by
Damien F. Mackey
“Piramesse, Sukkoth, and Migdol of the Exodus narrative are reasonably identified with locations known from ancient Egyptian archaeology and epigraphy ….
Other locations in the itinerary, such as Etham, Pi Hahiroth, Baal Zephon, and especially the Re(e)d Sea, remain ambiguous or undiscovered”.
Stephen O. Moshier and James K. Hoffmeier
Introduction
Many of us were exposed to that magnificent 1956 film based upon the Book of Exodus, The Ten Commandments, shot in VistaVision (colour by Technicolor), and produced, directed and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille.
According to this film, Ramses II ‘the Great’, son of Seti, was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. And this is the common view held today, due to – among other things – mention of the city of “Rameses” (Raamses) in Exodus 1:11: “So [the Egyptians] put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour, and [the Hebrews] built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh”.
Unfortunately, this historical location for Ramses ‘the Great’ is far from being correct.
“Rameses” in Exodus 1:11 is a much later editorial amendment after pharaoh Ramses, about seven centuries later, had built his own city in that vicinity, where had stood ancient Avaris (modern Tell el-Dab'a). Moses would have known Avaris, not Rameses.
The Exodus of Israel does not belong to the New Kingdom era of Ramses, of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty, but to the Old/’Middle’ Kingdom era of the Thirteenth Dynasty.
Ramses was not the Pharaoh of the Exodus, and, far less, was Yul Brynner.
Three major factors, among many, would immediately disqualify Ramses II of Egypt’s New Kingdom from being the Pharaoh of the Exodus:
Firstly, there was nothing like a departure from Egypt of tens of thousands of slaves during his long and magnificent period of rule (66-67 years).
Secondly, archaeologically, there would have been no (Late Bronze Age) city of Jericho for Joshua to have conquered.
Thirdly, the Exodus Israelites clearly belonged to the Middle Bronze I (MBI) phase of archaeology as conquerors and occupiers of Early Bronze III/IV towns and villages.
That does not mean, however, that my Old/‘Middle’ Kingdom setting of the Exodus during Egypt’s Thirteenth Dynasty raises no prickly issues of its own.
(a) Problems needing to be solved: horses and chariots
Probably the biggest problem of all to be faced concerns horses and chariots.
During whatever Egyptian kingdom one may choose to locate the Plagues and Exodus, a problem that arises is that the Fifth Plague devastated Egypt’s livestock (Exodus 9:6): “All the livestock of the Egyptians died …”.
Presumably, that catastrophe would have included their horses.
This difficulty can be satisfactorily answered, though, as I suggested in my article:
Exodus Pharaoh could still gather sufficient horses after the Plagues
(3) Exodus Pharaoh could still gather sufficient horses after the Plagues
The pestilence may not have affected in the least Pharaoh’s horses, because, as we read, the Fifth Plague was confined to all “the livestock in the field” (9:3).
“In the field”, baś-śā-ḏeh (בַּשָּׂדֶ֔ה). That is why one has to read every word of Scripture.
Presumably the horses used by Pharaoh and his armed forces would have been safely secured in stables.
That, however, is not the least of our problems concerning horses – likewise, chariots.
Can we be certain that Old/‘Middle’ Kingdom Egypt, in which I have located Moses, actually had any horses and chariots?
While this may sound like a ridiculous question, the reality is that - at least in our present state of knowledge - one cannot find any depictions, whatsoever, of anything resembling a horse or a war chariot for the entire Old/’Middle’ Kingdom period of Egyptian history. Yet, we read in Exodus 14:7: “[Pharaoh] took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them”.
And, again (14:19): “The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites …”.
Egypt’s New Kingdom, on the other hand, abounds in such requisite depictions.
At least we know that there is archaeological evidence for the horse in the environs of Egypt, possibly going back even as far as Predynastic times. On this, see e.g. my article:
Is the biblical Exodus, pitched in Egypt’s Old (or Middle) Kingdom, one chariot army short of reality?
