Talk:Crossing the Red Sea/Archive 1

Historical Context
Is the text of this section valid or warranted? The subject is not whether the Israelites were or were not the Hyksos. The is ample evidence to show they were not. Perhaps the text should include information about the reigning Pharoah at the time, this may have some relevance.

Cobblers 13:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The story would be perfectly plausible if people stuck to it and didn't introduce wild speculations which over time become accepted. The 19th century archaeologist who excavated Pithom and Pi Rameses and speculated they must be the departure point of the Sons of Israel from their brickworks has been corrected by modern archaeologists who have found that they are actually associated with a canal built in the 12th Dynasty but print the myth has become SOPRktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The writer of the Historical Context is in error on all points. It cannot be said that from 'recorded history the most likely candidate is'. It either is or it isn't. As it happens the Egyptians did not chase and capture the Hyksos. The reference is invalid. It is also not true that Sinai was at that time part of Egypt. The dividing line between the lands of Shem and Ham was the alignment of the Red Sea to the east of Egypt. Not that it should matter anyway, but crossing the Red Sea was indeed a focal point, and was both physically and symbolically the leaving of Egypt. The story was not rewritten. If and until extra detail can be included regarding the impact of the exodus on Egypt (and this was significant), I therefore propose to delete the section. Cobblers 11:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Extra detail is easy if you follow the script. Assume the author is telling the simple truth that they crossed the Rd Sea. It was a regular trade route from c 2500 BC used to bring Nubian gold in exchange for the linen, papyrus, bitumen, naptha, frankincense and myhr used in mummification at Karnak across the Nile ftom Thebes which at the time of the Exodus was Egypt's capitol. At Timna near Elat Egyptian sites with Hathor temples, faiance and Egyptian potshards dating to the right period have been found. That site has changed the mind of the Israeli archaeologists who have been excavating it since the 80's.


 * One might also note that the Naturalistic Explanations section is full of what might politely be called crap. Alexander the Great forsooth! PiCo 10:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but I didn't touch that section without having the time to rewrite it properly. I actually don't believe the section should be in at all, but then I could be accused of not being neutral. I believe that if a topic involves a 'history' which a major group of people considers real and true, it should not be treated in wiki on the basis of a brief outline followed by a larger section attempting to discredit or ridicule or explain away. So it needs to be handled well if it is to be included. Cobblers 22:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * it might help if the story was thought of as being told in Egyptian rather than Hebrew because Hebrew hadn't been invented yet as a language at the time of the Exodus and thus the names of the stations aren't going to be Hebrew in that remove of antiquity Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I wonder how many people (editors) are actually taking a current interest in this page - not many I think. If you want to do a substantial re-write, just do it as a single edit, with an explanation here on the discussion page. If anyone wants any specific thing back, it'll be easily available via the history page.
 * Personally, I think this article should begin with a Narrative section, which either quotes the Bible passage in full (I favour the RSV as the language is modern and faithful to the original Hebrew, but I can live with other), or, if you feel that's too long, a summary. You could make a start by simply inserting a section like that at the very beginning of the article. PiCo 00:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I brought in the stations pertenant to the crossing and commented with linguistic references to Gardiner.

In advance of the rewrite, the Alexander paragraph should go. It is not relevant whether someone else waded through a sea, not even provably the same body of water. Cobblers 22:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Deleted from Location of Section
"Exactly which route did the Israelites take, and at what point did they cross the sea? We can't know for sure. However, one author of several works on biblical history offers this perspective: "The crossing of Israel. . . cannot be explained as a wading through a swamp. It required a mighty act of God, an act so significant both in scope and meaning that forever after in Israel's history it was the paradigm against which all of his redemptive and saving work was measured" (Eugene Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1987, p. 66)."
 * It can be rather easily explained if you think about how humans usually cross bodies of water...they use ships. Nothing prevents this as Hatshepset had just recently built a fleet precisely for crossing the red Sea and voyaging doen to Punt and left it convieniently tethered at Elim, modern Quasir, Thebes red Sea port. Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Offering this as a closing passage, even with the proviso that it is merely "one perspective" seems to be unnecessary POV, since the quote asserts a miraculous happening is needed to explain the power of the Exodus narrative on Jewish thought. There are many such perspectives which do not require a divine hand. Also the way it starts with a question and answer does not seem very scholarly. It may be that this quote is appropriate in another place/context but simplicity and clarity, as well as avoidance of POV seem to suggest the best thing to do is just remove this quote.


 * suppose we just take all the miracles out of it and look at it as a defeated enemy, the Hyksos, heading for the copper boom in the Arabah that was going on then.

New section: Narrative
Added this new section. PiCo 03:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

New section: Textual analysis: the documentary hypothesis and narrative of the Red Sea passage
Not actually a new section, just a new name. I've also moved it up to follow the genuinely new section headed "Narrative", which gives a summary of the story - the documentary hypothesis is an analysis of the narrative, so it logically belongs there. PiCo 10:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Did some more work on this section. Any comments welcome. PiCo 10:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Here are some comments...

The "Documentary Hypothesis" (DH) outlined here already has its own Wikipedia entry. It is extraneous to have such a lengthy write-up of DH on this page about the Exodus, except perhaps as a single-sentence summary and link to the DH entry. (Can someone please second that?)

Furthermore, the present Textual Analysis section of the article leads the reader to believe that the Documentary Hypothesis represents the best and latest scholarship on the origin of Genesis. This is simply not accurate. Though there are plenty of scholars today who accept the DH, and it is still taught in most seminaries, the theory is centuries old.

Though forms of DH were advanced by scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, DH was developed into its present form in the early 1800's by Bleek and Hupfield and was finalized by Julius Wellhausen in 1886. Since then the only fresh activity on DH has been speculation by some scholars such as Friedman, Bloom and Rosenburg about who the theoretical four authors might have been. In other words, this theory has been collecting dust for 120 years.

The real new work on the authorship of Genesis consists of two theories: [external links edited for Wikipedia spam filter] www ldolphin org/tablethy html The Toledoth Hypothesis (also called www geocities com/Athens/Crete/6111/pneumatikos/wiseman htm The Wiseman Hypothesis and "Tablet Theory") and a theory by Olaf Hage that Genesis was composed as an original tablet or scroll and then appended four times in an onion structure around the original core (each time a historical section was added a preface was also added).

Aside from neglecting recent scholarship on the authorship of Genesis, the authors of the Documentary Hypothesis appear to have been completely oblivious to the literary structure of Genesis, including several chiasmas that show a single author deliberately composed whole passages that the DH theorists try to dissect. The authors of DH were also ignorant of more recently discovered literary structures used by ancient authors, particularly the use of colophons to denote the beginning or end of a tablet, when a passage spanned several tablets.

For a cogent example of recent literary analysis, see W.H. Shea's paper, Literary Parallels Between Genesis 1 & 2. The work of Shea and others has demolished the basic premise of the Documentary Hypythesis. Therefore to follow NPOV, if you insist on opening this can of worms in this article, we need to include the other schools of thought on this subject.

