Is the biblical Exodus, pitched in Egypt’s Old (or Middle) Kingdom, one chariot army short of reality?

Part One: Why many opt for a New Kingdom Exodus by Damien F. Mackey The stand-out candidate for the Pharaoh of the Exodus is, of course, Ramses II ‘the Great’, he being most favoured in the conventional scheme which dates the commencement of his long reign to c. 1300 BC. Who can forgot Yul Brynner as Rameses in the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments? Introduction Arguably the most serious problem facing those, such as I, who would endeavour to locate the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt during the Old, or Middle, Kingdom – {this being just the one kingdom of Egypt, according to my reconstructions} – is the total lack of representation of horses and chariotry in the reliefs for this long period of Egyptian history. There is also the naming, as Rameses, of one of the “store cities” built by the enslaved Israelites, a fact that is seized upon by those who would set the Oppression and Exodus in Egypt’s New Kingdom, during the long reign of pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’ (Exodus 1:11): “So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh”. While, for those who would stubbornly insist that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch, this would necessitate that the Oppression of Israel had occurred during the reign of a pharaoh named “Rameses”, I would put it down simply to a later editorial amendment, after pharaoh Ramses had indeed built in the Goshen area once inhabited by the Israelites, but who were now long gone. Another query that gets thrown up regarding pharaoh’s horses is that one of the Plagues of Egypt is supposed to have destroyed “all the livestock” (Exodus 9:6). I have already answered this – based on the research of Edward D. Andrews – in my article: Exodus Pharaoh could still gather sufficient horses after the Plagues (2) Exodus Pharaoh could still gather sufficient horses after the Plagues The argument here considers the common tendency to stretch the meaning of the Hebrew word, kol (כָּל), “all”, to mean every thing, or every person, without exception. A study of the word shows that it can sometimes have quite a restricted meaning. Also, only the livestock “in the field”, besadeh (בַּשָּׂדֶה), was harmed (cf. Exodus 9:3). So, presumably those under shelter, in stables, as pharaoh’s finest horses, at least, customarily were housed, would have been protected. And so on. That still leaves us, though, with our major problem of the lack of depiction of horses and chariotry, for, as we read after the Plagues had struck Egypt (Exodus 145:6-7): “So [Pharaoh] had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them”. That is a lot of chariots! My usual procedure (which I think has largely been successful) when confronted with a lack (or nothing at all) of visual representation for someone in antiquity who was undoubtedly great and famous – e.g., known to have raised monumental architecture – is to look for an alter ego, or even an alter kingdom, for that person. On this, see e.g. my article: More ‘camera-shy’ ancient potentates (5) More 'camera-shy' ancient potentates However, despite the fact that I have ostensibly here two entire kingdoms of Egypt with which to make comparisons, the Old and the Middle kingdoms – {which I have actually fused together} – I still cannot come up with any horses or chariot depictions. So, why not just admit that that the Exodus of Israel must have occurred later, during Egypt’s New Kingdom? New Kingdom candidates Many commentators, including revisionists, have opted for a New Kingdom Exodus, though they do not all agree on which part of Egypt’s New Kingdom is to be preferred. The stand-out candidate for the Pharaoh of the Exodus is, of course, Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty ruler, Ramses II ‘the Great’, he being most favoured in the conventional scheme which dates the commencement of his long reign to c. 1300 BC. Who can forgot Yul Brynner as Ramses in the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments? In support of this theory is the already-mentioned reference to Rameses in Exodus 1:11. And no one doubts that Ramses II had many horses and chariots. But even had Ramses II begun to reign in c. 1300 BC, which he didn’t (read on), that date does not accord well with the estimated biblical date for the Exodus (c. 1450 BC). No Exodus at the time of Ramses II When I, in 1981, first embarked upon a search for the historical Moses, I turned hopefully to books like that of Sir Charles Marston, The Bible is True (1936), and Werner Keller’s The Bible as History (1981), to find evidence for Moses and the Exodus. These proved to be a total disappointment. It was only when I read Dr. Donovan Courville’s two volume set, The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications (1971), that I realised that biblical history cannot be identified in a conventional ancient Egyptian history setting, but that the latter must needs undergo a radical revision. Ultimately, this would lead to my writing two post-graduate theses of revision, best explained in my article: Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses (DOC) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses Because there was no massive Exodus of foreign slaves during the reign of Ramses II – as had become quite apparent from reading the books of Sir Charles Marston and Werner Keller, who had tried to force fit the Bible to conventional Egyptian chronology – the authors were forced to reduce the biblical data. E.g. the Exodus must have involved only a few families, it was argued. Better, I would have thought, to look for a different ancient Egyptian setting. Eighteenth Dynasty candidates There are several popular choices here. The beginning of the famous Eighteenth Dynasty saw war with the Hyksos foreigners, identified by some as the Israelites themselves. The Pharaoh at the time was Ahmose, founder of this dynasty (c. 1570-1546 BC, conventional dates for him vary greatly). This era probably coincides with the Thera explosion, which, as some would argue, was the perfect backdrop for the Plagues of Egypt and the Exodus. But, were the militaristic Hyksos, who invaded Egypt and conquered the fort of Avaris, likely to have been the hard oppressed Israelites? The powerful Amenhotep II has, of late, become another popular candidate for the Pharaoh of the Exodus. However, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos, I, 1952) had firmly re-dated this pharaoh’s grandson, Amenhotep III, a pharaoh of the El Amarna (EA) era there known as Nimmuria (Neb-maat-Re), to the mid-C9th BC. Two of his EA contemporaries were the Amorite succession of Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, most plausibly identified by Dr. Velikovsky as the biblical Syrian succession of, respectively, Ben-Hadad and Hazael (c. 850 BC). This is a good six centuries after the Exodus! I have taken things further by equating Amenhotep II and III as just the one pharaoh, and the predecessor, Thutmose III and IV, again, as just the one pharaoh. A fortiori, this late date for the Eighteenth Dynasty completely rules out the next ruler, Akhnaton (Akhenaten) from having any possible connection with Moses - with whom some even equate Akhnaton due to the latter’s monotheism. Akhnaton, I have identified as the Syrian Aziru, both of EA (Dr. Velikovsky’s Hazael) and of the Great Harris Papyrus (GHP), who (as Arsa, Irsu) invaded Egypt and messed with the Egyptian gods: Akhnaton was Aziru (DOC) Akhnaton was Aziru Part Two: The Middle Bronze I (MBI) nomads were the Israelites “Case in point is Jericho. During the Late Bronze Age there was no city at Jericho for Joshua to destroy”. Stuart Zachary Steinberg I asked the question in Part One: “So, why not just admit that that the Exodus of Israel must have occurred later, during Egypt’s New Kingdom?” That, after all, would completely solve the problem of the horses and the chariots. And, it can also provide us with a pharaoh named Ramses (cf. Exodus 1:11). Why the new Kingdom is totally inappropriate While, superficially, a New Kingdom (Eighteenth or Nineteenth Dynasty) setting for the Exodus might appear to fit the bill, it would actually cause far more problems than it may seemingly manage to solve. For it is not sufficient simply to grab a particular phase out of history and claim that it attaches nicely to a biblical event. The Bible records a long, developing history which necessitates that the whole thing be fitted to an historical and archaeological framework. If, for instance, one were to take Ramses as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, one would then need to be able to situate, into its proper place, Joseph and the Famine at an earlier phase of Egyptian history. And Abram (Abraham), before Joseph. On this note, Dr. John Osgood has rightly, in a recent article (2024): https://assets.answersresearchjournal.org/doc/v17/jericho_dating_joshuas_conquest_of_canaan_comments_osgood.pdf Answers Research Journal 17 (2024): 221–222, “The Walls of Jericho: Dating Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan—Comments”, expressed his ‘amazement’ when those involved in biblico-historical reconstructions exclude “a whole saga of history”: …. Habermehl tells us that “we note that the Bible does not say that Hiel built a city, but only a wall.” Really, then what do the words “Hiel of Bethel built Jericho” mean? It had a foundation (not specifically of a wall) and it had gates (1 Kings 16:34). But the archaeologists have clearly and categorically found a large city during Middle Bronze on the site of Jericho and therefore before Hiel. That city needs an explanation, as it won’t go away. This is where I am amazed at the blindness of both conventional and revisionist discussions, as if the pages of the book of Judges are stuck together and a whole saga of history is excluded. Namely, there was the attack on Jericho, the city of palm trees, by Eglon of Moab, and for 20 years that site was occupied by 10,000 of his troops (Judges 3:12–30, see also Deuteronomy 34:3; Judges 1:16; 2 Chronicles 28:15—the city of palm trees). …. [End of quote] Nor will it be sufficient to focus only upon Egypt – though that nation was, admittedly, the main power during the biblical era from Abram (Abraham) to Moses. Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, and so on, must likewise be properly accounted for, both historically and archaeologically. Key to a biblico-historical synthesis will obviously be the Conquest of Canaan and its centrepiece, the Fall of Jericho, which outstanding episode should be archaeologically verifiable. Pharaoh Ramses II may indeed have had his wonderful horses and chariots, but, for those who hold him to have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus, these are now faced with a Late Bronze Age (LBA) archology for the Conquest, and for Jericho, that is hopelessly inadequate. Much has been written about this. Stuart Zachary Steinberg briefly sums it up here: Redating the Conquest of the Promised Land | by Stuart Zachary Steinberg | Medium “For nearly 150 years the conquest by the Israelites has been dated to the Late Bronze Age. The reason for that has been primarily placing the Exodus in the Late Kingdom to have Raamses II as the pharaoh of the Exodus, to correspond with Exodus where it states that the children of Israel built the store cities of Pithom and Raamses. The problem is that there are nearly no correspondence[s] between the destruction of various cities and archaeology in the Late Bronze Age (LBA). Most [of] the cities mentioned do not exist or were destroyed much earlier. Case in point is Jericho. During the Late Bronze Age there was no city at Jericho for Joshua to destroy”. This is the dire situation that confronts the conventional scholars and whoever else might look to situate the Exodus at the time of Egypt’s New Kingdom. The high point of the Conquest of Canaan by Joshua was the destruction of Jericho, whose walls famously fell down. However: “During the Late Bronze Age there was no city at Jericho for Joshua to destroy”. Boom, boom. Moreover, if Dr. Velikovsky was right in re-assigning El Amarna (EA) at the time of Egypt’s New Kingdom, Eighteenth Dynasty, from its conventional situation in c. C14th BC down to the c. C9th BC – as I believe he was – then the New Kingdom of Egypt now finds itself situated a good half millennium after the era of the Exodus and Conquest. A fully revised history The foundations for a firm correspondence between OT biblical history and archaeology must be Jericho and the Conquest, these being most susceptible to archaeological verification. I think that there is nothing more certain in this regard than that – as argued by some very good revisionists – the Middle Bronze I (MBI) nomadic peoples were the Exodus Israelites, who invaded an Early Bronze III/IV Canaan, and who destroyed, and/or occupied many of its cities. Any revision that does not rest upon this foundation is, I believe, doomed to failure. That the MBI people were the Exodus Israelites (not Abraham’s family as according to a conventional view) is accepted by experienced Israeli archaeologists of the south, such as Egal Israel and his colleagues. Dr. David Down, who passed away on Friday March 16, 2018, just three weeks short of his 100th birthday, told (2004) of his intriguing encounter with Israeli archaeologist, Egal Israel: …. I first met Egal Israel in 1993 when I was involved in excavations at Ein Hatzeva, 18 miles south of the Dead Sea. It all started the previous year when I talked with Dr Rudolph Cohen, then head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who holds the same view as I do on the identification of the Middle Bronze I people with the Israelites who invaded Palestine under Joshua about 1405 BC. I told him that I would like to bring my Australian group to one of the sites under his control. He readily agreed and the following year we stayed at a moshav near the dig site and went to work. Excavations in this area are particularly relevant to the re-identification of the archaeological strata in the Middle Bronze Period because this was the area from which the Israelites first invaded Palestine. Previously Dr Cohen was in charge of the excavations at Kadesh Barnea from where Moses had sent the twelve men to spy out the land they expected to occupy. Dr Cohen realised that two million [sic] people could be expected to leave plenty of evidence of their occupation of the area and when he found a proliferation of MBI pottery he concluded that it must have been left behind by the Israelite people who were camped there for at least forty days. Numbers 13:25 says, "And they returned from spying out the land after forty days." Egal Israel was in charge of all the excavations at Ein Hatzeva and was digging with a team of labourers on the western side of the tel. Occasionally he would come to our site to see how we were getting on, and it was on one of these visits that I asked him about his views. I said, "Egal, Rudolph Cohen believes that the MBI people were the Israelites under Joshua who invaded Palestine, as described in the Bible. Do you agree with him?" "Of course I do," he replied. "We all do down here." While I was in Israel this year (2004) I phoned Egal and asked him if he still held the same views about the MBI people, and he assured me that he did, even more than before. I then made an appointment to visit him at his home which, fortuitously, was only 5 miles from where our group was excavating. On the appointed night we made our way to his house in the moshav and met Egal and his wife, a gracious lady who spoke faultless English, and spent a profitable hour there. Strange to say, Egal works at Beer Sheba and commutes the 120 km to and fro each day. He is working on excavating wells there. The Bible says that Abraham dug a well at Beer Sheba and he feels that while he is working there he is living in the land of Abraham. Egal has worked on many sites in the Negev (Southern Israel) and was a member of the team which excavated Kadesh Barnea during the period after the Six Day War which resulted in Israel occupying the Sinai Peninsula in which Kadesh Barnea is located. By virtue of his long archaeological experience he is a highly qualified archaeologist. He is a man who has convictions and forcibly expresses his views. I asked him if he had come to hold these views because he was influenced by Rudolph Cohen, or was it the result of his own observations. He was emphatic that he regarded the Middle Bronze I people to be the Israelites because of the huge weight of archaeological evidence to support this view. There was the profusion of the MBI pottery, not only at Kadesh Barnea, but at other sites along the route of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt to their promised land. There is also the evidence from Jericho, Gibeon, and other sites in Palestine showing that the MBI people were nomadic, a feature to be expected from a generation that had been born in and lived in tents all their lives. The archaeological evidence shows that they were tribal, with a different culture to the preceding Canaanite people. In the course of time they seem to have completely replaced the previous culture. This would be consistent with the Biblical record which says that the Israelites ultimately replaced the Canaanites. Egal stressed that it was a long and fluctuating process, but that is the picture the book of Judges presents. I also asked Egal if his views were coloured by his religious beliefs. Did he adopt these views because this is what the Bible says? Must we interpret archaeological evidence accordingly? He was emphatic that his conclusions were based on archaeological evidence alone. He has confidence in the historical reliability of the Hebrew writings in certain areas, but he does not regard them as a divine revelation from God. They must be submitted to the archaeological evidence, which in the case of the Exodus and the MBI period, are consistent with each other. …. For more on all of this, see e.g. my article: MBI Israel and the fall of cities Jericho and Ai (3) MBI Israel and the fall of cities Jericho and Ai Complementing this already vast biblico-historical and archaeological correlation – which cannot even dimly be perceived in a New Kingdom Exodus context – is the overwhelming Old (Middle) Kingdom evidence for Joseph and the Famine, with the massive preparatory infrastructure built in advance in anticipation of the seven years of want, like nothing else known in history: Imhotep Enigma, his pharaoh was not Djoser, and proof for Egypt’s Third Dynasty Famine (3) Imhotep Enigma, his pharaoh was not Djoser, and proof for Egypt’s Third Dynasty Famine all of this coupled with the Old (Middle) Kingdom Oppression of the Israelites, the age of Pyramid building, and abundant evidence for Moses as a high official in Egypt, and even Pharaoh for a short while, the Plagues, and departure from Egypt of the slaves: Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty oppressed Israel (3) Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty oppressed Israel See also my relevant articles: Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses (3) Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses Egypt’s so-called Sixth Dynasty as an example of kinglist repetitions (3) Egypt’s so-called Sixth Dynasty as an example of kinglist repetitions and: Exodus Israelites departing from Egypt will be replaced by the Hyksos invaders (3) Exodus Israelites departing from Egypt will be replaced by the Hyksos invaders Part Three: Some early Egyptian evidence for horses Even if we were to find no evidence for chariots and horses in Egypt’s Old (Middle) Kingdom, that deficiency – as serious as it, admittedly, would be – would by no means outweigh the abundance of evidence already given in Part One and Part Two for that era of Egyptian history’s being the setting for Joseph and the Famine; for Moses and the Plagues; and for the Exodus and Conquest; all of which phenomenal episodes have left no plausible footprint whatsoever in the much touted New Kingdom era. However, as we are going to learn, horses were known at least in the vicinity of Egypt even as early as Predynastic times, well before Jacob, Joseph and Moses. This would make it highly unlikely that horses, apparently not indigenous to Egypt, were introduced to that land only as late as the Hyksos era, c. 1650 BC (conventional dating), as according to the consensus of archaeologists. Camels may even have been domesticated in Egypt as early as the Predynastic period. One might imagine that the Ishmaelites, who took young Joseph to Egypt, belonged to a camel, or donkey, caravan (Genesis 37:28): “Then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt”. Land Transport in Ancient Egypt: Carriages, Litters, Carts, Chariots | Middle East And North Africa — Facts and Details “Donkey and, later, camel caravans seem to have been the preferred mode of transport for goods along roads and tracks, as Pharaonic texts such as Harkhuf’s autobiography [Old Kingdom’s Sixth Dynasty] and the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant suggest, and as archaeological evidence—for example, the donkey hoof-prints from the Toshka gneiss-quarry road … shows. The period in which the camel was introduced into, and domesticated in, Egypt remains controversial. Most faunal, iconographic, and textual evidence points to a date sometime in the first millennium B.C., but some have argued for an introduction of the camel as early as the Predynastic Period. The question is complicated because faunal or iconographic evidence for the presence of camels does not necessarily prove camel domestication.” Chariots at the time of Jacob and Joseph The first mention of a “chariot” in the Bible occurs in Genesis 41:43: “[Pharaoh] had [Joseph] ride in a chariot as his second-in-command, and people shouted before him, ‘Make way!’ Thus he put him in charge of the whole land of Egypt”. Chariot here, Hebrew mirkebet (מִרְכֶּ֤בֶת), could possibly, perhaps, be construed as meaning a palanquin, or sedan chair, in which high officials were carried. And the same comment might likewise apply in the case of Genesis 46:29: “Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel; as soon as he appeared before him, he fell on his neck and wept on his neck a long time”. Far more plausibly, though, it referred to a cart pulled by animals (donkeys, horses?), since merkabah means: “Literally, "thing to ride in, cart," interpreted to mean “chariot”.” Merkabah — Glossary of Spiritual and Religious Secrets For I think that one might be pushing things too far to claim the involvement of a whole lot of palanquins in the account of the return to Canaan of the deceased Jacob’s body in Genesis 50:9: “There also went up with him both chariots and horsemen; and it was a very great company”. It is somewhat hard, even comical, to imagine many of such “a very great company” being borne all the way from Egypt to Canaan on palanquins. The body of Jacob himself, though, was most likely carried on an ornate sledge, as was apparently the custom for the deceased: Exploring Egyptian Sledges: Engineering Marvels of Antiquity - Ancient Civs “Egyptian sledges were diverse in type, reflecting the various needs of ancient Egyptian society. The most notable types included those designed for transporting heavy stones for construction, lighter sledges used for everyday goods, and ceremonial sledges for transporting the deceased during burials”. Of the “very great company” that accompanied Jacob’s body to Canaan, most would likely have travelled on foot, but various other modes of transport would have been available (loc. cit.): “Heidi Köpp-Junk of Universität Trier wrote: “As means of overland travel, mount animals, sedan chairs, or chariots are known—and of course walking. For donkey riding, indirect evidence exists from the Old Kingdom in the form of representations of oval pillow-shaped saddles depicted in the tombs of Kahief, Neferiretenef, and Methethi. …. Similarly, representations of donkey riding are known from the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom. …”. Steve Vinson of Indiana University wrote: “Egypt’s most important, most visible, and best-documented means of transportation was its watercraft. However, pack animals, porters, wheeled vehicles, sledges, and even carrying chairs were also used to move goods …”. Those Horses One reads at: BC Correspondence: Horses and Chariots in Egypt Correspondence: Horses and Chariots in Egypt November 28, 2005 Dear Dr. Aardsma I find that your solution to, at least, the conquest of Jericho and Ai is brilliant. Could you perhaps explain away the problem which I perceive with the Horses? These animals are clearly mentioned in the biblical text of the Exodus, yet could not have existed in the 6th dynasty Egypt, as they were only introduced there by the Hyksos - approximately a thousand years later, together with military chariots. Thank you David Dear David, I don't know who told you that horses "were only introduced there [to Egypt] by the Hyksos"---the claim appears to be widespread---but whoever it was seems to me to have misled you in at least two ways. The first way is in regard to logic, and the second is in regard to data. Let me deal with the logic first. There is a general maxim which one must apply to archaeological evidence in all cases. This maxim is usually adhered to by competent archaeologists. The maxim is: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." This maxim becomes increasingly important as one moves back in the archaeological record, for at least two reasons: 1. chances of preservation of archaeological remains diminish as the elapsed time increases between creation of any object and the present, and 2. human populations diminish as one moves back in time, resulting in creation of fewer archaeological remains to begin with. The period of interest to us here---the Old Kingdom of Egypt, including the 6th dynasty---is sufficiently remote (in excess of four thousand years ago) that this maxim must certainly not be ignored. The claim that horses and chariots were only introduced into Egypt by the Hyksos falls into the "absence of evidence" category. This is easily seen by noticing that the claim would be proven false the moment any archaeological evidence was found showing the presence of horses in Egypt prior to the Hyksos. Said another way, to have a possibility of being true the claim requires that there be a complete absence of archaeological and historical evidence for horses in Egypt prior to the time of the Hyksos. But even a complete absence of evidence for horses prior to the Hyksos is insufficient to guarantee the veracity of the claim. After all, for such a remote time, evidence may be lacking for reasons having nothing to do with whether or not horses were actually present in Egypt during the Old Kingdom. For example, one can imagine that it is possible that archaeologists are in possession of so little data relevant to the fauna of Egypt's Old Kingdom that the absence of evidence of horses at that time is more or less to be expected whether horses were present there or not. And this is hardly the only possibility. No matter how many times one may hear the claim that horses were only introduced into Egypt by the Hyksos, one should not regard it as a proven fact, and then use this supposed fact to conclude that therefore horses could not have been present in Egypt's Old Kingdom. It is not a proven fact. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Now for the data. I have done some very limited reading within the technical literature regarding horses in Egypt, and this reading suggests that the claim that horses were only introduced into Egypt by the Hyksos is on very shaky empirical ground at present. Specifically, archaeological data from Nahal Tillah seem to show unequivocal presence of domesticated horses within the Egyptian sphere of activity even prior to the Old Kingdom. Nahal Tillah is situated in the northern Negev of Israel. It displays a strong Egyptian presence in its archaeological record, causing the archaeologists involved to suggest royal Egyptian trading and administration relations at this site. The excavators took care to gather all bone fragments, as is normal today, and analyzed them according to type: sheep, pig, donkey, etc. They wrote: The most surprising feature of the assemblage is the large number of equid remains, some of which are from domestic horses (Equus caballus). ... There was a general supposition that domestic horses were not introduced into the Levant and Egypt until the second millennium, but Davis (1976) found horse remains at Arad from the third millennium and small domestic horses seem to have been present in the fourth millennium in the Chalcolithic period in the northern Negev (Grigson 1993). [Thomas E. Levy, David Alon, Yorke Rowan, Edwin C. M. van den Brink, Caroline Grigson, Augustin Holl, Patricia Smith, Paul Goldberg, Alan J. Witten, Eric Kansa, John Moreno, Yuval Yekutieli, Naomi Porat, Jonathan Golden, Leslie Dawson, and Morag Kersel, "Egyptian-Canaanite Interaction at Nahal Tillah, Israel (ca. 4500-3000 B. C. E.): An Interim Report on the 1994-1995 Excavations," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 307 (August 1997): 1--51.] Thus the archaeological data which are presently available---indeed, some of which have been available since 1976---seem to seriously undermine the claim that Egypt was without horses until the Hyksos dynasties. The work at Nahal Tillah seems to show that horses were available just next door, in the northern Negev, very early on in the history of post-Flood Egypt, and Egyptians were clearly present where these horses were present. Are we to believe that these Egyptians failed to find domestic horses, with all their unique advantages for agriculture and transportation, of no interest, and chose to leave them all next door for century after century? Might it be possible, perhaps, that the horse and military chariot were RE-introduced to Egypt by the Hyksos? After all, the time between the end of the Old Kingdom and the Hyksos is many centuries, as you have observed, and many things can happen in such a long time. Is it even possible, perhaps, that the military disaster Egypt suffered at the Exodus---the loss of the Pharaoh and all his horses and chariots in the sea---left a strong negative impression upon the Egyptians in regard to the value of the horse and chariot in military operations, causing them to abandon their further use and development for some centuries? Be that as it may, I hope that you will agree that any claim for the non-existence of horses in Egypt during the Old Kingdom appears precarious at present. [End of quote] Chariots in the Old (Middle) Kingdom of Egypt may not have been anywhere near as sophisticated as those that will emerge later, close to the New Kingdom era. More like carts, perhaps, they would have been drawn by pack animals (donkeys, horses). Whether or not the Exodus Pharaoh had suddenly come into possession of a new form of chariot, either invented in Egypt, or sold to him externally, that hypothetical new chariot force would not have had time to register on the Egyptian reliefs before it was completely destroyed in the Sea of Reeds.

Egypt’s so-called Sixth Dynasty as an example of kinglist repetitions

by Damien F. Mackey The effect of Dr. John Osgood’s revision of ancient Egypt will be to have Joseph’s Famine in Abram (Abraham’s) Famine era, and Joseph himself in the era of Moses. Consequently, Moses gets squeezed out. Revisionist historians, whilst being keenly aware of the fact that the biblical chronology cannot be fitted to the enlarged conventional chronology of ancient Egypt, on the one hand, are nonetheless falling into the trap of, on the other hand, imagining that they must account for each and every ruler in the over-inflated Egyptian king lists. Regarding my first point here, Dr. John Osgood has nicely summed up his view, and that of others – which would also be my view – in the Preliminary Comments to his article: exodus_egyptian-history_osgood_reply2.pdf “The Place of the Exodus in Egyptian History: Reply #2” (Answers Research Journal 15 (2022): p. 129): Let me point out that Porter, Habermehl, and myself hold that the scriptural chronology is basic to understanding the history of the ancient world. We all hold that the presently accepted secular history/chronology, based on a particular interpretation of Egyptian records in no way represents the real timeline of the ancient world. All of us hold to a sincere attempt to find a satisfactory correlation. But as with all such complex tasks, there will obviously be differences of opinion, which will be open for reasonable criticism. …. [End of quote] While Dr. Osgood will progress from there, basing himself upon the helpful research of Dr. Donovan Courville (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971), chronologically to fold – though not to merge – Egyptian kingdoms (Old and Middle), he will not, in his revision, take the less adventurous, but vitally necessary, step of merging dynasties and rulers. He continues on from those Preliminary Comments, with an explanation of his and Courville’s Old-Middle reform: One factor that has emerged, however, is the fact that quotes are made, I believe in sincerity, without adequately understanding the original author’s presentation. And this factor has clearly emerged in the foregoing presentations, both by Habermehl (2022) and Porter (2022). Both Courville (1971) and my own presentations have clearly not been fully grasped, as I will point out. First, Habermehl (2022) has suggested that my placement of the Exodus on the Egyptian secular timeline dates to 2150 BC. That is not so. On that timeline it fits at approximately 1750 BC, that is, just after the secular date for the fall of the Twelfth Dynasty. The correct date that I adhere to is the biblical one, reasoned at 1446 BC. Second, while I hold to, at least a partial parallel rule of the Sixth Dynasty with the Twelfth Dynasty, at no stage have I expressed the sentiments that the Exodus occurred at the fall of the Sixth Dynasty, but rather the fall of the Twelfth Dynasty, which was the dominant one of the period. Parallel Dynasties Habermehl (2022) appears to show some exasperation with Courville’s suggestion of parallel dynasties, but such is misplaced, as even at least one secular Egyptologist accepts that this was the case. I quote Olga Tufnell (1984, 155), re the Turin Canon: There is one point about the composition of the Turin Canon—indeed all ancient king-lists—which needs emphasizing since it plays a significant role in the present chapter. Dynasties or other groupings of kings are usually listed as if in a single chronological sequence so that exterior controls are required in order to define contemporary, competing or overlapping dynasties. Precisely this situation is evident in the Turin Canon in both the First and Second Intermediate periods. I have pointed out (Osgood 2020) that Manetho’s king-list is arranged sequentially on a geographic basis, so that widespread overlapping is still consistent with that author’s arrangement. Parallelisms should not surprise anyone. When Ethiopian Piye invaded Egypt he found at least 20 kings, as did Assurbanipal in 664 BC. Now it is clear that Habermehl (2022) has mistaken Courville’s arrangement of the Archaic period, having Courville (1971) claiming a parallel arrangement of Second and Third Dynasties. That is not correct. Courville’s arrangement is a parallelism of the Third Dynasty with the end period of the First Dynasty. Moreover, he devotes considerable space to detail that arrangement. Courville (1971) points to a king of the First Dynasty, that is only in Manetho’s king-list, and not the others, with a Greek name “Kenkenes”. He makes a considerable case for this person being Sekhem Ka, Kha-Sekhem and later Kha-Sekhemui, who he suggests is the founder of the Third Dynasty during the time just before Uadji (Uenephres) of the First Dynasty, after concluding the religious wars and setting up an administration in Memphis parallel with the First Dynasty. Such would make the famine of Uadji the same famine as that of Djoser, and the same as the famine of Abraham’s day. Moreover, it would bring Kha-Sekhemui into close timeline with Djoser. He therefore places Kha Sekhemui, not as the last of the Second Dynasty as suggested in the sequential arrangement, but the first of the kings of the Third Dynasty, parallel to the later First Dynasty. In contrast, these were arranged by Manetho sequentially. Habermehl (2022) rightly points to the idea that we both accept a contemporaneity of the Sixth Dynasty and Twelfth Dynasty but mistakes my arrangement. First, the Sixth Dynasty was not only in the south, as it was centred in Memphis. It almost certainly had a subordinate rule, but not necessarily without a degree of independence. Second, as a result of the findings at the heavily trade-related city of Byblos, it is clear that the reign of the last significant king of the Sixth Dynasty, Piopi II, was over by the time of Amenemhet III of the Twelfth Dynasty, and that the Sixth Dynasty thus almost certainly began slightly before the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty. The next and following kings at Memphis were some distantly related kings to the Twelfth Dynasty. They represented the early Thirteenth Dynasty as a sub-administration at Memphis, during the last few years of the Twelfth Dynasty. I have a paper in preparation outlining this early Thirteenth Dynasty in some detail. [End of quotes] In the space of a few paragraphs here, Dr. Osgood has, unwittingly to be sure, managed (my opinion, only) to undo the force of the noble sentiments as expressed in his Preliminary Comments, “to … attempt to find a satisfactory correlation”, whilst wisely allowing that “there will obviously be differences of opinion, which will be open for reasonable criticism”. For, the effect of Dr. John Osgood’s revision of ancient Egypt will be to have Joseph’s Famine in Abram (Abraham’s) Famine era, and Joseph himself in the era of Moses. Consequently, Moses gets squeezed out. Chaldean lists set the pattern The much later Chaldean king lists can provide us with a working model of how I think one ought to proceed. In my article: Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences (2) Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences I argued that the Chaldean succession (I also discussed the Assyrian lists) can by no means be fitted to the clear biblical evidence, for example from the Book of Daniel. Daniel 5 has (i) Nebuchednezzar the Great (v. 18), followed by his ill-fated son (ii) Belshazzar (v. 22), followed by (iii) Darius the Mede (v. 31). Bang, bang, bang - no ifs and buts, no gaps! The over-inflated Chaldean lists will not allow for a meeting between “secular history” (Dr. John Osgood’s description) and the biblical facts. Here is the too lengthy version of the Chaldean list with which the text books ‘gift’ us: Nabopolassar Nebuchadnezzar [II] Evil-Merodach Neriglissar Labashi-Marduk Nabonidus Let us unpack this. Biblically, there should be, not six, but only three kings – and so, in actual fact, there are. Firstly, as pointed out in my article (above), there is the need for the merging – not just overlapping as Drs. Courville and Osgood would have it – of kingdoms (Middle and Neo in the case of Assyro-Babylonia). Thus, Nebuchednezzar so-called II was the same as Nebuchednezzar so called I (the same goes for Merodach-baladan I and II, and for the Elamite Shutrukids, and so on): The 1100 BC Nebuchednezzar (3) The 1100 BC Nebuchednezzar Nebuchednezzar has been triplicated in the Chaldean list: Nabopolassar = Nebuchadnezzar [II] = Nabonidus The assassinated Belshazzar, who should follow in the list after Nabonidus, his father, has been duplicated: Evil-Merodach = Labashi-Marduk The one who succeeded him, Neriglissar, Nebuchednezzar’s long-serving high official, Nergal-sharezer (cf. Jeremiah 39:3), is the 62-year old Darius the Mede (Daniel 5:31). It is well known that Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus. And Baruch 1:11, 12 reveals Belshazzar to have been the son, likewise, of