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26-818: The land of Goshen is the Hebrew name of an area in the Nile delta in Ancient Egypt. Goshen may also refer to: Land of Goshen The land of Goshen ( Hebrew : אֶרֶץ גֹּשֶׁן , ʾEreṣ Gōšen ) is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the area in Egypt that was allotted to the Hebrews by the Pharaoh during the time of Joseph ( Book of Genesis , Genesis 45:9–10 ). They dwelt in Goshen up until

52-688: A systematic research at Tell El Retaba since 2007. It is conducted with the cooperation of several institutions: Institute of Archaeology University of Warsaw , the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw , the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Aigyptos Foundation. More recent analyses have demonstrated that the designation for the temple of Atum, pr-itm , can be found in inscriptions at both sites—both at Tell El Retaba and at Tell El Maskhuta. This seems to demonstrate that

78-594: A term rendered in the Authorized Version "treasure cities" and in the Revised Version "store cities" ( Hebrew : מסכְּנוֹת֙ , romanized :  miskǝnoṯ ). The Septuagint renders it πόλεις ὀχυραί "strong [or "fortified"] cities." The same term is used for certain cities of King Solomon in I Kings 9:19 (comp. also II Chronicles 16:4). Heroöpolis was a large city east of the Nile Delta , situated near

104-553: Is a high official in Egypt and allows his father and brothers to settle in Egypt. In Genesis 45:10, Goshen is treated as being close to Joseph, who lives at the pharaoh's court and in Genesis 47:5 Goshen is called "the best part" of the land of Egypt. But it is also implied to be somewhat set apart from the rest of Egypt, because Joseph tells his family to present themselves to the pharaoh as keepers of livestock, "in order that you may settle in

130-577: The Wadi Tumilat , an arable strip of land serving as the ancient transit route between Egypt and Canaan across the Sinai—the biblical 'Way of Shur '. Eight miles west of Tell El Maskhuta is the site of Tell El Retabeh. This is approximately the midpoint of Wadi Tumilat. The earliest find known from the site is the jasper weight of king Nebkaure Khety , but such an object might have been brought from elsewhere. Naville identified all these locations as being in

156-553: The 8th nome of Lower Egypt . Early on, the location of Pithom—just like the locations of other similar sites, such as Tanis —had been the subject of much conjecture and debate. The 10th-century Jewish scholar Saadia Gaon identified Pithom's location in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Hebrew Bible as the Faiyum , 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of Cairo . Édouard Naville and Flinders Petrie were looking for Pithom along

182-612: The Qedarites never ruled the region of the Wādī Ṭumīlāt, the discovery in the Wādī Ṭumīlāt region of Qedarite remains, such as a shrine to the goddess al-Lāt , makes Van Seters's opposition to this identification untenable. The scholars Sarah I. Groll , Manfred Bietak and Mark Janzen reject any connection between the Land of Goshen and the territories of the Qedarite king Gešem, proposing instead that

208-423: The archaeological site Tell El Maskhuta . The site of Pithom, as identified by Naville, is at the eastern edge of Wadi Tumilat, southwest of Ismailia . Petrie agreed with this identification. John S. Holladay Jr., a more recent investigator of the site, also supports this opinion. Alternatively, the recent Italian excavators have suggested identifying the site as the ancient city of Tjeku (Biblical Sukkot ). Here

234-638: The biblical placename is related to the lake gsm mentioned in Papyrus Anastasi IV . In their view, the biblical land should be identified with the western part of the Wādī Ṭumīlāt with its large overflow lake. Pithom 30°33′7″N 32°5′55″E  /  30.55194°N 32.09861°E  / 30.55194; 32.09861 Pithom ( Ancient Egyptian : pr-jtm ; Biblical Hebrew : פִּתֹם , romanized:  Pīṯōm ; Koinē Greek : Ἡρώπόλις , romanized:  Hērṓpólis or Ἡρώωνπόλις Hērṓōnpólis , and Πατούμος Patoúmos )

260-498: The east of the Nile Delta and around Pithom, and which became known to ancient Egyptians as Gsm ( 𓎤𓊃𓅓𓏏𓊖 ) and to Jews as the ʾEreṣ Gōšen ( אֶרֶץ גֹּשֶׁן ), that is the lit.   ' Land of Gešem ' , after either the Qedarite king Gešem or after his dynasty. Although the scholar John Van Seters has opposed the identification of ʾEreṣ Gōšen with the Qedarite territories in eastern Egypt based on claims that

286-506: The eastern Delta from the 7th century BCE, but John Van Seters thinks this unlikely. Mark Janzen argues that the lack of references to the Land of Goshen in biblical texts from the 6th century BCE or later makes Redford's proposal unlikely. In 1885, Édouard Naville identified Goshen as the 20th nome of Egypt, located in the eastern Delta, and known as "Gesem" or "Kesem" during the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt (672–525 BCE). It covered

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312-613: The land of Goshen and the lowland and the Arabah and the hill country of Israel and its lowland." However, this Goshen is generally considered to refer to a region located in the east of Judah between the Negev and the Hill Country , rather than to the Egyptian Goshen. Some Egyptologists have suggested a connection with the name gsm used in reference to a lake in Papyrus Anastasi IV , as

338-616: The land of Goshen, because all shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians." Genesis 47:11 interchanges the "land of Rameses" with Goshen: "Joseph settled his father and his brothers and granted them a holding in the land of Egypt, in the best part of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had instructed." In Exodus, Jacob's descendants, the Israelites , continue to live in Egypt and grow numerous. The name of Goshen appears only twice in Exodus, in