I suggest it would be in the best interest of a good article to simply delete the textual analysis section or refer a link to someone's published work on the subject. Cadwallader 01:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see this material rolled into a section on The Composition of the Exodus 13-15, which could include subsections on (1) traditional views of the composition of Exodus, (2) the Classical documentary hypothesis account of its composition, and (3) a brief survey of recent scholarship on the composition of Exodus. While it is true that the documentary hypothesis has (as of my writing) a somewhat greater slice of the article than it deserves, this is more due to a missing presentation of the alternatives (traditional and contemporary) than that "it has been gathering dust for 150 years."  Even if the DH in its classical form has been superceeded, many recent commentators (Childs, Propp) use a modified DH account of the composition of Exodus. If any section on 'composition' is included, the DH and its variants should be included. And it should be more than just a link to the DH article, in my opinion. Beckersc0t (talk) 20:26, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Section: Locating the crossing
I tried to make this section a bit more solid - but it still needs more citations and maybe more detail. PiCo 12:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Deleted sections
I deleted sections on naturalistic explanations and dating the event - these subjects are already covered in depth in The Exodus and the information given here was extremely thin in comparison. I'll make sure there's a link back to The Exodus. PiCo 23:12, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Also deleted this recent addition: "Also, numerous claims have been made that chariot wheels and bones (of both humans and horses) have been found at the bottom of the Red Sea. One can find actual photos quite easily by entering 'Red Sea' and 'chariot wheels' into a search engine.  While some of the photos of 'wheels' take a little imagination, several photos are quite striking to many and may appear to be actual chariot wheels." There's a few problems with it. First, a protocol problem: it has no citation (advising readers to use Google isn't enough, you have to give a reference through the footnotes section - I can tell you how to do that if you need help). Secondly, you need to do a bit more research on this. There haven't been "numerous" claims, there's only been one - Ron Wyatt and his followers. Wyatt's claim shows up on numerous websites, so it looks like numerous claims, but they all trace back to him. Wyatt's claim is strongly doubted, and not just by sceptics - even sites like Answers in Genesis don't believe him. But what's more serious for the Wyatt claim is that he's never subjected the wheels to scientific analysis - no dating, no examination by experts in Egyptian culture. Therefore, no proof that they really are ancient Egyptian chariot wheels. Wyatt's failure (actually a refusal) to produce his evidence for testing by experts puts his whole claim in great doubt. (Have a look also at the article on Ron Wyatt.PiCo 00:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Ron Wyatt is about as substantive a source as Zecharia Sitchen or Graham Hancock. He learned about the finds at Timnah and then tried to sensationalize them to sell books. The Bible is really a much more enjoyable read once you just let the text speak for itself without all the miracles and other religious gloss Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Cadwallader 01:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC) The paragraph that PiCo deleted was poorly written and uncited. However, PiCo's debunking of the material is not accurate. While it is true that Wyatt first discovered and publicized the site, a scientific investigation and book was published by Lennhart Moller, a Swedish scientist. The Exodus Case, by Lennhart Moller, Scandanavia Publishing House, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2002.
 * There is a lot of good reference material available on Timnah, its been exavated for almost three decades now and become a regular tourist stop because of its closeness to Elat.Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Therefore I will re-add the material as a reference to Moller's published works on the subject.

Cadwallader 01:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why those sections were deleted. This is the article that is the most specific in terms of dealing with the Crossing of the Red Sea, and so it should go into the most detail here. If you don't allow vent to these alternate theories, new people will just come along and edit the page where it stands, because their pet theory isn't included here. I haven't been actively maintaining this page, and may not have time to. My next project is to try to include more comprehensive materials about the chronology of Abraham. As it stands now, they've got Hammurabi living ca. 2000 BCE, and that's counter to prevailing scholarly opinion - hence there are also early and late Abraham theories. --ThaThinker 19:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Abraham is best dated from the Book itself The Exodus is 480 years before the 4th year of the reign of Solomon (c 974 BC) and the first arrival in Egypt was 430 years before that. That gives c 1884 BC and that date agrees very well with Genesis 14 which is pretty specific about who is doing what where and when.Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Thirteen Channels
I have always heard the story that the sea was divided in 13 channels, one for each of the 12 tribes of israel and one for the mixed multitude. Does anyone know where this tradition comes from?

There is a rabinnic tradition that they crossed over in twelve places, one for each of the tribes. Another tells it in an even more commonplace way. I'll try to get you references on that, but it may take a few days for me to have time. Naked references, people. Do what you can to avoid them. I guess have two in the main "The Exodus" article to fix up now. Also, even if 90% (reference?) of the scholars subsribe to the Documentary Hypothesis (and I agree that the percentage of scholars supporting this idea does seem to be rather high), many literalists and those who haven't studied the issue much may not agree, so we shouldn't treat them as if they are a tiny minority. --ThaThinker 23:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I've updated the main The Exodus article to include external links to rabbinic materials on this subject. Sorry it took longer than I expected. My guess is that that thirteen parts might be an apologetic gloss on the older tradition that the Red Sea was divided into twelve parts, thus leading to the conclusion that it yielded eleven channels. As this is uncomfortable in a twelve tribe structure, thirteen parts could have been a later gloss. BTW, I think the work you guys are doing here with the Documentary Hypothesis is very useful. This also affects the Stations List. Another longer term, collaberative project would include cataloging layers that have been associated with Semitic settlement in site corresponding to the cities Joshua was said to have taken. This is the work Bimson started in flawed form, that should have bearing on WHEN the Exodus was, so that we can begin answering questions of WHAT it was. This idea of the Red Sea being divided into twelve parts can be taken as suggesting the Bitter Lakes and/or the Pelusic branch of the Nile had become silted up, as is recorded in the reign of Rameses II (although I didn't record a reference for this point). In truth, I wish there were a wiki we could work on projects like this, which might eventually lead to a book we could get paid for. I'm also unhappy with the policy that many administrators take here toward information about the 9/11/01 attacks, by prohibiting some valid items allowed by Wikipedia policy regarding them on the main 9/11 page. --ThaThinker 22:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Determining WHEN the Exodus was, so that we can begin answering questions of WHAT it was. and where it was sounds good to me.Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC) The story should be looked at archaeologicaly and historically though because it really is about a people who have spent 430 years becoming Egyptian people who are now leaving to go to the Arabah and thence to Canaan about a millenia before there were any Hebrews. Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Section on documentary hypothesis
This needs a bit of help. It's not clear whether it's talking about the torah as a whole, or specifically about the passage narrative(s). It's also a little questionable as to whether this is an original synthesis of several sources who do not agree upon the points stated. Mangoe 00:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC) If you are familiar with Egypt you know that the way they worship their gods is to carve their image in stone, place it in an ark and house the ark in a sanctuary. The rock in the box may symbolise truth, beauty, wisdom, craftsmanship or any of about 42 some odd other "ideals". The rock in the box for the Sons of Israel is an image of the written Law. Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Image
Would it be appropriate to use this image somewhere in this article? -leigh (&#966;&#952;&#8057;&#947;&#947;&#959;&#962;) 12:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Well archaeological, geological, and historical data and accuracy at the time might call for not adding that image, in my opinon. -- Hrödberäht 18:40, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
It seems like this article is totally based upon a non-historical reading of the Bible (no credence to the idea that this actually happened). I think that there are enough scholars out there who believe that this really did happen to merit it's inclusion. Also there is a gaping hole in that there is no mention of the recent discovery of (possible) chariot wheels at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba. This (if it's really what it seems) would be very compelling evidence to support the account as told in the Bible. Perhaps this section needs to be right below the "narrative as in the Bible" section. gdavies 18:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Its entirely possible that it really did happen, but that concept deserves better than the Ron Wyatt treatment.Rktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Ron Wyat, the man who "found" the chariot wheels to which you refer, is a well-known charlatan. The wheels have never ben produced. PiCo 11:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * On that note, i've removed the whole section below

Pharaoh's Drowned Army

Confirmation of the actual Exodus route has come from divers finding coral-encrusted bones and chariot remains in the Gulf of Aqaba

ONE of the most dramatic records of Divine intervention in history is the account of the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt.