(2) Is the biblical Exodus, pitched in Egypt's Old (or Middle) Kingdom, one chariot army short of reality?
That, however, would seem to be scant archaeological material over such a long period of Egyptian history.
As regards war chariots, Egypt’s New Kingdom (and The Ten Commandments film) admittedly has it all over my Old/’Middle’ Kingdom model.
Ramses II, for instance, is famed for his fine horses and his chariots.
In another article, I, still grappling with this most difficult of subjects:
Were horse-drawn chariots already in use in Old Kingdom Egypt?
(4) Were horse-drawn chariots already in use in Old Kingdom Egypt?
quoted an expert, Stuart Piggott, as referred to in Renata-Gabriela Tatomir’s 2014 article, “The presence of horse in ancient Egypt and the problem of veracity of the horseshoe magic in the ancient Egyptian folklore and mythology”, who may have managed to inject some degree of hope into this extremely difficult pursuit:
….
The archaeological data which are presently available (some of which have been available since 1976) seem therefore to seriously undermine the claim that Egypt was without horses until the Hyksos dynasties. The work at Nahal Tillah seems to show that horses were available in the immediate vicinity that is in the northern Negev, very early on in the history of Egypt, while Egyptians were clearly present where these horses were present. This fact made some scholars to opinate that it might be possible that the horse
and military chariot were re-introduced to Egypt by the Hyksos. The time between the end of the Old Kingdom and the Hyksos is many centuries, and many things can happen in such a long time. Another hypothesis is that horses in the Old Kingdom might be an exception ….
However, the scholars’ debate on the likeliness that based on zooarcheology evidence the presence of horse in Egypt may be even much earlier is a very long one, mainly because an Equus caballus is dated to the native Egyptian fauna of Palaeolithic times. According to Gaillard … the faunal samples comprised a lower molar and an incomplete mandible with P2 in situ from a true horse, «Equus caballus». The scholar points out that the morphology of these specimens compares better with that in mandibular teeth of asses …. As such, they should be included in the wild ass material.
Gaillard also figured an upper third molar of a Solutrean horse … which is erroneously interpreted by Churcher … as evidence for a true horse in the Kom Ombo area. As matters stand, the presence of wild horses in the Plain of Kom Ombo during Late Palaeolithic times can be considered unsubstantiated. …. However, another issue arises: is there evidence of chariots and wheels in Zoser's reign and the end of Old Kingdom Egypt?
So far, Stuart Piggott seems to be an expert in regard to early wheeled vehicles. Downhere is a quote from his book The Earliest Wheeled Transport from the Atlantic Coast to the Caspian Sea providing some helpful factual background information.
The central problem of the earliest wheeled vehicles in Europe from about 3000 BC is that of assessing the respective merits of two hypotheses, that assuming a restricted place and time for an invention subsequently rapidly and widely adopted, and that permitting independent invention of the basic principle of wheeled transport in more than one locality, with subsequent parallel regional development.
In specific terms it raises the classic issue of 'diffusion' from an area with a higher degree of technological performance to others with less inventive expertise: the Near East and Neolithic Europe around 3000 BC. The problem is not rendered easier by the fact that we are dealing with wooden structures with a low survival value as archaeological artifacts, helped only by fired clay models among those societies which had a tradition of producing such miniature versions of everyday objects, itself a restricted cultural trait. In the instance of the earliest agricultural communities of south-east Europe from the seventh millennium BC [sic], which did so model humans, animals, houses and even furniture, the absence of vehicle models is at least a suggestive piece of negative evidence for a failure to make this break-through in vehicle technology, despite an efficient agrarian economy and a precocious non-ferrous metallurgy before the beginning of the third millennium.
When in that millennium the first European wheels, and depictions and models of wheeled vehicles, appear, radiocarbon dates show us how close in time these are to the comparable evidence for the first appearance in Sumer and Elam of the same invention, and the likelihood of independent discovery in east and west, virtually simultaneously, is sensibly diminished.
