1886.] on the Discovery of the Biblical Cities of Egypt, 385 



Pithom. Pithom was at once a fortress and a place of stores, in 

 extent not larger than Lincoln's Inn Fields, outside which a later 

 town had grown. The walls of Pithom were 24 feet thick, of unburnt 

 brick. A sixth of its area was found to be filled by store-chambers 

 of massive construction, entered from above. Probably these occupied 

 a still larger space, and there was also a temple built by Eameses II., 

 founder of the town, a colossal hawk bearing whose name was brought 

 thence by Mr. Naville, and is now in the British Museum. The 

 bricks are also of the period of the same sovereign. 



The first deduction from this evidence was the identification of 

 Eameses II. as the great oppressor of the Hebrews. This view was 

 started by Algernon, Duke of Northumberland, in Wilkinson's 

 ' Ancient Egyptians ' (i. p. 77 seqq.), with the modification that the first 

 oppressor was Eameses I., and the founder of Pithom and Eameses was 

 Eameses IT. It was revived by Prof. Lepsius in the form first stated, 

 and had already received the support of all leading Egyptologists. 

 Equally Meneptah, the son of Eameses II., had been considered the 

 Pharaoh of the Exodus. Their two reigns covered a period of eighty- 

 six years, and as Eameses was already founded in the fifth year of 

 the king who gave it his name, we had at least eighty-two years for 

 the great oppression, to which the Bible allows at least eighty. The 

 two Pharaohs correspond in the general portraiture of the Egyptian 

 records and the lively descriptions of the Book of Exodus. Eameses 

 is a proud, ruthless despot ; Meneptah, with no less pretension, weak 

 and vacillating. In consequence of this identification, the date of 

 the Exodus in Egyptian evidence would be about B.C. 1320, and this 

 date agrees with the most satisfactory scheme of Hebrew chronology, 

 that of Lord Arthur Hervey (the Bishop of Bath and Wells), who, 

 reckoning by the Hebrew genealogies, arrives at about the same date. 



Pithom, the store-city, was so called by a sacred name Pi-tum, 

 the abode of Tum, the setting sun ; it had, as usual, a civil name 

 also, Thekut, identified by Mr. Naville and Dr. Brugsch with Succoth, 

 the second station of the Exodus, now one fixed point on the line of 

 march. It was the centre of the Land of Succoth, each station being, 

 as Mr. Naville contends, a country, not a place, a conclusion rendered 

 necessary by the historical circumstances. The route was therefore 

 along the Wadi-t-tumeylat, the narrow valley of the Sweet- water Canal. 



In 1885 Mr. Naville had the good fortune to discover the town of 

 Kesem, Goshen (LXX. Pecre/x), near Zagazig, at the western extremity 

 of the valley just mentioned. The position of the Land of Goshen 

 was thus at last fixed as extending around this town and stretching 

 southwards towards Heliopolis and eastwards to Pithom. The Land 

 of Goshen is called in Scripture alternately the Land of Eameses, 

 later known as the Arabian Nome. This Mr. Naville argues is due 

 to the first organisation of this border-land into a settled district of 

 Egypt by Eameses II., which led to the enslaving of the Hebrews as 

 a necessary consequence. The town of Eameses as capital must have 

 either been identical with the town of Goshen or close to it, and thus 



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