The subsequent drowning of the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea was not an insignificant event, and confirmation of this event is compelling evidence that the Biblical narrative is truly authentic. Over the years, many divers have searched the Gulf of Suez in vain for artifacts to verify the Biblical account. But carefully following the Biblical and historical records of the Exodus brings you to Nuweiba, a large beach in the Gulf of Aqaba, as Ron Wyatt discovered in 1978.

Repeated dives in depths ranging from 60 to 200 feet deep (18m to 60m), over a stretch of almost 2.5 km, has shown that the chariot parts are scattered across the sea bed. Artifacts found include wheels, chariot bodies as well as human and horse bones. Divers have located wreckage on the Saudi coastline opposite Nuweiba as well

Since 1987, Ron Wyatt found three 4-spoke gilded chariot wheels. Coral does not grow on gold, hence the shape has remained very distinct, although the wood inside the gold veneer has disintegrated making them too fragile to move.

The hope for future expeditions is to explore the deeper waters with remote cameras or mini-subs. (ABOVE GILDED CHARIOT WHEEL - Mute witness to the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea by the Hebrews 3,500 years ago. Found with metal detector.

Coral-encrusted chariot wheel, filmed off the Saudi coastline, matches chariot wheels found in Tutankhamen's tomb Mineralized Bone - One of many found at the crossing site (above center). This one Tested by the Dept. Of Osteology at Stockholm University, was found to be a human femur, from the right leg of a 165-170cm tall man. It is essentially 'fossilized' I.e. Replaced by minerals and coral, hence cannot be dated by radiocarbon methods, although this specimen was obviously from antiquity. Chariot wheel and axle covered with coral and up-ended. Exodus 14:25 "And took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily:....."

Solomon's memorial pillars

WHEN Ron Wyatt first visited Nuweiba in 1978, he found a Phoenician style column lying in the water. Unfortunately the inscriptions had been eroded away, hence the column's importance was not understood until 1984, when a second granite column was found on the Saudi coastline opposite -- identical to the first, except on this one the inscription was still intact!

In Phoenician letters (Archaic Hebrew), it contained the words: Mizraim (Egypt); Solomon; Edom; death; Pharaoh; Moses; and Yahweh, indicating that King Solomon had set up these columns as a memorial to the miracle of the crossing of the sea. Saudi Arabia does not admit tourists, and perhaps fearing unauthorized visitors, the Saudi Authorities have since removed this column, and replaced it with a flag marker where it once stood.

How deep is the water?

THE Gulf of Aqaba is very deep, in places over a mile (1,600m) deep. Even with the sea dried up, walking across would be difficult due to the steep grade down the sides. But there is one spot where if the water were removed, it would be an easy descent for people and animals. This is the line between Nuweiba and the opposite shore in Saudi Arabia.

Depth-sounding expeditions have revealed a smooth, gentle slope descending from Nuweiba out into the Gulf. This shows up almost like a pathway on depth-recording equipment, confirming it's Biblical description "...a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters." (Isaiah 43:16).

The Bible writers frequently refer to the miracle of the Red Sea crossing, for it was an event which finds no equal in history. The Hebrew prophets describe the sea at the crossing site as "...the waters of the great deep .....the depths of the sea..." (Isaiah 51:10). Knowing the exact spot to which the Bible writers were referring, what is the depth there? The distance between Nuweiba and where artifacts have been found on Saudi coast is about 18km (11 miles).

Along this line the deepest point is about 800m (2,600 feet). No wonder that Inspired writers of the Bible described it as the mighty waters. And no wonder that not a single Egyptian survived when the water collapsed in upon them. (above right NUWEIBA BEACH - The spot where the crossing began. ) (right Model of depths at crossing site) (left The Saudi side also has a beach area of a similar size see approximate path.) ( below right THE EXODUS ROUTE - With the correct crossing site in the Gulf of Aqaba)
 * From the article. It's not sourced and looks to be a blatant copy-paste job, the tone is un-encyclopaedic and the information is dubious at best.87.194.99.197 20:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Could somebody explain why crossing the Red Sea in the ships already regularly engaged in crossing it for trade purposes is more farfetched than crossing it in chariots? The hull of a ship parts the waters and its decks allow you to cross dry shod The Egyptians buried hundred foot long ocean going ships in their pyramids more than five centuries before the date of the Exodus and wote stories about their voyages to Punt in the 12th DynastyRktect 23:38, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The Problem with using Hebrew to claim a mistranslation is that Hebrew did not exist as a language when the story was composed, and the people telling it had been living in Egypt for 430 years. The term Red Sea is clearly a reference to the Greek Erythrean Sea so claiming it means Yam Suph or Reed Sea is misguided despite that having become a common myth.

Going to the Egyptian we have language preserved as a textual artifact as the Exodus reaches Baal Zephon the people encamp at: [external links edited for Wikipedia spam filter] www geocities com/athens/parthenon/3021/redsea1 html Pi-hihiroth and Migdol at the www geocities com/athens/parthenon/3021/redsea2 html Gulf of Aqaba

Looking Egyptian phrases up in Gardiner instead of Hebrew
Discussing a people whose ancestors have lived in Egypt for half a millennium in a time frame thats centuries before Hebrew exists as a language, best practice is to look Pi-hahiroth up in Gardiners Egyptian grammar rather than going to a Hebrew source. Although Pi-hahiroth looks a little different in Egyptian we would expect Pi-hahiroth is transliterated like this: pr r h3 hrwth


 * Pr means to go forth in Egyptian. pr r h3 means to go forth abroad Gardiner p 580
 * Gardiner p 582 Hr means face
 * Gardine p 562 wth means flight
 * "hiroth" in Egyptian hr wth means face flight
 * ph3hrwth or pr r h3 hrwth meaning "to go forth abroad, to face flight". For Moses its not the first time he's running from the Law. In the Ten Commandments there is nothing about flight to evade prosecution although its a big part of Sharia law and Egyptian law at the time.

Comments on The Stations List
There is a lot of speculation on what the stations are as the Sons of Israel leave Egypt. Most of it is simply wrong. A 19th century archaeologost excavaiting Pithom and Pi Rameses found bricks, thought aha, these were made by the Sons of Israel in their slavery under cruel overseers and this is where they left from on their Exodus.

To get this idea to work he had to surmise that the very specific biblical account of the date was a rough estimate, and downgrade it about a century. Then he had to change the route from a crossing of the Red Sea to a crossing of the Sinai. Then he had to ignore that after leaving Egypt it took 2 1/2 months to reach the Sinai which abuts Egypt. He also ignored that while a route across the Sinai to Canaan was possible via the kings highway with its fortified wells, there was no route across the Sinai to Rephidim.

Going by the Biblical account, at the time of the Exodus Thebes was the capitol of Egypt. Across the Nile were the tombs of the ancestors and a temple of Ramesses that promised resurection like the birth of the sun. The commandment to "take my bones with you" would mean removing them from the tomb or place of the days of darkness, and heading toward the sunrise, down the wadi Ham ma3t toward Thebes Red Sea port of Elim and crossing the red Sea headed for Elat at the head of the gulf of Aqaba on the ships of hatshepsets fleet

Typo
The Locating the Crossing section says "The mainstream agreement is that the crossing took place on the Reed Sea near the present day-city of Suez, just north of the historical headwaters of the Gulf of Aqaba".

