Semitic toponyms in the Wadi Tumilat, which mostly date to the Late Ramesside Period, are an indication that this region was inhabited at that time by a western Semitic population. They may have been survivors of the Hyksos Period even...
moreSemitic toponyms in the Wadi Tumilat, which mostly date to the Late Ramesside Period, are an indication that this region was inhabited at that time by a western Semitic population. They may have been survivors of the Hyksos Period even though the syllabic writing and the chronology of the toponyms indicate that they may better be identified with settled Shasu nomads, such as mentioned in Papyrus Anastasi VI, who came from the region of Edom seeking “temporary” permission to stay in the Wadi in order to keep their flocks alive. With some caution some of them may be considered as Proto-Israelites with the understanding that the ethnogenesis of these people had not yet been terminated. Because of the toponym Gsm and other reasons, the Wadi can be identified as the biblical land of Goshen.
A complete four-room-house and a part of another one had been found in the precinct of the temple of Aya and Horemheb in western Thebes. According to the excavators from the University of Chicago these buildings were shelters for workmen who had to quarry from this temple building material for a nearby temple project of Ramses IV. Most likely they were also Shasu-nomades, former prisoners of war, captured during a campaign by Ramses III in the region of Seïr (Papyrus Harris I.76: 9–11). This is more or less the same region from which the Shasu, mentioned in papyrus Anastasi VI, came from and at the same time a region where, according to the Bible, the Lord came forth (Deut. 33:2; Judg. 5:4; Habakuk 3:3). The four-room-house appears at the same time at the end of the 13th and the 12th century BC in Canaan and is considered to be the prototypical house of the Israelites until the Babylonian Exile. It was at least in use in the 12th century BC by carriers of the same Iron Age I culture as the Proto-Israelites.
The settling places of the early Israelites at Goshen and Ramses were in all likelihood not identical but two different regions, one in the Wadi Tumilat and the other in the environment of the Delta residence of the Ramses- sides: Piramesse. The two regions were not well connected in the geographic conditions of that time. Therefore, at least two different realistic Exodus scenarios can be offered. One during the ascent of the founder of the 20th Dynasty Sethnakht who came to power against an opposition which seems to have bought the support of Near- Easteners. Here the exit route from the Ramses Town along the easternmost Nile branch to the north-west and the crossing of the predecessor of the Ballah Lakes can be offered. A second scenario could be reconstructed in the time after the invasion of the Sea Peoples and the loss of the province of Canaan under Ramses III. This king conducted at that time substantive defensive constructions at Tell er-Retaba, a site with a temple of Atum, and therefore can be identified with the second major biblical town in Egypt Pithom. It seems therefore likely that local settlers, among them former Shasu nomads, were recruited for such works in this otherwise thinly settled area. As a second Exodus route for unhappy recruits, one may identify the track to the east and through the Timsah Lake and finally to the south Sinai. The period of Ramses III and his successors would also fit to the absence of meeting Egyptians after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds in the narrative of the Exodus as the province of Canaan had been abandoned by the Egyptians latest in the second part of the 12th century BC. This is the most likely period of settlement in Canaan and would explain the prolonged time of wandering.
The combination of Egyptian toponyms mentioned in the books Genesis and Exodus and the geographic context have the likeliest fitting in the Ramesside geography of the eastern Delta. Later editorial input also brings Late Period concepts into the picture; nevertheless, the Ramesside context remains still clearly recognizable.
