418 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. 



Arabi were partly stormed, partly outflanked, after a midnight march planned with 

 a skill and executed with a precision seldom surpassed in the annals of European 

 warfare. A palace standing in the neighbourhood of Tell-el-Kebir forms the 

 central point of the so-called " Farm of the Wady," a domain about 25,000 acres in 

 extent, which was cultivated for several years by the Suez Canal Company. 



Near the eastern extremity of the Wady-Tumilât other mounds collectively 

 known as the Tell-el-Maskhata, and in appearance resembling Tell-el-Kebir, were 

 hitherto supposed to indicate the site of the ancient Fithoyn, the " City of Treasure," 

 here erected by the captive Israelites for Kamses II. Recently, however, M. 

 Naville has thoroughly explored these ruins, which now appear not to be those of 

 the city of Ramses, but of another which has been identified as the Pi- Turn or 

 Pithom of Exodus, and which seems to have been built about the same period and 

 by the same hands. During the Greek and Roman epochs Pithom was known by 

 the name of Hero, or HeroonpoUs. 



This identification of the ruins explored by M. Naville at Tell-el-Maskhata, has 

 given rise to much controversy amongst Egyptologists, one of whom goes so far as 

 to say that " the Pithom of the Exodus is apparently as far to seek as ever."* Dr. 

 Ebers, however, who is one of the chief authorities on archaeological questions of 

 this sort, after carefully sifting all the evidence, finally decides in favour of M. 

 Naville's view. In a long communication to the Academy he writes, "Now I have 

 attentively and impartiall}'- studied the inscriptions excavated by M. Naville, and 

 fully discussed them in the Allgemeine Zeitung, after having gained the firm convic- 

 tion that Tell-el-Maskhata is the site on which, in the time of Ramses and subse- 

 quently, there was a city called by the sacred name of Pi-Tum, i.e. Pithom, and by 

 the profane one of Thuku-t, being doubtless the same as Succofh. It is true that 

 Sir Gardner Wilkinson, Dr. Lepsius, M. Maspero, and myself as well, had regarded 

 Tell-el-Maskhata as the site of the biblical Ramses. After the appearance of M. 

 Naville's book, however, there will scarcely be found a single Egyptologist who 

 will still adhere to this view, and refuse to look upon Tell-el-Maskhata as the site 

 of an Egyptian town which bore the sacred name of Pithom and the profane one of 

 Thuku-t. The first object confirming this view was the inscription on the statue of 

 the prophet of Tum of Theka, which begins, * When under his majesty it was 

 proclaimed how the sanctuary of his father Tum of the good god of Thekut was 

 completed on the third of the month of Athyr, the king himself came to the 

 district of Heroonpolis, into the house of his father Tum,' &c. 



" These inscriptions render it so certain that Pithom and Thuku-t were one and 

 the same town, and that both were built on the site of the modern Tell-el-Maskhata,- 

 that we may dispense with the further evidence afforded by the Anastasi papyrus. 

 Here King Merneptah, very probably the Pharaoh of the Exodus, states in writing 

 his having permitted the Shasu (Bedouins) of Atuma (Edom ?) to cross the fortress 

 bearing his name, which was also called Theku, in the direction of the ponds of 

 Pithom of the king Merneptah, which is called Theku." f 



* Athciiœum, April, 1885, No. 2994. t Academy, May 23rd, 1885, p. 373. 