The city of Suez is not on the Gulf of Aqaba; it is at the head of the Gulf of Suez.--Logomachon 07:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The Starting Point is near Thebes
In Exodus Ramesses was one of a pair of treasure cities or emporia and the first station of the Exodus. In the story there are two treasure cities; Pithom in the Delta and Ra mes ses at Thebes, Egypt.

"Exodus 1:7-14 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Ramesses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour."

If Ancient Egypt isn't something you have studied intensively there may be some confusion about what is a treasure city. A treasure city or emporia is a port where foreign traders can bring their goods through customs.

In the 19th century archaeologists made speculations about San el-Hagar or Pi-Ramesses and Tell el-maskhuta or Pi-Athom being the places mentioned in the story of the Exodus. These have since been corrected by trained Egyptologists, but the myths have lived on among "biblical archaeologists" and laypeople.

See: Baines and Malek,1987, Atlas of Ancient Egypt, Equinox, ISBN 0-87196-334-5 Pi-Riamsese 166,175,177, removal of capital to, 46, 84, 166.

Under San el-Hagar

...the temple is a mass of inscribed and decorated blocks, columns, obelisks and statues of various dates, some of them even bearing the names of rulers of the old and middle kingdoms (Khufu, Khephren, Teti, Pepi I and Pepi II, Senwosret I), However the majority of the inscribed monuments are connected with Ramesses II and this led P. Monet, the greatest expert on the Tanis monuments to believe this was the site of the ancient Pi-Ramesses, the delta capital of the Ramesids. Nevertheless none of the buildings so far excavated can be shown to have been built before the reign of Psusennes I of the Twenty-first dynasty of Egypt and the inescapable conclusion therefore is that all the ramessid and earlier monuments must have been brought from other places.

Under Tell el-maskhuta In 1883 E. Neville excavated a large brick built enclosure (some 210 x 210 m) with a badly damaged temple at Tell el-maskhuta, in wadi tumilat. (In the late period a canal through this wadi enabled ships to sail from the Nile into the Red Sea) Most scholars, though not all, identify Tell el-maskhuta with ancient Egyptian Tjeku and Pithom, (probably from per-Atum, The "Domain of Athom") of the Exodus and the capital of the Eighth Lower Egyptian nome.

Pithom is an ancient city in Egypts delta. Its mentioned in Exodus as a treasure city in the same breath as Ramesses. You would have to know that from the Hyksos period onward there are emporia in both the delta and Thebes. In the delta cities like Sais served as "Treasure cities" business or banking centers. At Thebes Elim on the Red Sea also served as a business or banking centers for the Red Sea trade in Frankincense, Myrrh, Bitumen and perfumes and ointments such as ben jamin or juniper oil used at Karnak's mortuary temples.

Pithom and Rameses are located at opposite ends of the kingdom. Pi-Athom is an ancient nome capital (see below) in the delta.

Ra mes ses means literally (Ra=sun), (mes=birth), (ses= to guard or observe), the place of observing the birth of the sun, the dawn in the east. During the entire history of Egypt the Red Sea was an important source of the materials used in the mortuary at Karnak. Karnak was where Moses would have gone to get the bones of Joseph

"Exodus 13:19 And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you."

Following the stations list, the Exodus crosses the Red Sea between Elim and Elat. Elim, the sixth station, is Thebes Red Sea port. Elat, the ninth station is at the head of the gulf of Aqaba. There are no stations in the Sinai. The Exodus is dated to the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt and not the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt The route from Egypt to Elat across the Sinai doesn't exist.

The term "Red Sea" is Greek (Erythrian Sea) not Hebrew. The term "Yam Suph" or reed Sea is speculation on speculation. The Pharoah of the Exodus is not Ramesses, thats another speculation.


 * The problem with this statement is that when I look up Ramesses or Pi-Ramesses I get pushed to a page on Avaris which says that this city is located in a suburb of modern Cairo. This seems reasonable to my untutored mind because it makes sense that the richest land in Egypt would end up as a main population center, and because it makes sense to put a customs-house at the meeting place between the Ismailia Canal and the Nile, where goods can be taxed whether they are going from Africa to Greece or Thebes or etcetera. Wnt (talk) 08:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Moses did not lead
The Torah makes noteworthy mention that Moses would stand in the middle of Israel and not in front. 203.214.137.16 14:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup - August 2007
I've looked over this article. The following things need to be taken care of: --Lendorien 23:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Narative section is too informal and not nuetral enough in its usage. It needs to be rewritten
 * This article lacks inline citiations for its assertations. Assertations must be cited. The lack of them hurts verifiability.
 * More context would be useful for those not familiar with the background of this account.
 * Kudos to Rktect for taking care of many these issues so quickly!--Lendorien 13:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you and I are are looking at the same thing, but the page I see is just a mess! This isn't a matter of what's in the article, but the fact that there are bits and pieces all over the place - at first I thought it was vandalism, but it seems to be in good faith. I've reverted to an earleir version - please, if you want to introduce changes, do it little by little so that others can help you get the page looking right. PiCo 11:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

User disputes
I have now had to ervert Rktect's edits twice. As I said in my edit notw, the end result of his changes is to turn the article into gibberish - the structure of his version is disorganised (several passages are repeated, several are truncated), plus most of his new material is OR. Most of the time it's fine for editors to make edits in the etxt, but Rktect, please, try your suggestions out here first and seek help from other editors before introducing them - there are real issues here. PiCo 00:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You had to remove references and footnotes?


 * Maybe the reason you find the article giberish is that you don't really understand the historical passage of the Red Sea by the Egyptians. It is documented in the Egyptian literature as far back as the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt in the Tale of the shipwrecked sailor.


 * It has been documented across the Red Sea from Elat all the way down to Punt by Zahrins and others. Some of the references do indeed refer to the original research of the archaeologists who wrote about it in the books I referenced.


 * If you are unfamiliar with this history try reading some of the references before you get rid of them, or ask me questions about Hatshepsets voyage to Punt.


 * Read Baines and Mal'k on why the mortuary temples at Karnak required frequent restocking of their supplies of linen, bitumen, frankincense, and myrrh. Egypt began taking nubian gold or nub from Thebes port of Elim to Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba and returning with all the necessities of the afterlife before they had finished building the pyramids. Ask me and I'll be happy to explain the Red Sea trade to you. Meanwhile I'm going to restore the references you vandalizedRktect 06:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Rktect, it isn't possible to vandalise by reverting to earlier versions - vandalism is the introduction of new material, maliciously. It's you who are introducing new material. I know your intention isn't malicious, but your additions are so poorly done that I have to revert them to an earlier version. Possibly I could say that more diplomatically, but I'm too tired to try.


 * Please note that the earlier version I'm reverting to isn't by me - it's by someone I don't even know. It's simply the last good version, however imperfect, before your edits began. I think you'd find that any editor would do the same.


 * As to why your edits are poor, the reasons are: (1) the writing is just plain bad - this extends from the structure (you've got the Stations template repeated, once at the head of the article, once at the end) to the grammar (e.g., "Looking at Egyptian Grammar's", which should be a plural, not a genitive); and (2) it's largely OR - you seem set on proving that the Exodus occurred at some specific time or other (although the poor quality of the writing makes it hard to work out just what your point is), and disregard any other views. Please, the point of Wiki is to explain points - other people - not argue your own.