The thesis of the rapid adoption of a novel piece of transport technology originating in the ancient Near East, as proposed by Childe thirty years ago, still remains the preferable alternative.
One of the most recent finds in Western Europe, the wagon from Zilrich with disc wheels of the tripartite construction, and a calibrated radiocarbon date of 3030 BC, greatly strengthens this supposition, for the relatively complex technology is precisely that of the early third millennium wheels of Kish, Ur and Susa. ….
The foregoing makes it clear that according to that scholar: 1) there is an intrinsic difficulty with survival of evidence of early wheeled vehicles; 2) wagons with tripartite disk wheels were in existence by 3030 BC; and 3) this technology spread far and fast. Given these three facts, the problem of proving that the highly advanced civilization of Old Kingdom Egypt did not have wheeled military vehicles a full 580 years after the invention and spread of the tripartite wheel seems to be a very much greater one than that of proving that she did. ….
[End of quotes]
Facing these major problems?
In light of all this, there are various approaches that one can take to save the situation.
Or, should it be rather a matter of, as I asked the question in Part One of my article, “Is the biblical Exodus … reality?”:
“So, why not just admit that that the Exodus of Israel must have occurred later, during Egypt’s New Kingdom?”
That, after all, would completely solve the problem of the horses and the chariots.
And, it can also provide us with a pharaoh named Ramses (cf. Exodus 1:11).
But I, then, in Part Two, proceeded to put forward compelling reasons why I shall never embrace an Egyptian New Kingdom Exodus:
Why the new Kingdom is totally inappropriate
While, superficially, a New Kingdom (Eighteenth or Nineteenth Dynasty) setting for the Exodus might appear to fit the bill, it would actually cause far more problems than it may seemingly manage to solve.
For it is not sufficient simply to grab a particular phase out of history and claim that it attaches nicely to a biblical event. The Bible records a long, developing history which necessitates that the whole thing be fitted into an historical and archaeological framework. If, for instance, one were to take Ramses II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, one would then need to be able to situate, each into its own proper place, Joseph and the Famine at an earlier phase of Egyptian history, and, then, Abram (Abraham), before Joseph.
On this note, Dr. John Osgood has rightly, in a recent article (2024):
https://assets.answersresearchjournal.org/doc/v17/
jericho_dating_joshuas_conquest_of_canaan_comments_osgood.pdf
Answers Research Journal 17 (2024): 221–222,
“The Walls of Jericho: Dating Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan—Comments”,
expressed his ‘amazement’ when those involved in biblico-historical reconstructions exclude “a whole saga of history”:
….
Habermehl tells us that “we note that the Bible does not say that Hiel built a city, but only a wall.” Really, then what do the words “Hiel of Bethel built Jericho” mean? It had a foundation (not specifically of a wall) and it had gates (1 Kings 16:34). But the archaeologists have clearly and categorically found a large city during Middle Bronze on the site of Jericho and therefore before Hiel. That city needs an explanation, as it won’t go away.
This is where I am amazed at the blindness of both conventional and revisionist discussions, as if the pages of the book of Judges are stuck together and a whole saga of history is excluded. Namely, there was the attack on Jericho, the city of palm trees, by Eglon of Moab, and for 20 years that site was occupied by 10,000 of his troops (Judges 3:12– 30, see also Deuteronomy 34:3; Judges 1:16; 2 Chronicles 28:15—the city of palm trees). ….
[End of quote]
Nor will it be sufficient to focus only upon Egypt – though that nation was, admittedly, the main power during the biblical era from the patriarchs Abram (Abraham) to Moses.
Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, and so on, must likewise be properly accounted for, both historically and archaeologically.
Key to a biblico-historical synthesis will obviously be the Conquest of Canaan and its centrepiece, the Fall of Jericho, which outstanding episode should be archaeologically verifiable.
