tum or Pi-Tum, ‘the house of Tum’—the ancient sun-god of Heliopolis —of the Egyptian texts. At Dendera the city of Pi-Tum is described as in the land of Ro-Abt, ‘ the entrance to the East,’ a name which Dr. Naville suggests may be the origin of the Greek ‘ Arabia,’ when used to denote the 20th nome (see Mariette’s Denderah, iv. 75. 12). The name Pi-Tum is first found in monuments of the age of the 19th dynasty ; thus a letter dated in the 8th year of
eneptah I. the son and successor of Ramses IL., and translated by Brugsch (History of Egypt, Eng. tr. 2nd ed. ii. p. 133), speaks of Edomite nomads being allowed to pass the Khetam or ‘fortress of Meneptah in the land of Thuket’ (Succoth), which protected the eastern frontier of Egypt, and to feed their flocks near ‘the lakes (burkata) of Pi-Tum of Meneptah in the land of Thuket’ (Select Papyri in the Hieratie character from the Collections in the British Museum, pl. exxv.-vi.).
Chabas had already, in 1864, pointed out that the Pithom of the OT must correspond with an Egyptian Pi-Tum, and suggested that its site should be sought at Abu-Késhéd or Tel el-Mas- khfita in the Wady Tumilat, 17 kilometres south west of Ismailiya (Mélanges, p. 162), a suggestion which he afterwards withdrew in favour of Tmui el-Emdid, the ancient Thmuis. So far as the form of the name was concerned, however, the con- clusion of Chabas was soon afterwards confirmed by the publication of various geographical texts by Brugsch, Diimichen, Mariette, and others, from which it appeared that the capital of the 8th nome of Lower Egypt, Nefer-Abt, had the civil name Thuket and the sacred name Pi-Tum. Tum, the setting sun, was worshipped there under the form of a serpent, and its chief temple was accord-
PITHOM
ingly termed Pi-Qereht, ‘the house of the snake.’ According to Brugsch (Zeitschrift fiir Aigypt. Sprache, 1876, p. 127), the sacred lake or canal bore the name of ‘Crocodile Lake’ (Kharmu), the domain-land being Annu or On.
Brugsch first showed that Thuket is the biblical SuccotH, the Egyptian th being, as elsewhere, represented by the Helrew Ὁ, and the vocalization of the name having been assimilated to that of the word which means ‘booths’ in Hebrew (Zettschr. fiir Zgypt. Sprache, 1875, p. 7). Succoth was the first stage of the Israelites in their flight from Egypt before they encamped at ETHAM, the Egyptian Khetam or ‘fortress,’ which commanded the approach to ‘the wilderness’ (Ex 12% 13). Pithom, scouslinbtys must have been in or adjoin- ing the land of Goshen.
hen the Fresh-water Canal was made almost
on the lines of the old canal of Seti 1. and Necho, it passed through the Wady Tumilat, and skirted the ruins of Tel el-Maskhfita (‘the mound of the Image’). Various monuments of the age of Ramses I. were discovered in the Tel, including the one from which it derived its name, and were removed to Ismailiya. Lepsius had already pro- osed to see in the Tel the site of the city of aamses (Chronologie, p. 348) ; and Maspero, who published some of the inscriptions in 1877 (Hevue archéologique, nouv. sér. xxxiv. p. 320), arrived at the same conclusion. But the study of the monu- ments at Ismailiya, all of which were dedicated to Tum by Ramses Π., led Dr. Naville to suspect that the Tel really represented Pithom, and not Raamses, and accordingly he commenced excava- tions on the spot. The result was the discovery of a temple, as well as of storehouses, private habita- tions, the walls of the city, and various inscrip- tions. The city and temple proved to have been built by Ramses Π. of the 19th dynasty, and to proved
have lasted down to the Roman era. They also to be the Pi-Tum or Thuket of the hiero- glyphic texts.
e discovery was important, as it not only settled the site of Pithom, and so threw light on
the route of the Israelites, but it also showed that Ramses Π., the builder of Pi-Tum, must have been the Pharaoh of the Oppression. Unless we deny the historical character of Ex 1", the date of the Exodus is definitely fixed.
Dr. Naville’s discoveries further showed that Pithom changed its name in the Greek age. It became Heroopolis, which the Romans abbreviated into Ero, as is proved by inscriptions, which confirm the statement of Stephanus Byzantinus (s.v.) that the Heroonpolis of Strabo was also known as Hérd. An explanation is thus afforded of the reading of the in Gn 46% ‘he sent Judah before him unto Joseph to meet him at Heroonpolis in the land of Ramesses,’ where, it is noticeable, the Coptic version substitutes ‘ Pithom the si for Heroonpolis. D’Anville (Mémoires sur (Egypte, p. 121 ff.) long ago suggested that Heroopolis was to be sought at Tel el-Maskhfita, and the suggestion was adopted by Quatremére, risen Surmrae and others. In the inscription of the obelisk of Hermapion, quoted by Ammianus Marcellinus (Champollion, Grammaire égyptienne,