 * Your footnotes are peculiar - for example, we have a point that "the Israelites leave Egypt, not by "the way of the land of the Philistines," and you footnote it with one book about the ancient Near East and another about the rise of the Greeks. No page refs for either. Not that it matters, as they're irrelevant - this is a quote from Exodus, and all you need to do is direct the reader to the verse it comes from. The rest of your references are the same - irrelevant and missing page refs or explanations.


 * As I said earlier, if you want to contribute to the article, please come to the talk page and discuss what you want to do. Don't just launch pre-emptive strikes by re-writing entire articles - it's not good wiki-etiquette. PiCo 11:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm trying to take a very WP:NPOV article and add references and footnotes to make it encyclopedic. Speculation: — the Beni Hasan mural depicts Jacob and his sons migrating to Egypt.


 * "the scene involves bearded Semites, riding donkeys and bringing their families and flocks into Egypt. Like the Biblical Israelites, they are wearing multi-colored tunics. (identified with Sidon) The hieroglyphic inscription on this wall calls these people the ‘Amu’.” (Amurru from Hazor in Lebanon) I call this mural “a veritable snapshot of the migration of the Biblical Israelites to Egypt.” So there is nothing here about the mural being a family portrait of Jacob and his sons."


 * speculation: The eruption of the volcano at Santorini (date disputed, either ca. 1650, 1628, or ca. 1500 B.C.E.) caused many of the natural phenomena referenced as the Egyptian plagues. Tectonic movement associated with the volcanic eruption at Santorini caused the parting of the Reed Sea. Thus its ll about the Hyksos.


 * The speculation here is that if the 19th century BC Beni Hasan mural should be mentioned in the same breath with semites, then the semites must be related to the sons of Israel.


 * BAR Beware "From Manetho and Hecataeus of Abdera to Josephus, ancient writers equated the Exodus with the “Hyksos expulsion” around 1500 B.C.E. Today, Prof. Bimson of Trinity College, England, argues for a similar date, and Prof. Donald Redford of Penn State told me on camera that “Flavius Josephus… sensed what I think is correct [i.e.], that the Hyksos and the Hyksos expulsion is what we’re talking about when we are talking about the Exodus"


 * By the time I get through removing the speculative parts, which for the most part depend for their references on a religious description of an everyday event considered miraculous by devout 18th and 19th century archaeologists following in the wake of devout medieval clerics, abbots rabbi's and priests whose data comes from Josephus and Mantheo, the sixth century equivalents of Grahme Hancock and Zachiariah Sitchin, there isn't much article left.


 * Try tracing back the idea that the stations of the Exodus are in the Sinai, or that it comes from Avaris, or that Pithom and Rameses were where the Sons of Israel were set to work under harsh overseers making bricks, and you invariably come to somebody looking for funding for an exedition. Modern archaeologists have checked all those ideas out, found they don't fly and tended to dismiss the whole story as a fantasy.


 * Research it in a little more depth and you find there are better studies, most of which include actually attempting to identify a station, put a pin in a map, connect the dots together and take the pins out of the map where they had been misplaced in the past.


 * I consider removing references and footnotes to be vandalism. In your case you don't appear to be editing to establish a point of view by censoring facts that contravert it but that is the effect of reverting to the previous version without understanding the difference and that has the effect of vandalism. Your characterization of my edits as poorly done I will take as constructive criticism and attempt to explain what I'm doing.

references and footnotes

 * Generally my edits consist of adding references and footnotes, and correcting misstatements of fact. The assumption that the Passage of the Red Sea was limited to the story of the Exodus, mythical, miraculous or not principally associated with the passage from Elim to Elat would not be historically accurate. That's why the references and footnotes are important.


 * Its important to understand the raison d' etre for the passage of the Red Sea was primarily trade and that that the trade was narrowly focused on supplying mortuary materials gathered from all over the known world to Karnak in return for a flood of Nubian gold (nub) from about the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt onward. The existing article misses the broad side of the barn here.


 * If you re-add someone else's information without checking its references or footnotes, you are unwittingly replacing good well cited well researched information with spurious references to a speculation and that is not the proper content for an encyclopedia.


 * There are really two sets of stations connected with the Passage of the Red Sea. The First set is in Egypt between Thebes and its Red Sea port of Elim. The second set is across the Red Sea in and around Elat and then circumnavigating the borders of Edom and Moab. The speculation that the Exodus begins in the delta and then traces the coast of the Sinai to get to Elat just doesn't work.


 * There are a number of reasons the 18th and 19th century speculation doesn't work; The Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt capital of Egypt is at Thebes. Ramesses II refers to himself and his horses in his and their titulary as of Thebes, If you leave from Thebes you don't leave from the delta, Pithom and Ramesses are treasure cities or emporia, one emporia Pi Atum is an ancient third dynasty capital in the delta, the other is at Pi hahiroth in the Wadi ham ma maat leading from Thebes to Thebes Red Sea Port Elim, the so called Pi Ramesses is a palace not a capital its a palace and is unihabited at the time of the Exodus, Avaris also mentioned as a point of departure is a Hyksos capital destroyed at the beginning of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt thus no longer existant at the time of the Exodus, and archaeologists have looked for traces of the Exodus in the Sinai for two centuries and found none.


 * The more modern thinking is as I have described it tending toward using the textual artifacts of the story of Exodus in the geo-political context of the period.


 * Where you suggest adding page numbers, that may be useful, but more useful is to first just read the books,... all of them. The Exodus falls right in the middle of a geo-political context that spans millenia in the Penteteuch. I don't think its WP:OR or WP: SYN to collect and compare all the accounts. The Bible borrows from pretty much every bit of literature which precedes it and there are plenty of references to the stations of the Exodus in the original languages.


 * In terms of the geo-political context discussed in the Dating of the Exodus (a time of dynastic change when war threatens); the ongoing conflicts between the landfolk themselves are paralleled by those of the sea people acting as their allies. It may be a great secret that the Egyptians considered the Red Sea to be a second Nile but they began trying to cut canals over to it in the Pyramid age. Indeed the control of the water is closely tied to the control of the land even in predynastic times. One reason for this is that the Mycenean Greeks, Philistines, Minoans and Libyans controlled the Mediterranean and its coasts having established a number of so called "punic" sites.


 * Because the Greeks are loosely organized in Gene, Oinkos and Phratre and their sustenence comes as much from raiding and piracy as from trade monopolies its tempting to think of them as crews in the organized crime sense. Michael Grants book, the Rise of the Greeks touches on their presence in Egypt and Palestine as does the Illiad.


 * As it happens the period from Abraham to Moses covers two major technological advancements which have a lot to do with communication and control. First comes the domestication of the horse, its use by the Hittites and a group of bowman called ibrw who ride bareback with unbound hair accompanying the chariots of the Hittites and Egyptians into battle.


 * The second is the development of ocean going ships and the gradual emergence of sea people who make their living from the sea just as the land folk make their living from the land. Its worth noting that as earlier as the pallets of narmer and the scorpion king we see illustrations of how control of the water equates to control of the land.


 * The international trade connection between landfolk and sea people occurs at the emporia


 * Its a valid criticism that I haven't attempted to explain to you why "the way of the Phillistines" refers to a "right of way", easement or portage through Egyptian territory in order to provide a trade route known as the king's highway connecting Phillistine emporia that serve Egypt's interests.