Nebuchednezzar. Evidence that Evil-Merodach (Amēl-Marduk), prior to his rule – and exactly like Belshazzar – had to take control of Babylon while his father was indisposed/absent, can be read in my article: Book of Daniel sorts out Babylonian kings (7) Book of Daniel sorts out Babylonian kings Consequently, I have no doubts whatsoever that Evil-Merodach (Amēl-Marduk), the son of Nebuchednezzar, was the very same person as Belshazzar, the son of Nabonidus. Egyptian king lists must likewise be shortened Now our biblically compatible matrix as presented for the Chaldeans and Medo-Persia shows precisely what must be done with Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty, as well as the dynasty with which Drs. Courville and Osgood have approximately aligned it, the mighty Twelfth Dynasty. As radical, indeed, as is the revision of Dr. Courville, of Dr. Osgood, neither has gone far enough with it (my simple opinion). The reality is even more radical yet! As with the Chaldean (and Medo-Persian) lists, the names given in Egypt’s so-called Sixth Dynasty, in its so-called Twelfth Dynasty, need to be at least halved in number. But that is not all. Instead of the Sixth and the Twelfth being only partly over-lapping, as according to what Dr. Osgood has written above, referencing Olga Tufnell (“competing or overlapping dynasties”): “… the Sixth Dynasty thus almost certainly began slightly before the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty”, the Sixth Dynasty needs to be actually recognised as the Twelfth Dynasty. This Sixth-Twelfth is the very dynasty of the Egyptianised Moses. {I am focussing only on these dynasties here, but a full revision of the life of Moses needs also to include the Fourth, Fifth, and, partly, the Thirteenth, dynasties}. If I am right in saying this – and I believe the evidence to be overwhelming – then, as in the case of the Book of Daniel for the Chaldeans, and following Dr. Osgood’s principle that “… the presently accepted secular history/chronology, based on a particular interpretation of Egyptian records in no way represents the real timeline of the ancient world”, the Exodus account of the life of Moses in Egypt and Midian will determine the number of major pharaohs involved. Biblically and traditionally there were only two kings (plus a short-reigning female), after which dynastic termination there will emerge the Pharaoh of the Exodus. The first Pharaoh is the “new king” of Exodus 1:8, who began the Oppression of Israel - the infanticide king (vv. 15-18). The second Pharaoh is the one who sought the life of Moses, who thereupon escaped to the land of Midian (2:15). During that time the dynasty came to an end (4:19), with a female ruler concluding it. Let us unpack this. The Sixth Dynasty is given conventionally as: Teti Userkare Pepi I Merenre I Pepi II Merenre II Nitocris The Twelfth Dynasty is given conventionally as: Amenemes I Sesostris I Amenemes II Sesostris II Sesostris III Amenemes III Amenemes IV Sobekneferure The repetition of names in these two lists, especially the Twelfth Dynasty one, is far more apparent than was the case with the Chaldeans, in which we had a triplication. But let us begin with a strong link, that will enable us to span the conventional period from Teti (d. c. 2330 BC) to Amenemes (Amenemhat) I (c. 1990 BC) – approximately three and a half centuries apart. Teti was Amenemes, the first Oppressor king of Israel (Exodus 1:8), during whose reign Moses was born. Teti Sehetepibre was Amenemes Sehetepibre. Teti Sehetep-tawy was Amenemes Sehetep-tawy. Previously, I have written on this comparison, noting that Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal had also pointed it out (A History of Ancient Egypt, 1994): {Teti, I have tentatively proposed as being the same pharaoh as Amenemes/ Ammenemes I, based on (a) being a founder of a dynasty; (b) having same Horus name; (c) being assassinated. Now, Pepi I and Chephren were married to an Ankhesenmerire/Meresankh – I have taken Chephren to have been the foster father-in-law of Moses, with his wife Meresankh being Moses’ Egyptian ‘mother’, traditionally, Merris. Both Pepi I and Chephren had substantial reigns}. Grimal notes the likenesses: “[Teti’s] adoption of the Horus name Sehetep-tawy (‘He who pacifies the Two Lands’) was an indication of the political programme upon which he embarked. … this Horus name was to reappear in titulatures throughout subsequent Egyptian history, always in connection with such kings as Ammenemes I … [etc.]. Manetho says that Teti was assassinated, and it is this claim that has led to the idea of growing civil disorder, a second similarity with the reign of Ammenemes I”. Merenre is also thought to have been assassinated, which surely connects him to Teti/ Amenemes. He is to be found wandering through the king list, as Merenre I and II, just like Nebuchednezzar has been spread through the Chaldean list. In The Story of Sinuhe, the somewhat Moses-like hero has to flee Egypt after a possible assassination of Amenemes, Sinuhe now being in mortal fear of Sesostris I. In terms of the Twelfth Dynasty, this, the passing of Amenemes and the rise of Sesostris so-called I, is close to the very point of time when Moses flees to Midian. Dr. Osgood, though, by following Dr. Courville in identifying Joseph as the great Vizier of Sesostris I, Mentuhotep (see below) – and not as Imhotep of the Third Dynasty at the time of a seven-year Famine (Djoser’s), whom other revisionists, including I, firmly favour for Joseph – has effectively bundled out the historical Moses and has also situated the actual Joseph Famine right back at the time of Abram (Abraham). Thus he has written on Joseph’s Famine (“The Place of Dynasty VI and of the Exodus in Egyptian History: Further Comments”, Answers Research Journal 17 (2024), p. 413): “…. I have argued elsewhere (Osgood 2020, 153–190), in agreement with Courville (1971), that the Twelfth Dynasty was the Dynasty of Israel’s sojourn, and the collapse and Exodus occurred in the early Thirteenth Dynasty. No other collapse period in Egypt remotely resembles that event. Joseph’s famine on this revision then is the famine that lasted for many years starting in Sesostris I’s twenty-fifth year (1663 B.C.). It was prepared for in advance as mentioned under vizier Mentuhotep in Sesostris I’s eighteenth year, 7 years before (Grajetzki 2006, 42). This famine was also mentioned by the Upper Egyptian official/nomarch Ameny, known to be a contemporary, a famine which he also claimed to have prepared for in advance”. I fully agree with Dr. Osgood insofar as he writes: “… that the Twelfth Dynasty was the Dynasty of Israel’s sojourn, and the collapse and Exodus occurred in the early Thirteenth Dynasty. No other collapse period in Egypt remotely resembles that event”. He is able to reach this conclusion, quite amazingly, even though he has Joseph and the 7-year Famine pitched as late as the reign of Sesostris I, because he has taken the Twelfth Dynasty at its over-inflated face value. For, as I said right at the beginning: “Revisionist historians …. imagining that they must account for each and every ruler in the over-inflated Egyptian king lists”. There was nothing like a 7-year Famine at the time of the mighty Sesostris so-called I, who, in my scheme, that greatly shortens the Twelfth Dynasty, to: First Oppressor Pharaoh (Exodus 1:8) Amenemes I-IV Second Oppressor Pharaoh (Exodus 2:15) Sesostris I-III Female Pharaoh Sobekneferure equates to the second Pharaoh who oppressed Israel: Pharaoh Senusret I “Most records indicate Senusret’s [Sesostris’s] years as pharaoh as peaceful and prosperous for Egypt, despite indications of a possible famine during his rule. Trade flourished and provided Egyptians with cedar, ivory and other foreign goods. The many golden artifacts attributed to his reign reveal his rule to be one of wealth and affluence”. There is no compelling evidence to support any lengthy preparation for an impending disaster by the Twelfth Dynasty Vizier Mentuhotep. There is, on the other hand, massive evidence to show that Third Dynasty Egypt underwent enormous infrastructural development in preparation for the Famine: dams, waterways, canals, great grain enclosures such as Gisr el Mudir, etc., etc. Regarding all of this, see e.g. my article: Imhotep Enigma, his pharaoh was not Djoser, and proof for Egypt’s Third Dynasty Famine (10) Imhotep Enigma, his pharaoh was not Djoser, and proof for Egypt’s Third Dynasty Famine And it all becomes even more greatly amplified once the Third Dynasty is coupled with its so-called ‘Middle’ Kingdom partner, the Eleventh Dynasty – Imhotep (Joseph’s) pharaoh, Horus Netjerikhet, being the same as Horus Netjerihedjet (Mentuhotep II) of the Eleventh Dynasty. Nor does it stop there. The insignificant famine for Egypt (but not for Syro-Palestine) at the time of Abram (Abraham) cannot be the “great famine” (Manetho) at the time of Horus Uadji/Djet, as Dr. Osgood would have it. For the First Dynasty’s Horus Djet was the very same ruler as the Eleventh Dynasty’s Horus Netjerihed-djet at the time of Joseph’s long-enduring Famine: Taking a Djet to Djoser’s Famine (12) Taking a Djet to Djoser's Famine And, regarding Dr. Osgood’s Sixth and Twelfth correlation, while I would agree with his approximate date for the Exodus: “The correct date that I adhere to is the biblical one, reasoned at 1446 BC”, I would disagree with his follow-up to this: “Second, while I hold to, at least a partial parallel rule of the Sixth Dynasty with the Twelfth Dynasty, at no stage have I expressed the sentiments that the Exodus occurred at the fall of the Sixth Dynasty, but rather the fall of the Twelfth Dynasty, which was the dominant one of the period”. For, (so I believe) the Sixth and Twelfth were simply one and the same. Moses in the Sixth Dynasty Putting the Sixth Dynasty into its proper Mosaïc context, we have the founding Oppressor Pharaoh (Exodus (1:8), Teti, who equates to Amenemes - and recurring in Merenre I and II. At the other end, we learned that this dynasty terminated, just like the Twelfth did, with a female ruler (Pharaoh). In between there is Pepi I and II, from whom Moses would flee. Thus the conventional arrangement: Teti Userkare Pepi I Merenre I Pepi II Merenre II Nitocris ought now to become: First Oppressor Pharaoh (Exodus 1:8) Teti (like Amenemes) = Merenre I and II Second Oppressor Pharaoh (Exodus 2:15) Pepi I and II Female Pharaoh Nitocris (= Sobekneferure) That leaves only the short-reigning Userkare. Well, this Userkare was Moses, who, as according to tradition, ruled, then abdicated. The jealous Pepi would later write Userkare out of history with a damnatio memoriae, assigning his kingship to the “desert” (Midian): Userkare - Wikipedia “Although Userkare is attested in some historical sources, he is completely absent from the tomb of the Egyptian officials who lived during his reign and who usually report the names of the kings whom they served. The figures of some high officials of the period have been deliberately chiselled out in their tombs and their titles altered, for instance the word "king" being replaced by that of "desert". Egyptologists thus suspect that Pepi might have tried to erase all memory of Userkare from official records, monuments, tombs and artefacts. The Egyptian priest Manetho, who wrote a history of Egypt nearly 1,700 years later in the 3rd century BC, stated that Userkare's predecessor Teti was murdered, but is otherwise silent concerning Userkare. Consequently, some Egyptologists consider Userkare to have been a short-lived usurper to the throne. Alternatively, he may have been a legitimate short-lived ruler, younger brother to a more ambitious Pepi I, or a regent who ruled during Pepi I's childhood before his accession to the throne”. Moses according to Tradition What gives power to this seemingly insane (some would more gently call it “fiction”) revision that I am proposing here – and it is something that I do not find interwoven into other revisions – is that two names handed down to us by the Jewish historian, Artapanus of Alexandria (C2nd BC), weave like golden threads through my revision. These names are “Merris”, the daughter of Pharaoh who drew baby Moses from the water (cf. Exodus 2:5-10), and “Chenephres”, who married her. He, who became hostile to Moses out of jealousy, can be found right through my revision for Moses (from the Fourth to the Thirteenth dynasties), under variations of the Greek name, “Chenephres” (including the inverted version of it, Neferkare). For example, we find him as the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh, Chephren (Khafre), who marries a Meresankh (= “Merris”). Yes, the Hebrew slaves played a big part in building the pyramids (as per Josephus), the Giza pyramids and other Old Kingdom and Twelfth Dynasty pyramids. Our “Chenephres” re-emerges again as the Sixth Dynasty pharaoh, Pepi Neferkare, who damned his predecessor, Userkare (Moses). Pepi married “Merris” (= Ankhesenmerire, an inversion of Meresankh). Again, “Chenephres” is the Sesostris I Neferkare from whom Sinuhe fled. {N. Grimal (op. cit., p. 164) gives Neferkare as his coronation name} And, in the Thirteenth Dynasty, “Chenephres” is probably the Sobek (Crocodile) ruler (like the female Sobek-neferure), Sobekhotep Khaneferre: Egyptian Pharaohs : Second Intermediate Period : Dynasty 13 : Sobekhotep IV “Neferkhare "The appearance of Re is beautiful", sometimes Khaneferre, "Beautiful is the Appearance of Re".”