Pharaoh Ramses II may indeed have had his wonderful horses and chariots, but, for those who hold him to have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus, these are now faced with a Late Bronze Age (LBA) archology for the Conquest, and for Jericho, that is hopelessly inadequate.
Much has been written about this.
Stuart Zachary Steinberg briefly sums it up here:
Redating the Conquest of the Promised Land | by Stuart Zachary Steinberg | Medium
“For nearly 150 years the conquest by the Israelites has been dated to the Late Bronze Age. The reason for that has been primarily placing the Exodus in the Late Kingdom to have Raamses II as the pharaoh of the Exodus, to correspond with Exodus where it states that the children of Israel built the store cities of Pithom and Raamses. The problem is that there are nearly no correspondence[s] between the destruction of various cities and archaeology in the Late Bronze Age (LBA). Most [of] the cities mentioned do not exist or were destroyed much earlier. Case in point is Jericho. During the Late Bronze Age there was no city at Jericho for Joshua to destroy”.
This is the dire situation that confronts the conventional scholars and whoever else might look to situate the Exodus at the time of Egypt’s New Kingdom. The high point of the Conquest of Canaan by Joshua was the destruction of Jericho, whose walls famously fell down. However: “During the Late Bronze Age there was no city at Jericho for Joshua to destroy”. Boom, boom.
In fact, I believe that any reconstruction that is not built upon the Exodus Israelites as the Middle Bronze I (MBI) people of archaeology, who destroyed and/or settled in many of the Early Bronze III/IV cities of Canaan and Transjordan, cannot be correct:
MBI Israel and the fall of cities Jericho and Ai
(5) MBI Israel and the fall of cities Jericho and Ai
This biblico-archaeological equation is supported by some experienced heavy hitters, such as Dr. Rudolph Cohen, Professor Emmanuel Anati, and Egal Israel:
Egal Israel accepts the MBI peoples as being the Israelites of the Exodus
(DOC) Egal Israel accepts the MBI peoples as being the Israelites of the Exodus
So insistent am I upon this that I once harshly reviewed an archaeologically-based paper sent to me for review that did not embrace this firm foundation. The author, who had put a lot of hard work and effort into it, later complained when the paper was rejected for publication.
I felt sorry for him. And, I have to admit that I myself have not always been clear about the archaeology for the Exodus – though it seems plainly obvious to me now.
Negotiating Egypt and its barriers
The MBI Israelites left behind them a devastated Egypt, whose magicians had been forced to concede that ‘the finger of God’ was at work in the Plagues.
Did this cataclysmic state of affairs result in the conversion of some of the magicians, who may then, perhaps, have been amongst the “many other people” who departed Egypt with the Israelites? (Exodus 12:38)
Were Jannes and Jambres, traditionally brother-magicians - {whom I have identified as the Reubenite (Israelite) pair, Dathan [Jathan] and Abiram} - compelled, despite their entrenched detestation of Moses, to bow to a higher Authority and, ultimately, to join the Exodus?
Throughout it all, sadly, the ruler of Egypt, identified as the Thirteenth Dynasty’s Khasekemre-Neferhotep [I], remained unmoved (8:19): “But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the LORD had said”.
Unfortunately for Egypt, the Pharaoh, who, as well, had been brought to his knees, by the death of his first-born son, had ultimately and rashly determined to pursue the Israelites with his chariots and horsemen (whatever form these may have taken).
According to the usual translation there were “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children” who departed from Egypt at the time of the Exodus (12:37): historically, the nomadic MBI people. Common sense, though, has to be applied when dealing with some of the more fantastic biblical numbers, and this is a clear case in point. If Israel had really fielded that many able-bodied men, “armed” (13:18) - {the overall total of fleeing Israelites estimated at about two million} - then they were hardly going to fear the inhabitants of Canaan no matter how tall these might have been.
Moreover, the land of Goshen, and, later, the harsh desert, could not possibly have accommodated such a vast number.