 * Nelson Gluck's book is one of the best sources I know for the role of the Nabateans in this and the connection between the Kings highway, Kadesh Barnea, Petra and Elat. It took about a millenia prior to the Exodus to prospect and explore this and another millenia after the Exodus to establish it as a monopoly belonging to Israel rather than Egypt or Phoenicia. In many ways the trade rivalry and dispute over control of Elat is still ongoing, although today its not so much about the bitumen and naptha as it is about the light sweet crude.


 * In the ANE its the role of the sea people (including the Mycenean Greeks, Minoans, Libyans in the Mediterranean and the fisheaters of Dilmun, Makkan and Meluhha that dock on the quays of Agade) to provide the bulk of the bulk cargos shipped by sea. That includes a kind of monopoly on routes and materials shipped.


 * By the time the Bible, Ramesses III and Merneptah first speak of the the conspiracy of sea peoples gathering in their nations, they have become fixed in the emporia of (Greece, Anatolia, the Black Sea, Cyprus, Crete, Egypt, Palestine and the Levant and the Erythrian Sea to include the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean the Persian Gulf).


 * A half millenia later we begin to have in the Parthian stations and the Periplus of the Erythrian Sea the beginnings of the Phoenicia described by Solon, when in the time of Necco he happens to be at the emporia of Sais in Egypt when the Atlanteans return from having circumnavigated Libya and returned through the Pillars of Hercules from the Atlantic having establishing an ocean empire larger than Libya, Asia and Europe combined because it includes the oceans which surround them.


 * By the time Alexander has passed on to Ptolomy the routes compiled by Marinus of Tyre the sea people's better organized descendants have emporia spread out along every coast line in the ANE about a day's sail apart. Their monopolies include purple dye, glass, spices, fragrances, salt, silk, frankincense, myrrh, the petrolium industry, the arms trade, trade in metals, trade in furniture, the construction industry, international banking,


 * One of the better known standard references on the ANE fleshs out some of connections to Egyptian Campaigns, the Hyksos, the Peleset, Phillistines, Phoenicians, Pel or Pella of the Amarna letters, the Habiru, 'apiru or rebels, the Hittites and their allies and their routes of march to Elat and Thebes in the coursr of an ongoing conflict that lasts from the Twelfth dynasty of Egypt through the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt with a major focus on the geo-political context of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt and the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt.

Nelson Glueck

 * Nelson Glueck's book "Rivers in the Desert" is a study of the Negev and the Nabateans which involves visiting most of the stations of the Exodus in and around the Negev. It gets into Edom, Moab, the Rephidim, Midian, Timna, Elat, Kadesh Barnea, the Brook of Egypt, The Kings Highway, the Arabah, the Dead Sea, the cleft in the rock at Petra, Dibon, Jehrico, the plains of Medeba, on the tribal level of Lawrence of Arabia, traveling by camel from one bedouin tribe's well to another.


 * It was written in the forties before all the stations were replaced with military installations. It establishes the connection between Elim and Elat was a trade route which furnished the mortuary temples of Karnak at the capital of Egypt at Thebes with all the necessities of burial by mummification. There are several books in the attached syllabus that touch on the role of emporia in International trade, the antiquity of Egyptian seafaring in ocean going ships, the role of the Red Sea as Egypts other river, the trade with Punt,... and of course the conquest of Nubia which provides the nub that pays for all this trade, that required the wadi ham ma maat be improved with wells and habitations and roads to facilitate the passage of the armies that secured it and in the process covered with graffiti of ships that illustrate the trade.


 * Where you removed books, and footnotes you clearly haven't read you might have been better served by raising questions or requesting more information. The article isn't titled Exodus, its titled Passge of the Red Sea. The role of the passage of the Red Sea in Exodus can't really be understood if you don't know the geo-political, historical, linguistic, archaeological and cultural context which surrounds it. Providing and understanding the context is exremely relevent.

Trade goods

 * The trade goods, include amulets carved out of carnelian, and lapis lazuli, from meluhha through makkan, Dilmun and Mari to Allepo, and Quatna, malachite and other semi precious stones, carved into cylinder seals, linen and papyrus coming south from Byblos, purple dye from Tyre, ben jamin or juniper oil and cedar wood from the valley of cedar in Lebanon and bitumen, naphtha from Naphtali, antimomy for kohl or eyeshadow, natron and other metalic salts from the dead sea, and copper from the Arabah, meeting up with Frankincense and Myrrh coming north along the Red Sea both by ship and overland through the mountains, through Khamis Mushat or the city of towers high in the mountains, and ab ha where the agriculture is all terraced up the sides of the mountains and Taif overlooking Mecca and up through Midian to the middle of the trade routes marked by Horab at Elat.


 * That is reinforced with the archaeological studies collected by Muhammed Abdul Nayeem of "The pre and proto history of the Arabian penninsula" which discusses among all the many pages of arabian archaeology from the first lithics of the first men to thirteen sites near Timna with Egyptian artifacts ranging from Egyptian faience and pottery to a Hathor temple near the emporia at Elat. In this book and "Bahrain therough the Ages" there are articles by Juris Zahrins from the University of Missouri discussing how the savanah of Arabia still remains in places wher you can still see the kites and cairns of the gazelle hunters who traded with Egypt across the Red Sea in the pre dynastic neolithic.


 * As I moved along from site to site across the desert and through the mountains from tower to tower the length of the red Sea using these books as guides and collecting pictures of fossilized trees, ubaid pottery, the coprolites of the cattle and sheep that traveled with the caravans through the mountains, and bits of Frankincense resin it became clear that the monolithic architecture of the neolithic was mixed with the crenalated towers of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and Arabian traders that followed in eachothers footsteps.


 * The quote from the "Periplus of the Arabian Sea" should be viewed in that context. Rktect 16:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

"Mistranslation" section
This seems to be presenting an argument more than encyclopedic information, particularly the lines "which in doing so realistically suggests a less dramatic and non-supernatural event than is traditionally envisioned" and "If the Hebrew people were chased through the Sea of Reeds..." 67.135.49.158 15:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Definitely editorial overkill and should be removed unless cited. It also makes the assumption that being "less dramatic" makes it less important. Either way, the "hand of God" was thought to be helping the Hebrews. If readers think otherwise, they are free to draw that conclusion also. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 01:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, this section should get a major overhaul, starting with the title. It's a good idea to present the options (1) for translating Yam suph and (2) for the locations that might have been understood for a Sea of Reeds.  The question of whether Red or Reed sea is a better translation should not be related to to the supernatural/non-supernatural question, since both alternatives are old (Rashi and ibn Ezra, both Medieval rabbis  understood Yam suph as "Sea of Reeds".  It's quite a straightforward translation of the Hebrew.   Suph is in Exodus 2.3-5 as the location of Moses basket in the river.) Beckersc0t (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 14:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:R2 2 010223.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Sources of information on the Red Sea Crossing
I've had my edit saying that the "only information we have on this alleged event is the Bible" by an editor who claims it is OR and POV. Can someone please enlighten me as to what is wrong with the statement? Is it the bit about 'only information', and if so, what have I missed? Or is it 'alleged', in which case it is POV not to have it in the article. --Doug Weller (talk) 16:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The crossing of the Red Sea is an historical fact since the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt. Its a trade root bringing mortuary materials to the Temple of Karncak from the other side of the Red Sea for a couple of millenia before the Exodus. The ports involved are Thebes red Sea port of Elim, modern Quasir and Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. Both ports are stations of the Exodus.


