.S5 



Now Lepsius had found in 1849 very strong reason to 

 conclude that a place in the Wady Tumilat, by the old Sweet- 

 water Canal, called Abu-Kesheb, was the store-city of 

 Rameses, and so it has seemed till this year. But the important 

 discoveries of M. Naville have now fixed for us absolute points 

 of date and place by which our drifting opinions must be 

 anchored fast. 



I will try to make clear these points as shortly as possible 

 for those not versed in the intricate details of Egyptian 

 research. 



About twelve miles from Ismailia westward up the shallow 

 valley of the Sweet-water Canal is a place of ruins now called 

 Tell-el-Maskhuta. It is the same place called Tell-Abu- 

 Kesbeb, the reputed Earaeses, and here on this mound 

 our horse artillery planted their guns in the first action 

 fought on the westward movement towards the more renowned 

 Tell-el-Kebir on the 24th of August, 1882. 



From monuments taken thence long ago to Ismailia, M. 

 Naville was convinced that the place was not Rameses, but 

 Pithom (or.B) Pi-Tum, the sanctuary of Turn, the setting-sun 

 god of Egypt; and this he confirmed by fresh monuments which 

 he brought to light. For the name occurs in the inscriptions many 

 times as that of the place, and the local name of Rameses (Pi- 

 Ramessu) not once. Although the illustrious veteran Lepsius 

 still upholds his opinion that the place is Rameses, I cannot 

 but believe that when M. Naville has produced in detail his 

 evidence it will be clear that of the twin - cities this is 

 Pithom. 



But the locality in which it stands is scarcely less interesting 

 in another light; for it is many times designated by the 



inscription found there as Seku, or Sekut ( v\ 



^ ^r, ^ ^^^^ Jl ® 



g > (2 \ . 



® ), identified by Brugsch and Naville with the 



Succoth (n^D ; LXX, Sok^wS) of the book of Exodus. 



Now I know that at first sight this seems a strained identi- 

 fication, and it needs to be explained and justified. This, 

 however, can be done. I can now only refer to the instances 

 cited by Brugsch in the Zeitschrift fur dgyptische 8prache 

 1875, p. 7, which sufficiently prove that the lasso-shaped 

 hieroglyph s=5, generally considered to represent the sound 

 of in Greek, or th in the English word thin, was sometimes 

 equivalent to the sibilant expressed by d in Hebrew. 



The tendency to hiss the sound is exemplified in the last 

 (Oct. 1883) Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 

 p. 235, where Mr. Pickering Clarke tells us that the name of 