364-703: The mouth of the Royal Canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea . Although not immediately upon the coast, but nearly due north of the Bitter Lakes , Heroöpolis was of sufficient importance, as a trading station, to confer its name upon the arm of the Red Sea which runs up the Egyptian mainland as far as Arsinoë (near modern Suez )—the modern Gulf of Suez . It was the capital of

390-444: The name 'Pithom' was used originally for the earlier site, Tell El Retaba, before it was abandoned. When the newer city of Tel El Maskhuta was built, the same name was applied to it as well, as the temple of Atum was moved to El Maskhuta. Thus, in effect, 'Pithom' was moved to a new location, a phenomenon that is attested for some other cities as well, such as Migdol . In the spring of 1883, Naville believed he had identified Pithom as

416-565: The name appears to have been used as a toponym in the Wādī Ṭumīlāt . This name gsm is considered by some scholars to have been most probably a Semitic loanword, possibly deriving from the Semitic root gšm "rain, storm". Donald Redford , while not disputing the location of Goshen, gives a different origin for the name, deriving it from "Gasmu," the rulers of the Bedouin Qedarites who occupied

442-665: The narration of the Plagues of Egypt , in which Goshen as the dwelling place of the Israelites is spared the plague of flies and plague of hail that afflict the Egyptians. A place named Goshen is also mentioned in the Book of Joshua , where the Israelites are continuing with their conquest of the Promised Land. Joshua 11:16 states: "So Joshua took all that land: the hill country and all the Negeb and all

468-591: The region of Tjeku (Sukkot), the 8th Lower Egypt nome . Excavations at the Tell El Retabeh have shown that the site was first settled during the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt . Following the expulsion of the Hyksos during the reign of Ahmose I , a short-lived Egyptian settlement followed but ended in the middle of the 18th Dynasty. At the beginning of the 19th Dynasty of Egypt , a newer settlement

494-445: The site of Tell El Retaba, and this was later accepted by William F. Albright , and Kenneth Kitchen. Although John van Seters and Neil Asher Silberman argue that Tell El Retaba was unoccupied during the period when we find monuments relating to a town called Pithom, this claim has been disputed by James K. Hoffmeier and Gary Rendsburg based on recent findings at the site. The joint Polish - Slovak expedition has carried out

520-477: The time of the Exodus , when they left Egypt . It is believed to have been located in the eastern Nile Delta , lower Egypt ; perhaps at or near Avaris , the seat of power of the Hyksos kings. The land of Goshen is mentioned in the biblical books of Genesis and Exodus . In the story of Joseph , which comprises the final chapters of Genesis, the patriarch Jacob is facing famine and sends ten of his sons to Egypt to buy grain. Joseph, another of Jacob's sons,

546-481: The top and without any entrances to one another. Modern excavations at Tel El Maskhuta were carried out by the University of Toronto 'Wadi Tumilat Project' under the direction of John S. Holladay Jr. They worked over five seasons between 1978 and 1985. These excavations have shown that the history of Tel El Maskhuta is quite complex. There was a Middle Bronze IIB settlement there (18th–17th centuries BC), associated with

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572-413: The western end of the Wadi Tumilat , the eastern end being the district of Succoth, which had Pithom as its main town, extended north as far as the ruins of Pi-Ramesses (the "land of Rameses"), and included both crop land and grazing land. The scholars Isaac Rabinowitz, Israel Ephʿal, Jan Retsö, and David F. Graf identify the land of Goshen with the parts of the Qedarite kingdom of "Arabia" located to

598-549: Was an ancient city of Egypt. References in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Greek and Roman sources exist for this city, but its exact location remains somewhat uncertain. Some scholars identified it as the later archaeological site of Tell el-Maskhuta ( Arabic : تل المسخوطة , romanized :  Tall al-Masḫuṭa ). Others identified it as the earlier archaeological site of Tell El Retabeh ( Arabic : تل الرتابة , romanized :  Tall al-Ratāba ). The English name comes from Hebrew פיתום ‎ Pithom which

624-580: Was established, and Ramesses II built new fortifications, a Temple of Atum and many other structures. The site was inhabited also under the 20th Dynasty, the Third Intermediate Period (11th–7th century BC) and the Late Period (7th–4th century BC). Some scholars, such as Manfred Bietak and Kenneth Kitchen , have argued that this was the ancient Pithom. This opinion goes back to the 19th century, when Alan Gardiner first identified Pithom with

650-561: Was found a group of granite statues representing Ramesses II , two inscriptions naming Pr-Itm (Temple of Atum), storehouses and bricks made without straw. Recent excavations have also uncovered a significant New Kingdom tomb at the site. The excavations carried on by Naville for the Egypt Exploration Fund uncovered a city wall, a ruined temple, and the remains of a series of brick buildings with very thick walls and consisting of rectangular chambers of various sizes, opening only at

676-512: Was taken from the Egyptian toponym pr-(j)tm , "House of Atum ". Atum's cult center was in Heliopolis . Pithom is one of the cities which, according to the Book of Exodus 1:11 , was built for the biblical Pharaoh of the oppression by the forced labour of the Israelites . The other city was Pi-Ramesses . The Septuagint adds a third, " On , which is Heliopolis ." These cities are called by

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