 * In addition to the Egyptian crossings of the Red Sea you have the Greek Periplus of the Erythrian Sea. So in addition to the Biblical account you have the archaeology of the ports, Insriptions of the ships involved built c 1453 BC at Elim with an internally dated Exodus of c 1450 BC from Elim across the Red Sea. You have many textual artifacts of Egyptian language within the Old Testament and of semitic artifacts such as four chambered houses dating to that period in and around Thebes, Egypt.


 * In the Exodus article I collected 117 references and worked them into the text. There are ongoing excavations of the ports, excavations of Timna with Egyptian faience in association with Midian ware, the adjacencies of the stations of the Exodus, the fact that in the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt the capital is at Thebes. There is quite a lot there other than the Bible Doug. Rktect (talk) 19:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Suez Canal?
The Suez Canal article describes a variety of ancient canals linking the Red Sea to the Nile and/or Mediterranean. While the modern canal shows that a straight route to the Mediterranean doesn't require locks and so would be unlikely to have much water regulation, the better documented Nile-Red Sea link must have involved the possibility to control how much Nile water poured into the canal. Has anyone evaluated the possibility that this could have been used as a deliberate offensive strategy? Wnt (talk) 00:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Discussion of the canals linking the two rivers of Egypt, the Nile and the Red Sea is a very hot current topic among archaoligists and historians. The use of locks, water rams, aqueducts, plumbing with copper pipes was sophisticated and developed early. Archaeologists are beginning to excavate some of the red Sea ports, quays, harbors and canals used to make both trade and transportation more efficient. Some of the books referenced into the article would be a good source of information to answer your questions.Rktect (talk) 00:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It didn't look like it - are you saying that some of the sources for this article discuss scenarios for the crossing of Israelite or drowning of Egyptian troops that involve canal engineering? It would be fun if someone is actually looking into this, because you'd think that some canal visible on satellite maps might have some very embarrassed dead Egyptians at the bottom of it waiting to be dug up. ;) Wnt (talk) 19:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. The Egyptians appear to have been watermen from a very early period. There are inscriptions on the palette of the Scorpion king showing how in a desert a man can control the land by controlling the water and using corvees of ordinary farmers to dig ditches and canals to control the flow of water during the innundation. The digging of canals between the Nile and the Red Sea was something that needed to be attended to periodically as the old channels silted up and the extent of the Red Sea waxed and waned. I guess its old news by now but its been demonstrated that the Egyptians used the Red Sea as a second river and crossed it regularly from the Fourth dynasty of Egypt onward. Red Sea trade

[external link edited for Wikipedia spam filter] www travelblog org/Forum/Threads/8696-1 html Red Sea Ports include Thebes port of Quseir ancient Elim where Hatshepsut kept her fleet for the voyage across to Elat and then south to Punt.

Oldest Maritime Artifacts
Excavators from the Brooklyn Museum stumbled upon the unique lintel painted with five gilded deities during routine cleaning of the precinct enclosure wall of the temple. Topped with a cavetto cornice embellished with painted stripes, the lintel is well preserved. It is framed by rounded molding and the decoration includes raised relief figures. The five gilded solar deities appear sitting on lotus blossoms against a blue backdrop, representing the sky, each with a finger in its mouth.

The first and last are crowned with the sun disk, the second wears a double crown, the third a hem-hem crown and the fourth a two-plumed crown. The golden child gods sit before an offering table to the right of which are two figures, the first an ape, whose face still bears some gilding, wearing a modius and feather with his arms raised in a gesture of worship. Apes are often shown in connection with the sun. The second figure is of the goddess Taweret, crowned with cow's horns, a sun disk and two feathers. Sabri Abdel-Aziz, head of the Ancient Egyptian Department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says early studies suggest the lintel may date from the late First Intermediate Period. The newly discovered artifact is now being cleaned and restored.

Oldest maritime artifacts found

A cave cut in the rock has been discovered in the Pharaonic Port of Mersa Gawas in Safaga. In December-January, archaeologists found the timbers of sea-going vessels that were over 3,500 years old at Marsa Gawasis, which was a port on Egypt's Red Sea coast in Pharaonic times. Marsa Gawasis is located on a coral reef at the northern end of the Wadi Gawass, 23 kilometres south of the port of Safaga. Evidence pointed to the use of Marsa Gawasis as the port for voyages to punt from the early Middle Kingdom to the early New Kingdom. The four man-made caves and the planks are the world's oldest maritime artifacts along with 21 wooden crates and a new stele with the five names of Amenemhat III. Late December last year, after more than three metres of sand had been removed from the slope of the coral reef, the entrance of a large man-made cave was uncovered by the Italian and American archaeologists.

Stone anchors, two large cedar beams were found plus mud bricks and plaster that had been used to reinforce the entrance. To the north of the entrance, the archaeologists found an antechamber leading to two rectangular rooms both 12 x 4 metres. To the south is a smaller antechamber leading to yet another chamber hewn out of solid rock. Outside the cave entrance are small carved niches, four of which still contained limestone steles, which suggest that this cave was a temple.

The best preserved stele, which has fallen out of its niche, was found face-down in the sand. Carved on this stele was the cartouche of King Amenemhat III, who ruled in about 1800 BC. The hieroglyphic text below a scene of the King making an offering to the god Min concerns two expeditions led by officials Nebsu and Amenhotep to Punt and Bia-Punt''. nside the cave entrance, archaeologists found two cedar steering oars – the first complete parts of a ship ever discovered in Egypt. Pottery dating to the early 18th Dynasty was found with the oars and they may have been used on ships of the Queen Hatshepsut's famous expedition to Punt, which is described in bas-relief inscriptions in her temple at Deir el-Bahri. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rktect (talk • contribs)

Wnt;s questions

 * Rktect, the other editors above may not understand what's appropriate on this page, but you've been old before that this is not a forum, this page is not a page to discuss the passage of the Red Sea, it is only meant to use to discuss the article. Until we have reliable sources that discuss Wnt's question, such a discussion doesn't belong here.
 * Excuse me Doug, but the Passage of the Red Sea is the article and what we are discussing hereRktect (talk) 21:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Discuss the layout, discuss sources, discuss spelling, discuss whether it is NPOV (I'm not raising that as an issue, just as an example, whatever, fine. Just a discussion of the passage of the Red Sea is using this page as a forum. If there are reliable, verifiable sources that discuss the original question in the first edit of this section, then those are appropriate to discuss. Just discussing the question raised is not. dougweller (talk) 22:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * We are discussing sources, archaeologists uncovering evidence for the passage of the Red Sea.Rktect (talk) 23:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I should remind everyone that the Suez Canal article does contain a moderately good description of the canals from antiquity - please make sure to add the references you're quoting/citing to that article if they're not there yet. For this discussion I was more interested if anyone had started studying this from the Moses end, which is so far as I know not yet proven in any way.  I've seen all sorts of dates for the supposed age of Moses and I don't even know if he's in the right millennium to be encountering a viable Suez Canal... it just sounds fishy to me that the most famous case of walls of water rushing down on an army by human command happens to be in the middle of the world's oldest, most important canal zone. ;) Wnt (talk) 01:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Exodis has Moses crossing the Red Sea c 1450 BC. He leaves from the same place Hatshepsut did about two hundred miles south of the Suez Canal, According to the stations of the Exodus the crossing is between Elim and Elat; that is to say between Thebes Red Sea port of Elim and Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, where the story places Mt. Horeb. Since Hatshepsut built her Red Sea fleet about three years before Moses used it to cross, its probable the walls of water were held back by the hulls of the ships the Sons of Israel crossed in. On the other hand in the 12th Dynasty before they moved the capital to Thebes, Amenhat may well have used the canals between the Nile and the Red Sea starting his voyage at Tel el Maskuta whose canal is perpendicular to the route of the Suez canal. Since the trade was in mortuary supplies used at Karnak starting from Elim and saving about four hundred miles of travel up the Nile and then back down the Red Sea was probably worth making a short overland portage up the wadi Hammamat, at least thats how the inscriptions there tell it.Rktect (talk) 01:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I took the liberty of adding Wikilinks to some of the previous comments - it still is hard to figure out the geography. I understand that the wadi Hammamat heads straight east to the Red Sea, but what does that have to do with Elim and Elat?  I don't understand how you can tell if they went by ship or land or any direct route. Wnt (talk) 03:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thebes trade