This is a clear case of the poor choice of translation of that albeit tricky Hebrew word elef (אֶ֧לֶף) as “thousand”, when another choice would make more (common) sense. The word elef can also mean “clan” or “squad” (cf. Numbers 1:16; Judges 6:15 and I Samuel 10:19), “reducing the purported number of 600,000 individual young men to 600 clans or squads, with a more likely total of 72,000 people” (Peter. C. Phan, Christian Theology in the Age of Migration: Implications for World Christianity, p. 109).
Exodus 12:40 provides us with an important time span. This is the 430 years of servitude (12:40-42):
Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD’s divisions left Egypt.
Because the LORD kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the LORD for the generations to come.
480 years later, King Solomon will begin to build the Temple of Yahweh (I Kings 6:1).
….
(b) Problems needing to be solved: horses and chariots
Several solutions may be proposed for the lack of evidence of horses and chariots in Egypt at this particular time.
- One. Egypt had then only a rudimentary type of chariot. It may not even have been for war purposes, except for the speedy conveyance of fighting men.
- Two. Egypt had only recently bought horses and chariots from neighbouring trading partners. The war chariot does not appear to have been an Egyptian invention. Before this new phenomenon had had time to reach the walls of Egypt, in art form, the whole substance of it had drowned during the Exodus pursuit.
One. I am probably going to have to downsize here, and conclude that the reason why war chariots are not depicted in Egypt prior to the New Kingdom is because Egypt had not yet developed them. That the image of Pharaoh with his chariot army, as so brilliantly depicted in the film The Ten Commandments, may be yet another of the film’s historical inaccuracies.
Egypt, assuredly, had long had various means of land transport - carts, wagons, sledges, donkeys, palanquins - but no war chariots as yet.
The Hebrew word (רִכְבּ) translated as “chariot” can mean simply cart drawn by an animal: CHARIOT - JewishEncyclopedia.com
“Vehicles are designated in Hebrew chiefly by two expressions, "'agalah" and "rakab," with "merkab" and "merkabah" derived from the latter. The former denotes the wagon used for heavy loads and general work, the name being connected with the root "to roll"; while the latter is the chariot of war or of state”.
The Exodus Pharaoh must have used horse-drawn carts and/or wagons, not so much as instruments of war, but as the means of conveying his army as quickly as possible in pursuit of the fleeing Israelites. In favour of this theory, in the case of Exodus 14, is the use of rakab rather than merkabah, war chariot.
While this does, admittedly, take away some of the glamour from how we might have envisaged this scene (prompted by movies), the sight confronting the Israelites, whose host included women, children, and the aged, would nevertheless have been frightful.
Two. The other possibility for consideration does require a time squeeze.
Perhaps the Egyptians had begun to develop horse-drawn war chariots only while Moses was exiled in Midian, during the late Twelfth to early Thirteenth dynasties - or, had recently begun to import these from their trading partners.
Half a millennium later, Solomonic Israel would be trading in horses and chariots, now emanating from Egypt (I Kings 10:26-29).
Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue — the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price. They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.
The Exodus Route
There is no conclusive evidence whatsoever that Pharaoh himself actually drowned in the Sea of Reeds: Did Pharaoh Die in the Red Sea? - Chabad.org
There are differing opinions in the Midrash … concerning his fate.
Some say that he drowned in the Red Sea together with his army, while others opine that he survived the miraculous event. He survived in order to retell a firsthand account of the miracles and wonders that G d performed. ….
Previously, I had accepted the Exodus route as painstakingly laid out by the experienced archaeologist professor Emmanuel Anati.
Unlike charlatans and fraudsters, who claim to find biblical locations and artefacts without having any consideration for distances, logistics, water holes, and so on:
What of Ron Wyatt’s Egyptian chariot wheels in the Red Sea?
(10) What of Ron Wyatt's Egyptian chariot wheels in the Red Sea?
professor Emmanuel Anati has had decades of professional experience in the region:
https://int.icej.org/news/special-reports/moving-mountains
….
