Naville, Edouard: The store-city of Pithom and the route of the Exodus (London, 1888)

STOKE-CITY OF PITIIOM AND THE EOUTE OF THE EXODUS.

Mommsen himself advocated at first :* viz., that
from Ero to Clusma there are nine miles.

The question remains to be answered : what
is this Clusma which is nine miles distant from
Ero ? Here I have not the slightest difficulty
in adopting the former view of Mommsen, which
has been advocated by Lieblein,2 Lefebure,3
Flinders Petrie,4 Poole and others. Clusma is
a common name, which means a place beaten by
the waves or the surf, the shore, the edge of
the waves or of the tide ; it might also mean
the opening of the canal into the Heroopolitan
Gulf. It implies the vicinity of the coast of
the Arabian Gulf to which we shall revert
later in more detail; for the present it
will be sufficient to turn to a document which
is only a century and a half older than the
milestone, I mean the work of the geographer
Ptolemy, who gives twice the latitude of the head
of the Heroopolitan Gulf (tov Ka6' 'Hpwav ttoXlv
fivxov tov 'Apafilov koXttov.) as only one-sixth of
a degree south of the city.8 Thus there was a
K\va[ia, a sea-coast, near Heroopolis, and that
does not in any way go against the existence of a
fort of Clusma, Kkvaixa <j>povpiov, near the pre-
sent site of Suez, at Tell Kolzum. This fort is
known also through Ptolemy, who mentions it
not at all at the head of the Arabian Gulf, but at
a distance of one degree latitude south, and only
as the second locality on the way south.

GEOGRAPHICAL REMARKS.

We have now again to consider the inscriptions
which have been translated, and to draw from

1 Mommsen, Auctarium additamentorum ad corporis,
vol. III., p. 570.

2 Lieblein, Handel und Schiffahrt auf dem Rothen Meere,
p.. 123 et 4.

3 Revue de l'histoire des Religions, Tome XI. (1885),
p. 32.3.

4 Naucratis, I. p. 92.

6 Vid. the map of the oldest manuscript of Ptolemy.
Langlois, Geographie de Ptolemee, p. lxxxvii.

them some information regarding the geography
of the Eastern region of the Delta ; and particu-
larly what is now called the Wadi Tumilat. It
will chiefly be the tablet of Philadelphos on
which our argument will be based. The tablet,
as we have seen,6 begins with three scenes of
offering, which differ in the names and number
of the gods to whom the sacred gifts are
brought. We see first Turn of Succoth, Osiris
of Pikeheret, Harmachis, Hathor, and Arsinoe.
The next scene shows us Turn, Hathor, and
Arsinoe, who are turned to the left; this
circumstance indicating that the second scene
does not refer to the same historical fact as the
first. We have seen in the inscription, at first,
a narrative of what Philadelphos has done at
Pikerehet or Pikeheret, the city of Osiris, in
which, nevertheless, there was also an abode of
Turn.

Pikerehet plays an important part in the
tablet of Philadelphos, the last lines of which
give the amount of taxes which were granted
as income to the temple of the city. According
to the different lists of nomes, we see that the
chief sanctuary of the eighth nome of Lower
Egypt is either Pi Turn or Pikerehet, sometimes
written Se Kerehet ;7 but, whichever name is
mentioned, it is always added that it belongs
to the region of Succoth. I believe therefore
that the region of Succoth contained two sanc-
tuaries very near to each other, Pi Turn and
Pikerehet; the last one being nearer the sea
than Pi Turn, which travellers coming from
Heliopolis first reached.

In attempting to fix the site of Pikerehet
we have to remember the fact which we derive
from the tablet and from one of the lists of
nomes, that it was a sanctuary of Osiris;
therefore the Greeks would have called it a
Serapeum. A Serapeum is a common name
which means nothing but temple of Osiris, and
which may apply to very different places. On

Plate VIII. 7 Vid. page 8.