Exodus East Wind driving back the waters is a phenomenon observed in modern times

“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left”. Exodus 14:21-22 We read at: RedSeaCrossingExodusIsraelBallahLakes Map of Israel's crossing of the Red Sea at Ras el Ballah, "Cape Ballah" (Baal-Zephon?) or Qantara and Lake Menzaleh? 20 November 2009 (Revisions through 27 October 2021) Exodus 14:21 and 27 has a sea being pushed back by a strong east wind during the night, then, in the morning, with the wind dissipated (?) the sea "returns to its strength" and refills its formerly empty bed. "Where" was such a phenomenon "documented"? Eventually I found an account of the eastern half of Lake Menzaleh having its shallow waters pushed back by a gale force east wind exposing its lake bottom in January of 1882. It appears then that such a phenonemon is documented for shallow Egyptian marsh-lakes, Menzaleh's waters being generally 4 to 7 feet in depth with a few exceptions according to European visitors to the area in the 1800's. Red Sea in Hebrew is called Yam Suph, yam= sea, suph= reed, "sea of reeds," suggesting an area possessing a fresh water environment for the reeds and marsh grasses to grow in, suiting the area of Lake Menzaleh. Professor Humphreys (2004) sought to explain the drying up the Red Sea via physcial phenomena. He argued that "wind setdown" was the mechanism that created a passage in the sea. He said this worked only on large bodies of water (he noted it being documented at Lake Erie in the United States). Wind setdown "removes" water whereas wind setup "adds" water. He noted some thought the crossing was at the Gulf of Suez. He dismissed this location however because only a wind from the northwest could blow back this gulf's waters exposing dry land and the Bible said it was an east wind. He then noted that at the Gulf of Aqaba it would take a wind from the northeast to blow black the waters and expose the sea's bottom. He favored Aqabah as the crossing point of the Red Sea, despite the fact that an east wind could not blow back the gulf's waters only a northeast wind could do this. He was apparently unaware of the 1882 report of an east wind blowing back Lake Menzaleh's waters in this lake's eastern sector near the mouth of the Suez Canal. This lake is roughly 43 miles in length and 12 miles wide so it is big enough for wind set-down to work (cf. pp. 246-252. Colin J. Humphreys. The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist's Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories. HarperCollins. 2004) A British officer who lived in Egypt reported a phenomenon that somewhat paralled the Exodus account as related by Professor Kent (1914) of Yale University: "...Major-General Tulloch, who states that the shallow waters of Lake Menzaleh, which lies only a short distance to the north and is subject to the same conditions, were driven back by the wind for seven miles, leaving the bottom of the lake dry (Journal of the Victorian Institute, Vol. XXVIII, p. 267, and Vol. XXVI, p. 12)." (pp. 113-114. Charles Foster Kent. Biblical Geography and History. New York. Charles Scribner's and Sons. 1914, 1916, 1926) C.R. Conder (1915) stated that Tulloch beheld this wonder in 1882 (the Suez Canal was completed by 1869): "In 1882 Sir Alexander Tulloch saw the waters of Lake Menzaleh driven back more than a mile by the east wind." (C. R. Conder. "Exodus, the Route." James Orr. Editor. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. 1915) Professor Haupt of Johns Hopkins University (1904) noted that the receding water was in the eastern portion of Lake Menzaleh, near ancient Pelusium and the mouth of the Suez Canal (the mud-flats area west of Pelusium and et-Tina, which as late as 1856 was subject to flooding by the Nile which left its characteristic dark silt): "In my paper on Archaeology and Mineralogy...I mentioned the fact that Major-General Tulloch observed that under a strong east wind the shallow waters of Lake Manzaleh at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal receded for a distance of seven miles. There is therefore no reason for doubting the historical character of the passage of the Red Sea." (p. 149. Paul Haupt. "Moses' Song of Triumph." The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. Vol. 20. No. 3. April. 1904) Another account has the 1882 east wind diminishing the water level by 6 feet (my note: A depth capable of drowning Pharaoh's army!): "Major General Tulloch of the British Army (Proceedings of the Victoria Institute. XXVIII, pp. 267-280) reports having witnessed the driving off of water from Lake Menzaleh by the wind to such an extent as to lower the level 6 feet, thus leaving small vessels over the shallow water stranded for a while in the muddy bottom." (BibleExplore.Com, "Red Sea," on the internet) A variance of 7 feet was documented for Lake Erie in the United States between Buffalo New York and Toledo, Ohio: "The power of the wind to affect water levels is strikingly witnessed upon Lake Erie in the United States, where according to the report of the Deep Waterways Commission for 1896 (165, 168) it appears that a strong wind from the southwest sometimes lowers the water at Toledo Ohio on the western end of the lake to the extent of more than 7 feet, at the same time causing it to rise at Buffalo at the eastern end a similar amount..." A description of Lake Menzaleh (1868) has its depth as 4-5 feet, 43 miles long, 12-11 miles wide and full of marsh reeds: "...Lake Menzaleh...the bottom is a mixture of mud and sand, generally covered in reeds, but quite level; so that the greatest depth of the lake does not vary more than 6 or 8 inches, being rarely much under 4 feet, and seldom materially above it, except where the sea enters." (p. 386. General Francis Rawdon Chesney. Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition: Carried on by the Order of the British Government During the years 1835, 1836 and 1837. London. 1868) Bonar (ca. 1843?) understands Lake Menzaleh's deeper parts are 10 feet, but mostly 4 to 5 feet: "...Lake Menzaleh...It is nowhere more than ten feet deep, and in general only four or five...at evening we entered a canal among immense reeds...we reached San about ten...the ruins of Zoan..." (Andrew Bonar. The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. Note: M'Cheyne lived 1813-1843) ("Red Sea," BibleExplore.Com) Tulloch's account of the eastwind blowing away Lake Menzaleh's waters appears in his published military memoirs of 1903, he witnessed the event apparently at the end of January of 1882 while he was at Port Said inspecting the Suez Canal's embankments for acts of sabotage. The dried up Menzaleh Lake was to the west side of the canal "as far as the eye could see" (Haupt's 7 miles?). Of interest here is that the wind apparently began blowing during the day, continued all through the night and was still blowing in the morning and the lake bed was empty. Yahweh, overnight, dries up Yam Suph, and Lake Menzaleh, overnight, is dried up too: ""We landed at Port Said the end of January...I made a curious discovery. An easterly gale came up very rapidly, and at last was so strong, driving the sand from the dry side into my face, that I had to cease work. Next morning the wind having a good deal gone down, I went on to the canal bank again, when, to my astonishment, I noticed that Lake Menzaleh on the west side of the canal had disappeared beyond the horizon in that direction, and that the Arabs were walking on the mud where the day before large boats had been floating. When thinking over this extraordinary effect of wind on shallow water, it suddenly flashed upon me that I was witnessing a similar event to that which had taken place between three to four thousand years ago, at the time of the passage of the so-called Red Sea by the Israelites. Subsequently, when I had time for it, I examined the shores of the Bitter Lakes, and came to the unquestionable conculsion that the Red Sea of Pharaoh's day extended to the head of the Bitter Lakes, and it was here the passage took place, and that the description of it in Exodus is literally correct, word for word." (pp. 245-246. Major-General Sir Alexander Bruce Tulloch, K.C.B., C.M.G. Recollections of Forty Years' Service. London & Edinburgh. William Blackwood & Sons. 1903) My note: In the 1880s many scholars believed that the head of the Gulf of Suez in antiquity was at Lake Et-Timsah, which included the Bitter Lakes, hence, probably Tulloch's notion that the Red Sea Crossing was at the Bitter Lakes. Today we know the head of the Suez Gulf has always been at its present location at least since the days of the Pharaohs. The evidence? Archaeologists have found ancient Egyptian mining camps on the Suez Gulf's shore revealing its level today was nearly the same 5000 years ago. DeLesseps visited in 1856 Pelusium before the Suez Canal was built and crossed the mud-flats on camels which sank a bit into the mud, by December no sinking occurred: "The rise of waters this year had been less than usual, and had dried up quickly, and at the end of December we crossed these seas of mud dry-footed and without our camels sinking into it at all." (p. 47. Joseph Everett Nourse. The Maritime Canal of Suez: From its Inauguration, November 17, 1869 to... Naval Historical Foundation. Washington, D.C. 1974, using source material from 1884?) I note that such mud could clog pharaoh's chariot wheels. The "drying up" of a sea's bed by an east wind pushing the waters away near the Pelusium and et-Tina mud-flats (which are subject to Nile inundations) seems to _identify_ the "pre-biblical source" for the biblical story as being this area. Below a map from the 1897 Encyclopedia Britannica showing the northern mouth of the Suez Canal, where in 1882, an east wind blew away a portion of Lake Menzaleh's waters for a distance of 7 miles from the vicinity of the canal's entry point. I have set my compass to create a 7 mile arc from Port Said, the canal's entry point, to show the viewer what 7 miles looks like from any given direction from Port Said. I have colored the exposed lake bed yellow (I am using the map's scale, marked off in numbers every 2 miles, 0-10, in the upper right corner to determine the 7 mile arc from) The area exposed "may have been" even greater extending along the whole of the eastern coast of Menzaleh from Said to Qantara/Kantara if the "line of view" from Said is restricted to only 7 miles? The 4/5 foot drop in water on the east side of Menzaleh probably caused a 4/5 foot height increase on the west side of the lake as happened at Lake Erie. Note: Tulloch said it was on the west side of the Suez Canal that the waters of lake Menzaleh had blown away; the canal's high embankment would prevent the lake water east of the canal from being blown away. So the "yellow" area on the below map should more properly be restricted to the area west of the Suez Canal's entry. Below, a map of Ras el Ballah, alternately called Ras el Moyeh ("Cape of Water"), on the west side of the Ballah inlet showing water on either side of two tracks. The Pink track from Salhieh in the delta takes one north to Qatieh in the northern Sinai; the Orange route goes to Bir Abou Rouq. I understand that Baal-Zephon is Ras el Ballah and Pi-ha`hiroth is the northern opening or "mouth" to the El Kraieh marsh east of Ras el Ballah. Israel probably used the orange track "to cross the Reed Sea" (Ex 14:21-22). Israel camped before Baal-Zephon (Ras el Ballah) on the orange route, west of the marsh-ford in front of Ras el Ballah. Going from west to east, as Israel passed over the dried up marsh-ford, she saw a "wall of water" on either side, the deeper waters of the Ballah inlet colored in a deeper blue, the lighter blue lined areas are marshy ground with green marker for tufts of sedge or swamp grasses and reeds, hence its name Yam Suph "sea of reeds" (Exodus 14:22). Note that this track does cross the marsh-swamp, there apparently was a shallow ford at this location which "might" dry up at times (Map of 1826, Paris, France. Titled "Canal de Suez" sheet no. 31. Surveyed 1797-1799 by Napoleon Bonoparte's Corps of Engineers and Cartographers). Note: Bir Abou Rouq is transcribed variously as: Abou-el-Rouq; Abou Erouq; Abu Ruk; Abu Rukk; Bir Abou el Rouq; Bir Abou Erouq; Bir Abou Rouq; Bir Abu el-Uruq; fountaine d' Abou el `Arouq (cf. p. 1132. Vol. 2. Herbert Verreth. The Northern Sinai From the 7th Centrury BC till the 7th Century AD, A Guide to the Sources. Leuven, Belgium. 