Anati considers the route used by the Israelites after they left Egypt to be crucial to locating Mount Sinai. This is a riddle which has kept Christian researchers busy since Byzantine times. But in order to find the route, Anati decided to walk through the Sinai and try to trace the original route on foot himself.
“I have studied the itinerary of the Exodus route and went through Egypt and Sinai, all the way trying to find the different stations mentioned in the Bible. I did it twice. The first time I had in my mind that St. Catherine’s was Mount Sinai, and I got completely lost. The second time I had this idea in mind of Har Karkom and I could find many stations which fit the description of the Bible. That itinerary led me directly to the area of Har Karkom,” he stated.
One of the most interesting discoveries supporting his theory is that Har Karkom is eleven days journey by foot from Kadesh Barnea, just as the Book of Deuteronomy describes. In addition, the route has ten wells spaced fairly evenly apart, providing a source of water at the end of each day of travel.
“It is absolutely fitting,” insisted Anati. “So all those things led me to think that it was Mt Sinai.” ….
That is not to say that improvements, refinements, may not be introduced here and there.
There are other archaeologists who, while accepting many of professor Anati’s identifications, do not necessarily agree with every detail of his itinerary.
Australian archaeologist, Deb Hurn, for instance, has written:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312317572_Eleven_Days_From_Horeb_Deuteronomy_11-2_and_Har_Karkom
“Eleven days from Horeb”: Deuteronomy 1:1-2 and Har Karkom Deuteronomy 1:1-2 is an inscrutable list of obscure toponyms and diverse prepositions.
Yet from it derives the common understanding that Mount Horeb is eleven days distant from Kadesh-Barnea.
In 1983, paleoethnologist Emmanuel Anati identified Har Karkom in the Central Negev as Mount Sinai-Horeb, but the mountain lies within 100 km of the Kadesh district. To address this biblical problem, Anati proposed a circuitous eleven-day route from Har Karkom to Kadesh via minor water-sources as little as 7 km apart. The narrative of Numbers 10-13, however, indicates that Israel's march from Sinai to Kadesh took only six days of actual travel. This presentation will propose and describe the route of this journey in terms of ancient trails, water sources, and campsites.
What, then, of the “eleven days” of Deuteronomy 1:1-2? By a new reading, this text describes the way from the east bank of the Jordan River to Horeb (at Har Karkom) via well-known ancient roads. A route of eleven daily stages links twelve water-sources averaging 30 km apart, the standard rate of military and commercial travel in the ANE. This paper will offer identities for the seven listed stations and locate the remaining five stations, offering a rationale for their omission. No longer obscure and irrelevant to its context, Deuteronomy 1:1-2 turns out to be an accurate, linear, timed itinerary describing the optimal route between Mount Horeb and the Jordan River where Moses spoke his final words to Israel. ….
All such responsible views need to be taken into consideration.
But I am now inclined to think that professor Anati’s identification of Lake Serbonis Bardawil) is too far away to have been, as he sees it, the Sea of Crossing.
Moreover, this body of water is situated right on the Mediterranean coast, on the very route to Canaan that the Bible says the Israelites did not take (Exodus 13:17).
At this point in time I tend to favour, as an approximation, an Exodus route geography that, for the Sea of Reeds, lies yet within the confines of Egypt, such as the following:
“Which Way Out of Egypt? Physical Geography Related to the Exodus Itinerary Stephen O. Moshier and James K. Hoffmeier”:
Which-Way-Out-of-Egypt-Moshier-and-Hoffmeier.pdf
Introduction
Many editions of the Hebrew Tanakh and Christian Holy Bible feature a map showing one or multiple alternative Exodus routes out of the Nile Delta into the Sinai Peninsula. The routes are based upon various interpretations of the itineraries contained in the scriptures (Exod 12–19; Num 33). Archaeological excavations and studies of ancient texts during the past century contribute information relevant to the Exodus itinerary.
