Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
Metadaten

Edwards, Amelia B.
Pharaohs, fellahs and explorers — New York, NY, 1892

DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5538#0062

DWork-Logo
Überblick
Faksimile
0.5
1 cm
facsimile
Vollansicht
OCR-Volltext
42 / PHARAOHS, FELLAHS, AND EXPLORERS.

prosperous race. All this time, while they were happy,
they had no history. It was only when much fighting and
building had drained Egypt of men and treasure that the
Hebrews began to be oppressed; and it is with their oppres-
sion that their history as a nation may be said to commence.
Ko part of the Bible is more dramatically interesting, or
more circumstantially related, than those chapters which
tell of their sufferings, their flight, and their escape. Egyp-
tologists, Hebraists, geographers, and travellers have exhaust-
ed speculation as to the road by which they went out, the
places at which they halted, and the point at which they
forded the great water. That they must have started by way
of TTady Tiimilat is admitted by the majority of Exodus
theorists. Then, as now, that famous valley was by far the
shortest and most direct route from the old Land of Goshen
to the desert. Then, as now, it was watered by a navigable
canal, which in all probability the Hebrew settlers themselves
helped to keep in repair, or possibly to excavate, and which
may yet be traced for a considerable distance. Forty years
ago Lepsius identified Tell Abu Suleiman at the Avestward
mouth of the valley, and Tell-el-Maskhutah near the east-
ward end, with the twin treasure-cities built for Pharaoh by
the persecuted Israelites; and so unhesitatingly were his
identifications accepted that these two places have ever
since been entered in maps and guide-books as "Pithom"
and "Raamses." Even the little railway station erected by
the French engineers on the line of the Fresh-water Canal in
1S60 was called " Ramses," and is so called to this day. It is
unnecessary to recapitulate the argument upon which Lep-
sius based his identification; but it was, at all events, uni-
versally accepted. M. Xaville went, therefore, to prove the
correctness of this argument; and it was very much to his
own surprise, and to the surprise of all concerned in his ex-
pedition, that he discovered it to be erroneous.

AVhat M. ISTaville actually found under the mounds of
Maskhutah was a peribolos wall, the site of a temple, a dro-
mos. a camp, some ruins of a city, and a series of most
 
Annotationen