2006. Available for download on the internet as two PDF files). The transcription Erouq, for me, most closely parallels the biblical Hiroth (Pi-Ha`Hiroth). Erouq is described as possessing "two wells and a few palm trees" according to Verreth, and cared for by a Bedouin family. So Hiroth appears to be possibly preserved in Erouq. The problem? The proper pronounciation in Hebrew is not Hiroth, its Chiroth/Khiroth which is best preserved at the marsh of El Kraieh (Karach, Karash on various maps). Verreth translates Ras el Ballah as "Cape of [lake] Ballah," noting it is alternately called Ras el Moyeh "the Cape of the Lakes" (Verreth. p. 827. Vol. 1) but I understand "lake" is birket while moyeh means "water" (Aramaic moyeh= water; Hebrew: mayim= water; Egyptian: mu= water; Arabic ma= water; vulgar Egyptian: moyeh= water), so I would translate "Cape of Water" or "Headland of Water." This headland appears on a map of 1885 as Ras el Ballah el Ras el Moyeh, "the headland or cape of Ballah/Water." Ballah's water is from Nile flooding via Lake Menzaleh; Menzaleh is classed as a "salt-marsh" (17% salinity in 1926), so Ballah would be a salt-marsh too. Exodus 14:22 RSV, "...Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground _the mayim_ being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left." Both "water" and "waters" in Hebrew is mayim (Strong 4325), is there a relationship here to Ras el Moyeh, "the Cape of the Water"? The "waters" Israel passed through on her right and left hand as shown on the above map? In other words "the water/waters" Israel passed through at Baal-Zephon (Ras el Ballah?) are alluding to Ras el Moyeh, "the Cape of Water." Below, another view of the track from Salhieh on the edge of the Egyptian delta (viewer's left, not shown on this image) to Ras el Ballah, "the Headland of Ballah," which lies on the west side of the Ballah inlet and its marshes. To the ESE of Ras el Ballah is Bir Abou rouq (marked by two concentric red circles, other, later maps' `Ruk, Aruk, Erouq, `Uruq). A track in orange marker passes through the southern swamps of the Ballah inlet east of Ras el Ballah to Bir Abou Rouq. At Rouq one has two tracks in orange to go south to Lake Et-Timsah (Etham?). The western track goes directly to Lake Et-Timsah, the middle track (orange) passes by Timsah on its east side headed for the Bitter Lakes region. The far right orange track heading east of Bir Abou Rouq takes one to Bir el Makdal (probably Pi-ha`hiroth's and Baal-Zephon's Migdol). Alternately, Migdol might be the below map's conical "Ruines" tell ENE of Ras el Ballah. Without explanation Hazlitt identifies Migdol, classical Magdolum, with Ras el Moyeh! If he is correct then Migdol/Magdolum at Ras el Moyeh puts Israel at Ras el Ballah (cf. p. 212. "Migdol." William Hazlitt. The Classical Gazetteer of Ancient Geography, Sacred and Profane. London. Whittaker & Company. 1851). As Israel, after crossing Yam Suph, is headed for the wilderness of Etham, Israel could have taken any of the three orange tracks at Bir Abou Rouq to Birket Et-Timsah. The first orange track going south (viewer's left) from Bir Abou rouq takes one directly to Et-Timsah via Marais de Karach (the 1799 marsh of Karach, 1885: El Kraieh), the second orange track headed south bypasses Et-Timsah's east side. The third orange track (viewer's right) continues to Bir El Makdal (my proposal for Migdol of the Red Sea Crossing). From Makdal a track goes due south headed for the Bitter Lakes called Murrat in Arabic (The Exodus' "bitter waters of Marah"?). Bir el rouq (`Ruk, `Aruk, Erouq, `Uruq) may preserve the Exodus' Pi-ha`hiroth _if_ Hiroth is the correct pronounciation, if _not_, then Chiroth/Khiroth is preserved in El Kraieh (1885 map). In any event, Israel had to cross through or "ford" the marshy lower portion of the Ballah Inlet east of Ras el Ballah to get to Rouq and continue south to Etham/Timsah and Marah. From Pi-hahiroth, Baal-Zephon, and Migdol and the crossing of the Reed Sea Israel spent three days crossing the wilderness of Shur/Etham. She had herds of cattle (Ex 12:38) and cattle drives to Abilene, Texas did not exceed more than 10 to 15 miles a day. If the "waters" of Marah (Hebrew plural and singular: mayim) is an allusion to more than one water source the two salt-marshes of Murrat, today's two Bitter Lakes would seem to fit the bill; Murrat in Arabic means "bitter" and Hebrew Marah also means "bitter." Three days to cross the wilderness of Shur/Etham from Pi-ha`hiroth at 10 to 15 miles a day suggests that the crossing point of the Red Sea is roughly 30 to 45 miles north of some location at the two Bitter Lakes. 15 miles south of Bir Abou rouq (Pi-ha`hiroth?) we are in the vicinity of Lake Et-Timsah (Etham?); at 25 miles we are at the northern part of the Great Bitter Lake (al-Buhayrah al-Murrat al-Kubra); at 40 miles we are at the Little Bitter Lake (al-Buhayrah al-Murrat as-Sughra); at 45 miles we are just south of the Little Bitter Lake Please Click Here to access an interactive version of the below map and see the Ballah inlet in greater, clearer, more focused detail. The Jews in Jerusalem would know of these sites (Baal-Zephon/Ras el Ballah, etc.) via caravan merchants as they served as major sign posts along the way for the caravans plying their trade goods back and forth between Canaan/Judah and Egypt. The Jews apparently, by 562-560 BC when Genesis-2 Kings appears in its final format, understood that Yam Suph extended from in front of Egypt (Exodus 13:18; 14:21-22, 27) to the Solomonic ports of Elath and Ezion-Geber (Nu 33:35, 36, De 2:8, 2 Ch 20:36); a "huge" sea indeed, in their imagination, but they had, in error, confounded and conflated the reed marshes of Menzaleh, Ballah/Moyeh, Karash/Kraieh, Timsah and the Bitter Lakes with the gulfs of Suez and Aqabah. So the crossing of a shallow marsh ford under the eastern slopes of Ras el Ballah (my Baal-Zephon), which on occasion was probably dry, became Israel crossing the Reed Sea/Yam Suph extending from before Egypt all the way to Edom! In other words, because a great sea was envisioned as east of Egypt and extending to Edom, the crossing on dry land of this sea under the slopes of Baal-Zephon (Ras el Ballah) became Israel's God performing a wonderous miracle, allowing his people to flee Egyptian bondage. The humble marsh-ford at Ras el Ballah (Baal-Zephon) had _mistakenly_ come to be envisioned as the great depths of the sea of Suez and Aqaba and because of this error, a mighty miracle had been performed by God, the drying up of the Reed Sea for his people's benefit and salvation. I just now finally realized that the _only_ event that people would regard as "a miracle" would be the sudden drying up of a portion of Lake Menzaleh for a distance of 7 miles as reported by Tulloch. That is to say the sea that dried up under a wind's influence _is_ Lake Menzaleh rather than the Ballah inlet! Imagine yourself in the center of circle 7 miles in diameter: whichever direction you turn and face: north, east, south or west for a distance of 3 1/2 miles all you see is lake bottom where formerly there was water (assuming you can see 3 1/2 miles away). This would have to be regarded as a miraculous event worth remembering and recounting to anyone you chanced to come into contact with. To the degree that the Ballah Inlet is an extension of Menzaleh the two lakes probably came to conflated together into one great sea, Yam Suph, extending from Menzaleh to Edom. That is to say miracle of an east wind drying up the eastern half Menzaleh came to be conflated with the drying up of the Ras el Ballah ford which is an extension of the eastern half of Menzaleh. The main road from Egypt to Canaan and Judah passes by the east side of this lake. The local natives would surely pass on to the caravans passing over Qantara to Egypt the story of their Reed Sea (marshland) being dried up for a distance of eight miles by a wind and the caravaneers and merchants would pass this story on to the Jews in Jerusalem. So the Red Sea (Reed Sea, Yam Suph) that dried up was Lake Menzaleh, or at least a portion of it, probably the eastern part near Qantara. As the Qantara traderoute is the _major_ track leaving Egypt for Canaan and the most famous of the tracks going to and from Egypt, it would make sense that the Jews would associate the leaving of Egypt by their ancestors with this track which skirts the southeast edge of Lake Menzaleh. So the drying up Menzaleh or a part of it _plus_ a major track leaving Egypt for Canaan, became Israel's Egyptian Exodus and the miracle of the drying up of the Reed Sea; the east side of Manzela is very shallow and not navigable and is full of marshes, reeds, and miry mud-flats under Moses. There is a problem: The Qantara crossing is on the biblical "way to the land of the Philistines" which the Bible says Israel did _not_ take (Ex 13:17). This leaves, then, by default, the Ras el Ballah route as the body of water Israel crossed north of Etham (Et-Timsah?) and Marah (the Bitter Lakes?). Coptic pi-akhirot "place where the sedge grows" is another suggestion for Pi-ha`hiroth's Egyptian etymology (cf. the Jewish Encyclopedia on the internet). Sedge embraces various forms of marsh-growing plants including reeds and grasses. The appearance of a marsh with grasses and reeds in the midst of the Isthmus of Suez at Ras el Ballah and the El Kraieh marsh would be a remarkable sight for caravans crossing an otherwise arid wilderness from Judah to Egypt and would serve as a reference point for caravans which would cross this marsh-ford