For example, Piramesse, Sukkoth, and Migdol of the Exodus narrative are reasonably identified with locations known from ancient Egyptian archaeology and epigraphy (Bietak, Chap. 2). Other locations in the itinerary, such as Etham, Pi Hahiroth, Baal Zephon, and especially the Re(e)d Sea, remain ambiguous or undiscovered. Bible maps generally show the modern geography of settlements, river courses, lakes, and coastlines. However, geologic studies reveal changes in the land that have implications for some of these problematic locations and overland routes traveled by ancient people. In particular, surveys in the region over the past 40 years have identified and delineated abandoned Nile distributaries, significant ancient inland lakes (now dry or changed), the migrating Mediterranean coastline, and overall evolution of the Nile Delta plain. This chapter presents a map of the natural geography of the region during the Bronze Age based upon multiple sources from cartography, archaeology, and geology (Fig. 8.1).
….
Implications for the Toponymy and Geography of Exodus
Several locations with probable or tentative associations with geographic references in the Exodus text are depicted in Fig. 8.1. The Israelite people in Egypt are said to have built the “supply cities” of Pithom and Rameses (Exod 1:11), but no geographical location is offered in the Torah. Nearly a century ago, Sir Alan Gardiner demonstrated that Ramesses of the Pentateuch (Gen 47:11; Exod 1:11, 12:37; Num 33:3 and 5) was one and the same as Pi-Ramesses, the Delta residence of Ramesses II and his successors (Gardiner 1918: 261–267). …. Rameses (Piramesse) is now identified with the site at Qantir after the pioneering work of Labib Habachi in the 1940s and 1950s (Habachi 1954, 2001: 65–84). It is situated along the ancient Pelusiac branch in the eastern delta just northeast of Tell el Dabca (Hyksos Avaris).
Pithom only occurs in Exodus 1:11 and is not listed in the Exodus itinerary. Its location has long been a topic of archaeological investigation (Naville 1888, 1924; Petrie 1906). There is firm textual and archaeological evidence for locating Pithom in Wadi Tumilat at Tell er-Retabeh. Early on, however, Naville maintained that it was Succoth (Naville 1888: 4), while Petrie who worked at Retabeh 20 years later thought that it was Pi-Ramesses and Rameses of Exodus (Petrie 1906: 28; 1911: 33–34). The tendency now, however, is to identify it as Pi-Atum (Pithom) of Pap. Anastasi V: 51–61.4 Scientific investigations of Tell el-Retabeh resumed in 2007 by a Polish-Slovak mission (Rzebka et al. 2009: 241–280; 2011: 139–184).
It is also clear from Ramesside period texts that the Egyptian toponym tkw, which when written in Hebrew, is Succoth (Muchiki 1999: 232–233) of Exodus 12:37 and 13:30 and Numbers 33:5–6. While tkw in Egyptian texts refers to the Wadi Tumilat of today (Kitchen 1998: 73–78), it also appears to have been connected with the site of Tell el-Maskhuta. Maskhuta is the Arabic name of the present-day village that partially occupies the archaeological site, and linguistically Maskhuta preserves that ancient name tkw, sukkot, in Hebrew.
The initial movement of route described in Exodus appears to have been from Piramesse to the Wadi Tumilat, thereby seeking to avoid the Ways of Horus, the northern military highway out of Egypt (cf. Exod 13:17 where it is called “the way of the Land of the Philistines”). By moving toward the Wadi Tumilat, the Hebrews were trying to escape via the other and more southerly route out of Egypt, namely, the Way of Shur as it is known in the Bible (Gen 16:7, 20:1, 25:18). The Egyptian name of this road, presently not known to us, was primarily used for travel to Sinai originating from the locations at base of the Delta (e.g., Memphis). Travelers attempting a direct (straight) route between Piramesse and the central Wadi Tumilat would first encounter the Bahr el-Baqar swamps (east and south of Piramesse) and next the highest elevations of the sandy El Jisr Plateau on the north side of the Wadi (although the elevations do not regularly exceed 25 m above sea level). A more reasonable route would have been south along the Pelusiac channel toward the other great Rameside city in the eastern delta at Bubastis (Tell Basta) and approaching the western entrance of the Wadi Tumilat.
