84 

 the well Themed was pronounced by his Arabs " Summed," a 

 precisely similar case to riDD. In Exodus the LXX 



give 2oKxw0,but translate the niDD of Genesis xxxiii. 17, SKrjvaf. 

 Perhaps, after all, the Egyptian name was not the Semitic 

 plural meaning " tents." 



The temple, then, gave the name of Pi-tum, and the ordinary or 

 civil name of the place was Sekut. Thus we have here the first 

 local names of the Exodus that have yet been surely ascertained, 

 the eastward of the twin store-cities and the first halting-place 

 of the Israelites on their eastward march, not harassed but 

 helped and urged onward by the terrified Egyptians. 



But this is not all, for another well-known name cleaves to 

 the same place. 



In the book of Genesis xlvi. 28, we are told that Jacob 

 " sent Judah before him unto Joseph to direct his face unto 

 Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen. And Joseph 

 made ready his chai'iot [probably at Zoan] and went up to 

 meet Israel his father, to Goshen." But the LXX version 

 written in Egypt, tells us that Judah went to meet Joseph at 

 Hei'oonpolis, in the land of Pamesses, and that Joseph met 

 Israel, his father, there. The Coptic version gives the name 

 of the place as IieOtWJUL, that is, Pithom, and it turns out that all 

 are right, for at Pi-tum M. Naville found Roman inscriptions 

 bearing the name ERO, ERO CASTRA, the (Roman) camp 

 Ero, and HPOT in Greek. Therefore this is the place in the 

 land of Goshen, the land of Rameses, where Joseph and his 

 father met. The Greek HPOY well represents the Egyptian 



Am, plural of ^^^ ^ ^ magazine, or storehouse ; and this is 



the true derivation of the name, as M. Naville believes from 

 the use of the word in the inscriptions on the spot. 



This not only represents the sense of the word rendered 

 " treasure-cities " (mJODc), but it is entirely borne out by the 

 structure of the place. 



For this arsenal of Rameses II. is enclosed by an enormous 

 wall of crude brick, containing in its circuit only a little more 

 than twelve acres of ground; and this straitened space is 

 occupied in a strictly military manner by storehouses, except- 

 ing only the temple and its small precinct. The storehouses 

 had no access through their side-walls ; but only from their 

 vaulted roofs, where the grain was put in according to the 

 representations of Egyptian granaries engraved by Wilkinson 

 and others {Anc. Eg., ed. by Birch, i. 371). As M. Naville has 

 said : — " Armies which went to Syria and Mesopotamia had 