for Egypt. Below, a map (1848) showing that two caravan tracks leaving Egypt for the town of Katieh (Qatieh) in the Sinai cross the Ballah inlet, an extension of Lake Menzaleh. The German cartographer has grossly over simplified this area as revealed in the above 1797-1798 maps of this region by Napoleon's cartographers, nevertheless, in _both_ cases, a track must cross a body of water, the Ballah inlet. The northern track crosses the water at Qantara (on pre 1860 maps rendered Kantara or Tresor), the southern track crosses the Ballah inlet between Ras el Ballah, west of the inlet and Bir Abu Ruk (1797 Bir Abou rouq) east of the inlet. Red circles mark the possible sites for the crossing of the Red Sea (the Ballah inlet) on each of the below maps. The northern crossing of the Ballah inlet at Qantara is on the biblical "way to the land of the Philistines," a route the Bible says Israel did _not_ take (Ex 13:17), leaving by "default" the southern crossing of the Ballah inlet at Ras el Ballah. This map shows the area about Tineh (et-Tineh) and Pelusium (not on this map) were marshy and subject to inundations of the Nile before the Suez Canal was built. In this very area in 1882 near the mouth of the Suez Canal, Lake Manzelah's bottom was exposed for 7 miles by an east wind. Below, 1832 map, John Arrowsmith, London, notes "Inundations of the Nile" from Lake Menzaleh to Birket el Karash (El Kraieh marsh on 1885 map) south of Birket el Ballah. Below, 1853 map, Heinrich Keipert, Germany showing three tracks crossing the Ballah inlet. There are _two_ northern tracks from Taphne (Biblical Tahpanes, a colony of Greek mercenaries; Arabic: Safnas on an 1802 map) one to Pelusium the other to Katieh via the "Ruins of Magdolum" (Tell es Smoot on other 19th century maps). The third track is at Bir Abu Ruk (1797-1799 Bir Abou rouq) near the south end of Lake Ballah. For those wishing to argue Baal-Zephon is recalling Greek Dafnae, biblical Tahpanes, Arabic Safnas (1802 map) and Migdol being Tell es Smoot/Classical Magdolum (?) the Qantara land bridge would be "the crossing point" of the Red Sea. The second possible location for the crossing of the Red Sea would be at Ras el Ballah (Baal-Zephon?). Undoubtedly the Qantara crossing is the "major" exit point from Egypt, it was heavily guarded and several Forts or Migdols exist near this route that could be the Bible's Migdol. In favor of Qantara over Ras el Ballah is that the Qantara land bridge is nearer to the drying-up of Lake Menzaleh by a wind and the landbridge's height would provide a better view for Israel when she crossed over it on dry land and saw two walls of water on either side of her, the left-hand wall of water would be Lake Manzaleh and its marshes on its eastern periphery while the right-hand wall of water would be the Ballah inlet and its marshes. Against the Qantara proposal is that this land bridge never was submerged so an east wind pushing back waters here is not called for. Also against this proposal is that Qantara is part of the Way to the land of the Philistines, a route not taken by Israel. Both bodies of water (Menzaleh and Ballah) possess marsh and reeds making them candidates for the Reed Sea or Yam Suph. The Ballah inlet is part of Lake Menzaleh, in Jewish eyes, when Israel crossed "the sea that dried up by a wind" (the eastern shore of Menzaleh) this sea existed on both the Menzaleh and Ballah sides of the crossing point. Some notes on Yam Suph: Yam Suph (the Reed Sea) for the Exilic narrator (562-560 BC) apparently embraced (1) the marshes of Lake Menzaleh, (2) the marshes of Birket Ballah, (3) the marshes of Birket Karach/Karash, (4) the marshes at Birket Timsah, (5) the marshes of the two bitter lakes, (6) the gulf of Suez, and (7) the gulf of Aqabah. When Israel left Rameses she headed for the "way of the wilderness of Yam Suph" (Ex 13:18) at Etham (Ex 13:20), Birket Timsah, today's Et-Timsah, a marshy lake which periodically received its freshwater via Nile inundations before the Suez Canal was constructed in the 1860s. Then Israel turns about to Pi-ha`hiroth and camps at Yam Suph (Ex 14:1-2) leading Pharaoh to think they are lost in the wilderness west of Yam Suph, from Pi-ha`hiroth to Etham (Ex 14:3). After crossing Pi-ha`hiroth/Yam Suph they backtrack three days to Marah via the wilderness of Shur named after Abu Suweir (?) west of Lake et-Timsah where caravan routes intersect each other, today's Isthmus of Suez from Qantara to the Bitter Lakes called Murrah, meaning "bitter" in Arabic (Ex 15:23). However this 3 day backtrack is called the wilderness of Etham in Numbers 33:8. Both are correct as Shur (Hebrew shuwr) is probably Abu-Suweir-by-Lake-Et-Timsah. I suspect that Suweir/Timsah are but alternate names for the Isthmus of Suez between Ras el Ballah and Marah (the Bitter Lakes). Then Israel camps at Elim (Ayun Musa?), day 4 since the Red Sea crossing at Ras el Ballah ( Ex 15:27), Day 5 Israel camps at Yam Suph, south of Elim/Ayun Musa on the shore of the gulf of Suez (Nu 33:10-11), then they camp in the Wilderness of Sin (Nu 33:11). Israel later leaves Kadesh-Barnea to camp at Ezion-Geber on the Yam Suph (Nu 33:35-36). Numbers 21:4 has Israel at Mount Hor near Arad in the Negeb and Edom when Israel journeys to ":the way to the Red Sea" (Ezion-Geber). By comparing Exodus 14 with the Numbers 33 itinerary it is obvious to me that Yam Suph was _incorrectly envisioned_ as extending from Lake Menzaleh to the Gulf of Aqabah and Edom without any landbridge breaks in it (land passages do exist south of Ballah, south of Karach/Karash, south of Timsah, and south of the Bitter Lakes above the Suez Gulf but the Exilic narrator apparently was unaware of them. It is the pushing back of the sea's waters by a powerful east wind that allows Israel to escape Egypt and cross over into the Sinai. Because of the depth of Yam Suph at Elath and Ezion-Geber (the Gulf of Aqabah) Pharoh's army was portrayed as sinking in the depths of the sea when it returned to its strength in the morning watch when the wind stopped blowing (not a tidal action, not a tsunami, but an east wind setdown). The reality was that the shallow waters, varying from one to five feet on Lake Menzaleh's east side were what was blown away by a wind, but the Exilic narrator was apparently unaware of this, he knew only of Yam Suph/Aqabah's deep waters. The below map from the Bible and Spade website, based on Hoffmeier's research (figure 1. James K. Hoffmeier. Ancient Israel in Sinai, the Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition. Oxford University Press. 2005). I reject the notion of there being 3 Ballah Lakes as the maps made before the 1865 Suez Canal changed the Ballah topography reveal it was merely an inlet of Lake Menzaleh, the crossing of the Red Sea being Ras el Ballah, "the headland of Ballah," or "Cape Ballah," a prominent height or elevation west of the Ballah inlet crossing.Hoffmeier shows the Qantara landbridge area as being the site for Israel's crossing of the Reed Sea, yet the Bible says Israel avoided this location as it was part of the "way to the land of the Philistines." Contra Hoffmeier I understand that the area north of Qantara was periodically covered in water from Nile inundations, a shallow freshwater lake with marsh grasses and reeds and that this is "where" the sea's bottom was exposed by a wind for 7 miles as noted by Tulloch. So via a series of errors, not understanding the real geography of Yam Suph, the shallow marshes east of Egypt were confused and conflated with the depths of Yam Suph at Elath and Ezion-Geber (the Gulf of Aqabah). I find rather ironic that this confused geography is a "foundation stone" of sorts for Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Israel's Red Sea Crossing via a wind blowing back a sea's waters exposing its bed. Below, my route of the Exodus in pink marker -compare it with Hoffmeier's above map- Hoffmeier has the Crossing of the Reed Sea in the northern sector of Ballah, "the way to the land of the Philistines," whereas I have the crossing in the southern sector of Ballah; from Goshen (Fakoos) to Etham (Birket Tamsah, modern Lake Et-Timsah), "turning about" from Etham at the "edge of the wilderness" (lands receiving Nile water) to Pi-ha`hiroth by Baal-Zephon (Ras el Ballah, "the headland of Ballah," not on this map but west of the track crossing the southern tip of Birket Ballah, west of Beer Mooktool/Migdol (?). I associate the waters (mayim, can mean both water or waters) of Marah with the two Bitter Lakes called Murrah, the Septuaginta's Merra (for the map cf. Keith Alexander Johnston, London, 1861 Map at the David Rumsey Historical Maps Archive on the internet). Note: The ancient Egyptian language did not have the letter "L" instead they used "R." The word Baal-Zephon however does appear in inscriptions found in Egypt, not in Egyptian, but in _Greek_ at Tell Defenneh (Greek: Dafnae), a settlement for Greek mercenaries to guard Egypt's borders circa the 7th-6th centuries BC and into Greek Ptolemaic times of the the 3rd-1st centuries BC. This suggests for me that the word Baal-Zephon is really Greek, circa the 7th-6th century BC (the Exodus account being written in the Exile, in Babylonia circa 562-560 BC during the reign of the Neo-Babylonain King Evil-Merodach, Amel-Marduk, who reigned between those dates cf. 2 Kings 25:27), not Egyptian, and is "marker" that the Exodus account is very late (not written by Moses circa 1445-1404 BC for some Conservative Protestant scholars) and after the 7th century BC and settlement of Greek mercenaries at Dafnae (Jeremiah's circa 572 BC Tahpanhes Jer 43:7-9; 44:1; 46:14). Migdol or "fort" in Egyptian would be Maktar or Magtar. Jeremiah suggests that following the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians some Jews fled to Tahpanhes, where they would have come into contact with accounts in Greek of a Baal-Zephon. It is also possible that Greek mercenaries stationed in Judah to pacify it after Egypt conquered it (after killing king Josiah at Megiddo who opposed them) the Jerusalem Jews learned of a "Ras Ballah" in the northern part of the Isthmus near a major trade route going into Egypt. The Wikipedia on Baal-Zephon in Greek texts: "Gmirkin (2006) also notes that a Ptolemaic era geographical text in the Cairo Museum mentions the sites Baal Zephon and Migdol, listing four border guard stations and fortresses, the third being called 'Migdol and Baal Zephon thought to be located on a route to the Red Sea Coast..." Judaica Encyclopedia. Gale Group. Jewish Virtual Library: "BAAL-ZEPHON... is identified with a Migdal Baal-Zephon mentioned in a papyrus from the Hellenistic period (Cairo papyrus 31169)... W. F. Albright has identified Baal-Zephon with the Egyptian port Taḥpanḥes (Daphne). Michael Avi-Yonah BIBLIOGRAPHY: O. Eissfeldt, Baal Zaphon… (Ger., 1932); Bourdon, in: RB, 41 (1932), 541ff.; Albright, in: BASOR, 118 (1950), 17; EM, 2 (1965), 291–2; Aharoni, Land, 179; M. Dothan, in: Eretz-Israel, 9 (1969), 48–59. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Niehr, DDD, 152–54. Below, two maps of the Qantara area, 1826, Paris Map. "Canal de Suez," Sheet 31, Surveyed 1797-1799. Blue is deep water, blue lines on yellow is shallower water. Marshes exist on many of the "islands" scattered all about. The Orange line is the Qantir route from Salhieh on the eastern edge of the Delta to Qatieh in the northern Sinai east of Pelusium. The Pink route links Salhieh to Qatieh as well but it passes the east side of the Ballah inlet and crosses via a shallow ford at the southend of the Ballah inlet east of Ras el Ballah for Salhieh. In either case, a "reed sea" or "marsh" must be _forded_ on both routes leaving Salhieh, Egypt for Qatieh in the northern Sinai. That is to say, one cannot get away from the Egyptians without "crossing" (fording) a reed sea or marsh (Yam Suph, the Reed Sea?) at either Qantara or Ras el Ballah. Below, a map of 1885 showing the Suez Canal traversing the Ballah Inlet. It is more detailed than the preceding French map surveyed in 1797-1799. "Ras el Ballah el Ras el Moyeh" is shown as being to the west of six small lakes, ponds, or pools. "Missing" on the below map is the track from Bir Abou Rouq to Ras el Ballah going to Salhieh on the 1797-1799 survey. The below map however shows the marshes of El Kraieh as extending to the six pools. When the missing track from the 1799 survey is superimposed on the below 1885 map it appears that the track passed between the six pools. Perhaps El Kraieh preserves Pi-ha`hiroth rendered by some as Pi-ha`Chiroth or Pi-ha`Khiroth? If so, then Israel, camped "before" Pi-ha`Khiroth, is on the west side of the six pools of water on the below map, then, later, she passes between them (?) to Bir Abou Rouq. Migdol is Bir el Makdal "at the end of the track" from Salhieh, Ras el Ballah, and Bir Abou Rouq. The 1799 survey reveals two important tracks from Bir el Makdal to Egypt: (1) The northeastern track: Makdal, Rouq, Ras el Ballah, Salhieh; (2) Belbeis via Wadi Tumilat to Makdal. So biblical Migdol, is a key reference point for caravans to and from the Egyptian delta from Salhieh and Belbeis and I believe it is a reference point for the location of Pi-ha-Khiroth (the marsh of El Kraieh 1885), bounded on the north by Ras el Ballah (Baal-Zephon?) and on the east by the track from Makdal to Ras el Ballah from Bir el Makdal (Migdol?). Click here to visit the below interactive version of the map allowing scrolling and magnifying. The Graeco-Roman Geographer Strabo said that areas of marsh and pools were called barathra, were the 6 pools at Ras el Ballah called barathra? Ezekiel's Pi-beseth in Egypt was called by the Greeks Bubastis, apparently Hebrew pi- can become Greek bu-? Is barathra a Greek rendering of Pi-ha-hiroth, the six pools of Ras el Ballah in a marshy setting? If so, then the Pi-ha`hiroth Israel camped "before" was the six barathra pools surrounded by marsh east of Ras el Ballah. Strabo (Geography. Bk. 17.1.19-21): "Pelusium itself is surrounded by marshes and pools, which some call clefts or pits (barathra)." (p. 42. Vol. xliv. Robert Jameson. The Edinburgh New Philosophocal Review. Edinburgh, Scotland. October 1847 to April 1848) TANAKH, The Holy Scriptures (1985. Philadephia & New York. The Jewish Publication Society): Exodus 14:2 "Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, before Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea...the Egyptians ...overtook them encamped by the sea, near Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon...a strong east wind all that night...turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split, and the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left...at daybreak the sea returned to its normal state..." Numbers 33:7-8 "They set out from Etham and turned about toward Pi-hahiroth, which faces Baal-zephon, and they encamped before Migdol. They set from Pene-hahiroth [Pi-hahiroth] and passed through the sea into the wilderness; and they made a three-days' jpurney in the wilderness of Etham and encamped at Marah." Pi-ha`hiroth is "between" Migdol and the sea: The marsh of el Karieh is between Bir el Makdal (Migdol) and the el Ballah lake. Alternately, if the 6 pools east of Ras el Ballah are Barathra/Pihahiroth, they are "between" Bir el Makdal on the east and Ras el Ballah on the west. Israel camps before Pi-ha`hiroth: Israel is on the westside of the northern opening to the El Kraieh marsh; alternately, if the 6 pools are bartahra/pihahiroth, Israel camps west of these pools. Israel is also camped "before" the sea and "before" Baal-Zephon: Israel is east of Ras el Ballah and west of the Ballah inlet, 6 pools and El Karieh marsh opening. Numbers 33:7-8 Pi-hahiroth "faces" Baal-zephon: East of Ras el Ballah is the northern opening of the El Kraieh marsh (Pi-ha-Khiroth?) and the 6 pools (barathra/pihahiroth?). Israel camps before Migdol: Israel is on the westside if the Ballah marsh-ford and on the track which will take them to Pi-ha`hiroth (the northern opening of the El Kraieh marsh and 6 pools or barathra/pihahiroth) and will also continue to the end of the track at Bir el Makdal (Migdol is before Israel as it is at the end of the track Israel will use to cross Yam Suph (Ballah marsh) south of Baal-zephon (Ras el Ballah?) to arrive at Pi-ha`hiroth. Pharaoh's pursuit of Israel is from Salhieh, said track crossing the Ballah marshes and splitting near Ras el Ballah (Baal-zephon?) one track goes north to Qatieh, or east to Bir Abou Rouq and Bir el Makdal (Migdal?) from which point Israel will turn south to the Bitter Lakes (Arabic: Murrah, biblical Marah?). Below: 24 November 2009 12:10 Noon, my proposal for the "Crossing of the Red Sea": The pink marker is my proposal for Israel's route from Qantir (Rameses?) in Goshen (Faqous?), via Salhieh to Etham (Lake Et-Timsah?) at the edge of the wilderness, then, from Etham, "turning back" to Yam Suph the "Reed Sea" at the Ballah marshes. Israel camps west of the Ballah marsh at the very end of the track from Salhieh (ancient Pharaonic Sile?), from which Pharaohs traditionally launched their military campaigns with chariots into Philista, Canaan and Syria. Israel waits like "bait" on this track for Pharaoh's direct arrival from Salhieh (track of small red circles). The track from Salhieh ends at Ras el Ballah (Baal-Zephon?); normally Pharaoh's army would turn north at Ras el Ballah, paralleling the east shore of the Ballah marsh inlet (Yam Suph?) to Qatieh and on to Syria. Upon Pharaoh's arrival Israel crosses the marsh ford south of Ras el Ballah on the track headed for Bir Abou Rouq; the sea is envisioned as engulfing Pharaoh's army at this ford south of Ras el Ballah. Israel continues from Pihahiroth, the north opening to the el Kraieh marsh (Marais de Karach) to Bir el Makdal (Migdal?) where she turns south on the track going to the Bitter Lakes, Arabic Murrah (the waters of Marah). As this track from Bir el Makdal to Marah is "east of Lake Et-Timsah," this wilderness is called alternately the wilderness of Etham or of Shur. Why Shur? There exists a track from Judah's Negeb crossing the Sinai and terminating near Lake Et-Temsah called by the bedouin the "Darb es Shuwr, "the way to Shuwr." Probably referring to Bir Abou Suweir on the north side of Wady Tumilat, just west of Lake Timsah, where several caravan tracks intersect each other for different parts of Egypt. The below map is sheet No. 2. Printed 1818 at Paris France. The Cartographic Survey was done circa 1797-1799 by Napoleon Bonoparte's Army personnel. "...the geographical setting of Exodus 14 is the area between the north side of the el-Ballah Lake system and the southern tip of the eastern lagoon... (p. 108. James K. Hoffmeier. Ancient Israel in Sinai, The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition. Oxford University Press. 2005) Hoffmeier's below map of the Crossing of the Red Sea is at the northern tip of Ballah Lakes (dark gray area) the light gray area is "wetlands," from Abu Sefeh to Ahmar and T-78 Migdol of Seti (?) (figure 10. James K. Hoffmeier. Ancient Israel in Sinai, The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition. Oxford University Press. 2005) To get one's bearings have a look at the location of Tell el-Herr on the above maps 1797-1865. Note: Hoffmeier's below map suggests that Lake Menzaleh (including the sites of et-Tineh and Pelusium) did _not_ exist in Ramesside times as he has the Mediterranean Sea near a "paleo-lagoon" and the Ballah Lake. An eastwind setdown would then (if this map is correct?) be limited to the lagoon and Ballah Lake. Hoffmeier's notion that the Pelusium mud flats did not exist appears to be indebted to a map by the Egyptologist Manfred Bietak (cf. Fig. 1. "Map of the Eastern Delta and a reconstruction of the ancient environment and Nile branches." facing p. 3. Manfred Bietak. Avaris, The Capital of the Hyksos, Recent Excavations at Tell el-Dab'a. London. British Museum Press. 1996). There is a problem, the Bible says that a "wall" of water appeared on either side of Israel as she crossed the dried up sea (Ex 14:29) and the Hebrew term suggests for some scholars the waters were "piled" or "heaped up" like a fortress wall. In this situation, we have a "miracle" as such does _not_ occur in Nature! Wind set down can push water back from a broad area but it can _not_ make a dry path in the middle of a sea with water piled up 7-30 feet or more like a high fortress wall as shown in the below pictures of the Crossing of the Red Sea by Israel: Below, a modern map of the sea area and of Lake Menzaleh where in late January of 1882 seven miles of lake bottom were exposed by a powerful east wind according to Major-General Tulloch. Below, a panorama view of Lake Menzaleh. Tanis (red square) is ancient Zoan where Israel dwelt and Moses performed God's miracles before Pharaoh (Psalm 78:12,43 ). Below a map showing this area was subject to flooding by the Nile as late as 1856 before the Suez Canal was built, its dark mud being recognized by DeLesseps on his visit to Pelusium, as being left by Nile inundations. In December the mud flats had dried and hardened allowing men and camels to walk where once there was a sea, the Menzaleh Lake being called a "sea" or Bahr in Arabic (For the below map cf. figure 19. James K. Hoffmeier. Ancient Israel in Sinai, The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition. Oxford University. 2005) Note: The dark line going from viewer's left to right is the remains of Pelusiac branch of the Nile ending near ancient Pelusium (Farama). The dark line going from bottom to top is the "eastern canal" ending in the vicinity of et-Tineh (Perhaps Pharonic Ta-Denit "The Dividing Water"? seen as Egypt's border?) Below, a map of Lake Menzaleh showing it lined by reeds and swamp grasses in Graeco-Roman times. Tanis is biblical Zoan where Israel dwelt (Psalm 78:12, 43) and it lies on a channel from the Nile lined in reeds emptying into Menzaleh, probably on this channel Moses was placed among the reeds in a reed basket. ….