“Etham on the edge of the wilderness (Exod 13:20)” is probably at the eastern end of the Wadi Tumilat, possibly near the shores of Lake Timsah. The Hebrew writing of ’etam, like the name Pithom, preserves the name of Atum (Muchiki 1999: 230), the Patron deity of tkw.
The inscribed block of Ramesses II smiting foreigners discovered by Petrie at Retabeh demonstrates Atums status as “Lord of Tje(k)u” (Petrie 1906: pl. 30). Furthermore the Arabic name Wadi Tumilat clearly preserves the name Atum, a reminder of the sun god’s influence in the area over the centuries.
Lake Timsah would be a logical candidate for the Re(e)d Sea, but the narrative records an abrupt “turning back” (Heb. šub) (Exod 14:2) to a new location before coming “the sea” (hayam), a body of water different than Lake Timsah. This next camp destination is “near Pi-Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea” and “directly opposite Baal Zephon” (Exod 14:2). ….
Migdol can be associated with a fortress of the same name guarding the Ways of Horus in the northwest Sinai along the Mediterranean coast (Gardiner 1920; Hoffmeier 2008b). “Turning back” to the north would put the Hebrew escapees in the midst of the Ballah Lakes, which was the fortified east frontier zone that included the fortified sites of Tjaru (Sile), i.e., Hebua I and Hebua II (Abd el-Maksoud 1998; Abd el-Maksoud and Valbelle 2005, 2011) and Tell el-Borg (Hoffmeier and Abd El-Maksoud 2003).
The Egyptian geographical term p3 twfy refers to an area of freshwater and abundant fish, reeds, and rushes (cf. Pap. Anastasi III 2:11–12). The Egyptian p3 twfy has long been linguistically associated with the Hebrew yām sûp or Re(e)d Sea of Exodus 14 and 15 (Gardiner 1947; Lambdin 1953: 153; Hoffmeier 2005). Gardiner called attention to the parallelism between the two bodies of water on Egypt’s NE frontier in Pap. Anastasi III (2:11–12), š-ḥr (Shi-hor of Josh 13:3; Jer 2:18, clearly on the eastern frontier). He went on to make the following observation: “‘the papyrus marshes (p3 twf) come to him with papyrus reeds, and the Waters of Horus (P-shi-Ḥor) with rushes:’ the connection of P3 twf with Biblical יַם-סוּף Yam-sûph ‘Sea of Reeds’ (Heb. Sûph and Eg. twf are the same word) and that of P3- š-Ḥr ‘the Waters of Horus’ with Biblical שִּׁיח֞וֹר Shiḥor are beyond dispute” (Gardiner 1947:201*). Bietak went a step further and identified the northern lake in Egyptian texts—what the French team of Dominique Valbelle and Bruno Marcolongo called the “eastern” or the “paleo-lagoon”—situated east of the sites of Hebua I and II and Tell el-Borg (Valbelle, et al. 1992; Marcolongo 1992)—with P3-š-Ḥr (Bietak 1975). Bietak identified the more southerly lake with P3 twfy and the Biblical יַם-סוּף Yam-sûph Sea of Reeds. Over the past 40 years, he has continued to champion these identifications (Bietak 1987: 166–168; 1996: 2). The archaeological and geological investigations we conducted in northern Sinai between 1998 and 2008 have further clarified the history and their dimensions during the New Kingdom Period. Our work only supports the identifications Gardiner and Bietak proposed, viz., that P3 twfy of Ramesside Period texts and yam sûp of the Exodus narratives should be identified with the Ballah Lake system and that š-ḥr/Shi-hor of Egyptian and biblical texts is the eastern lagoon. ….
