18 EDOUARD NAVILLE ON 



but this picture gives a good idea of the manner of life which 

 the oppressor enforced upon them. No doubt the yoke of 

 Pharaoh was heavy ; besides, a sudden and compulsory change 

 of habits does not take place easily. It is not without pain 

 and suffering that shepherds accustomed for generations to 

 the free and easy-going life of driving then flocks in pastures, 

 are tied down to the work of bricklayers and masons, under 

 the eye of harsh and tyrannical overseers. 



" The Israelites built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and 

 Raamses." I mentioned before that the exact site of Raamses 

 had not yet been discovered. It must have been in the 

 neighbourhood of Phacusa, not far from the present Tell 

 el-Kebir. As for Pithom, my first excavations determined 

 its exact site, and even laid bare some ruins of the city 

 and its temple.* On the south side of the Freshwater Canal 

 which runs from Cairo to Suez, through the Wadi Tumilat, 

 about twelve miles from Isma'ilia, are the ruins of European 

 houses now abandoned, but where a few years ago was a 

 settlement of engineers and workmen who dug the canal. 

 The French have called it Ramses. The Arab name is Tell el- 

 Maskhutah, which means ''the mound of the statue," because 

 of a monolith in red granite which stands there, and represents 

 Rameses II. sitting between two gods. The existence of this 

 statue and the fact that other monuments bearing the name 

 of the same king were discovered in the garden of the chief 

 engineer who resided there, induced Lepsius to consider Tell 

 el-Maskhutah as being the site of Raamses. I settled there 

 to begin excavations, in the hope of finding proofs that it 

 was the city of Raamses. But the result of the work, the 

 inscriptions discovered, showed that it was not Raamses but 

 Pithom, and that the region around it had the name of 

 Thuket, which the Israelites interpreted as Sukkoth (tents). 



Pithom is the Egyptian Pi or Pa Turn, and means " the 

 house," or " the sanctuary of Turn," the setting sun. Pithom 

 was the religious name of the city, as Pi Beseth was the 

 religious name of Bubastis, Pa Anion, or No Anion, that of 

 Thebes, Pa Neith that of Sa'is. The civil name of the city 

 was Thuku, or 'Phuket, Avhich was also that of the region 

 around it, a region which the hieroglyphical inscriptions show 

 to have been a border land. Brugsch has pointed out that 

 the name of Thuket was the origin of the Hebrew Suecoth ; 

 and I believe this interpretation to be perfectly in accordance 



* See "The Store City of Pithom and the Eoute of the Exodus," 

 3rd edit. 



