DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14391#0039
STORE-CITY OF PITHOM AND THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.
25
the map of Peutinger there are not less than
three Serapeum, and four Iseum or Iseopolis
in the Delta. As we know in the neighbour-
hood of Heroopolis only one temple of Osiris,
Pikerehet, it is obvious that this city is the
Serapeum or the Serapiu which the Itinerary
indicates as being eighteen miles distant from
Ero. Let us therefore take the indication given
by the latter document, and, as before, control
it by the localities themselves and the sites of
ruins which are still extant.
Standing on the pier of Ismailiah, and looking
over the lake Timsah, the horizon is limited
on the south by a flat ridge, a kind of table-
mountain called Gebel Mariam. Just at the
foot of the mountain on the south, and on the
very bank of the canal, is an important Roman
settlement partly covered by the lagoons, but
the ruins of which, above the water, cover an
area of 500 yards square. That I believe to
be Serapiu. The distance from Ero would be
fourteen Roman miles, but that agrees very
well with the rate of error found in the
Itinerary. Several geographers, and among
them Lepsius, before he went there, have placed
Serapiu five miles more south, near the entrance
of the present Bitter Lakes, on a hill called by
the engineers the Serapeum. But it is evident
to any one who has been on the spot that it
cannot be Serapiu. It never was a settlement.1
The hill on which are seen fragments of
a granite bilingual tablet of Darius, most
wantonly destroyed, shows only some structures
which may have been a watch-tower, but there
are no traces of houses nor inhabitants. It
cannot have been the city of Serapiu. Not very
considerable perhaps, but with a temple and
a military post, Pikerehet Serapiu must be
looked for at the foot of Gebel Mariam in the
1 This statement is confirmed by Linant, (" Memoire sur
les principaux travaux d'utilite publique executes en Egypte,"
p. 171), who saw the place many years before me, and by
Lepsius, Berichte der Berl. Akademie, 1866, p. 287.
Roman settlement where one sees heaps of
pottery and glass, and also remains of a stone
aqueduct.
The authors who speak of Heroopolis are
unanimous in declaring that the city was near
the sea, at the head of the Arabian Gulf, which
was also called Heroopolitan. Strabo and Pliny
declare it in the most distinct way. The geo-
grapher Ptolemy places Heroopolis only at one-
sixth of a degree distance from the head of the
Arabian Gulf. The consequence df this agree-
ment in the testimony of the Greeks and the
Romans is that, as we said before, we must admit
that formerly, under the dominion of the Romans,
the Red Sea extended much further north than
it does now ; but that then the retreat of the
sea, and the changes in the surface of the soil
had already begun to be felt.
Not only were the Bitter Lakes under water,
but I believe we are compelled to admit with
Linant Bey,2 who derives his arguments from
geology, that Lake Timsah, and the valleys of
Saba Biar and Abu Balah were, under the
Pharaohs of the XlXth dynasty, part of the
sea. Some traces of this may be seen on the
map of the French engineers drawn at the end
of last century. Contiguous to Lake Timsah
there is a narrow extension towards the west
which has the appearance of the head of a
gulf. Thus the sea would have extended as
far as the place now called Magfar, only three
miles from Heroopolis. There the canal ended
which, before the time of Neko, watered the
land of Goshen and the cities like Pithom,
which were built in the Wadi Tumilat. It is
possible that the canal was traced and dug in
an imperfect way: at the end there may have
been those marshes and pastures in which the
Bedawees of Atuma asked the Pharaoh Me-
nephtah to allow them to pasture their cattle.
It must have been at the head of the gulf near
2 " Memoire sur les principaux travaux d'utilite publique
executes en Egypte," p. 195.
E
25
the map of Peutinger there are not less than
three Serapeum, and four Iseum or Iseopolis
in the Delta. As we know in the neighbour-
hood of Heroopolis only one temple of Osiris,
Pikerehet, it is obvious that this city is the
Serapeum or the Serapiu which the Itinerary
indicates as being eighteen miles distant from
Ero. Let us therefore take the indication given
by the latter document, and, as before, control
it by the localities themselves and the sites of
ruins which are still extant.
Standing on the pier of Ismailiah, and looking
over the lake Timsah, the horizon is limited
on the south by a flat ridge, a kind of table-
mountain called Gebel Mariam. Just at the
foot of the mountain on the south, and on the
very bank of the canal, is an important Roman
settlement partly covered by the lagoons, but
the ruins of which, above the water, cover an
area of 500 yards square. That I believe to
be Serapiu. The distance from Ero would be
fourteen Roman miles, but that agrees very
well with the rate of error found in the
Itinerary. Several geographers, and among
them Lepsius, before he went there, have placed
Serapiu five miles more south, near the entrance
of the present Bitter Lakes, on a hill called by
the engineers the Serapeum. But it is evident
to any one who has been on the spot that it
cannot be Serapiu. It never was a settlement.1
The hill on which are seen fragments of
a granite bilingual tablet of Darius, most
wantonly destroyed, shows only some structures
which may have been a watch-tower, but there
are no traces of houses nor inhabitants. It
cannot have been the city of Serapiu. Not very
considerable perhaps, but with a temple and
a military post, Pikerehet Serapiu must be
looked for at the foot of Gebel Mariam in the
1 This statement is confirmed by Linant, (" Memoire sur
les principaux travaux d'utilite publique executes en Egypte,"
p. 171), who saw the place many years before me, and by
Lepsius, Berichte der Berl. Akademie, 1866, p. 287.
Roman settlement where one sees heaps of
pottery and glass, and also remains of a stone
aqueduct.
The authors who speak of Heroopolis are
unanimous in declaring that the city was near
the sea, at the head of the Arabian Gulf, which
was also called Heroopolitan. Strabo and Pliny
declare it in the most distinct way. The geo-
grapher Ptolemy places Heroopolis only at one-
sixth of a degree distance from the head of the
Arabian Gulf. The consequence df this agree-
ment in the testimony of the Greeks and the
Romans is that, as we said before, we must admit
that formerly, under the dominion of the Romans,
the Red Sea extended much further north than
it does now ; but that then the retreat of the
sea, and the changes in the surface of the soil
had already begun to be felt.
Not only were the Bitter Lakes under water,
but I believe we are compelled to admit with
Linant Bey,2 who derives his arguments from
geology, that Lake Timsah, and the valleys of
Saba Biar and Abu Balah were, under the
Pharaohs of the XlXth dynasty, part of the
sea. Some traces of this may be seen on the
map of the French engineers drawn at the end
of last century. Contiguous to Lake Timsah
there is a narrow extension towards the west
which has the appearance of the head of a
gulf. Thus the sea would have extended as
far as the place now called Magfar, only three
miles from Heroopolis. There the canal ended
which, before the time of Neko, watered the
land of Goshen and the cities like Pithom,
which were built in the Wadi Tumilat. It is
possible that the canal was traced and dug in
an imperfect way: at the end there may have
been those marshes and pastures in which the
Bedawees of Atuma asked the Pharaoh Me-
nephtah to allow them to pasture their cattle.
It must have been at the head of the gulf near
2 " Memoire sur les principaux travaux d'utilite publique
executes en Egypte," p. 195.
E