 * Thebes was the capital of Egypt throughout the [Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt and Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. Where the Wadi Hammamat comes out on the Red Sea we find Tbebes port of Elim. (modern Quasir) It handled the mortuary trade for Karnak across the river from Thebes. In order to mummify the dead they needed bitumen, natron, frankincense, myrrh and other preservative slats, caulkings, spices, perfumes, and amulets. These are all collected and manufactured across the Red Sea at Elat at the head of the gulf of Aqaba. Hatshepset built a fleet there for the Red Sea trade c 1453 BC.


 * That historical part is documented by historians, archaeologists all the academic types.


 * The story of Exodus can be read as a history if you strip off some of the religious gloss added by the priests when they wrote the story down. If you take it straight up it doesn't require anything all that miraculous, Moses crosses the Red SEa the same way Hatshepsut did, on a ship.


 * The story tells us Moses crossed the Red Sea c 1450 BC. Thebes was the capital of Egypt throughout the [Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt and Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. You can tell the route because its given to you in the stations of the Exodus. starting in Exodus:14. If you prefer there is a summarized list in Deuteronomy. Anyway, Stations 1-6 are in Egypt running from in and around Thebes to Elim. Station 7 is the crossing of the Red Sea. Station 8 is the sighting of the wilderness of Sin."From Elim they set out again and the whole community of the sons of Israel reached the wilderness of Sin on the 15th day of the second month after they had left Egypt"
 * Now If you take the wilderness of Sin to be the Sinai desert that abuts Egypt by land so it shouldn't take 45 days to get from Egypt to Sinai after they had left Egypt unless they are ferrying across the whole community ship by ship.


 * Its a days march from the wilderness of Sin to Rephedim which is the plain located at the foot of Mount Horeb. Mount Horeb is where Moses tends the flocks of Jethro priest of Midian and talks to the burning bush. Its the rock where he strikes water with his staff. Its where he is up held by Hur and Aaron to fight the Amalek and its where he receives the Ten commandments. Its where they leave from to Compass Edom and where they return to before going up into Canaan. Its location is between Edom and Midian at Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba and the only way to get there following the station list is by sea.


 * If you go by land from the supposed "Yam Suph" "sea of reeds", "bitter lakes" the journey from the crossing of the Red Sea is two hundred miles straight across the desert where there is no water and three hudred miles following the coast where there isn't much water. Thats made in one days march from the wilderness of Sin to Rephidim.


 * Bottom line some archaeologists are skeptical about the land route since aside from the above, historically the Egyptians don't use it, they go by water. Rktect (talk) 13:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Where is Elim

 * Hmmm. The crucial point here is where is this place Elim (Bible) and what is it?  From that article and Wilderness of Sin and Stations list I don't get any strong indication that it's at the end of the Wadi Hammamat.  When I put the two terms to Google I get three and a half pages of hits and I think a third of them are irrelevant and another third are from your edits or copies thereof.  The early stations on the Stations list that have been placed on a map seem to be practically on top of one another and of the modern Suez Canal, or more precisely the bitter lake Marah (Bible).  Now the ancient canal I'm thinking of is mapped here  and extends really close to the route east the Israelites were supposed to be taking, isn't it?  And I'd think an artificial branch of the Nile with a major shipping canal in it would be a very important travel route...
 * The argument that they must have gone by ship because it took so long doesn't make sense to me. In the ancient world ships were the fastest way to travel.  The motion of a seminomadic group of people of all ages on foot would be slow.  I also find it highly suspect that someone would call ships "walls holding back the water".  One look at a native Australian and you know that ships were almost as ancient a technology back then as they are today.  No, I don't understand hieroglyphics, but I'd be very surprised if the writer would have lacked specific words to describe them.  And would someone in one of those flat shallow ancient Egyptian ships really think of walls holding back the water rather than decks bearing them over it?
 * Anyway, I digress - what we really should do is get some sources to say where Elim (Bible) is. And please, rename Stations list to "Stations of the Exodus" or something. Wnt (talk) 06:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)




 * You raise a lot of interesting points. Elim was at what we call Quseir. It has a long history as the port of Thebes. Its best known as the port where Hatshepsuts Red Sea fleet was built and kept. Its an oases at the head of the Wadi Hammamat near Myos Hormos. If you Google that with the map function you will get an idea of what it looks like. First locate the Red Sea, then zoom in a little till you see Thebes and Quseir. In the Phoenician period it was called Elim, in the Greek period Leucos Limen. At that time Thebes was called Coptos and it had overland links to Myos Hormos Philoterus and Bernice as well. According to the archaeologists studying the Eastern desert all the Red Sea Trade went through Coptos or Thebes. A picture of Egypt in the Greco Roman period, Baines and Ma'lek "Atlas of Ancint Egypt" p 53 has an illustration of Thebes and all its ports.


 * You should know that while the Egyptians were using the ports from the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt onward, Elim and Elat are Phoenician words, so as words they date to c 600 BC, about the time of Neco I no earlier.


 * Like Mylos Hormus and Quseir Elim is a name we can trace back to its source. In 600 BC Neco I hired a Phoenician fleet to circumnavigate Libya and return through the pillars of Hercules. They built their ships at Elat crossed to Thebes port, named it Elim (because of its tall trees suitable for masts) and then sailed off down the Red Sea. They eventually accomplished the feat but it took them three years.


 * Like the words, PiHiharoth (Egyptian), Philoterus (Greek), Migdol (semitic for high place) and "Bael Zephon" (which is a combination of the semitic god of the storm Baal and the Greek god of the gentle West Wind Zephyrus), Elim and Elat are textual artifacts of both the presence of the Phoenicians on the Red Sea and a Bible editor writing in that time. The authors of the bible edited it several times so it has bits and pieces of language floating around in it that come from different times and places that serve as textual artifacts. The first time was in Babylon c 1750 BC when the events of Genesis 14 were current events. According to the Documentary Hypothesis it was edited again c 900 BC and according to John Van Seters again around 600 BC.


 * For Elim try searching with the word Terebinth. Both Elim and Elat are plurals of the word El which in western semitic languages means power. The powers we are talking about here are the mighty trees, the powerful trees, the tall oak trees or Terebinths that are suitable for Asherah poles and masts. "And they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees"; describing an oases with mighty trees.


 * If you zoom in enough to see the terrain between them thats the Wadi Hamamat. Its been in use since the fourth dynasty of Egypt to get between Thebes and Egypt and there are discussion online of its history and graffiti. Finally zoom in on Quasir and look at its well protected harbor. Its really the most suitable site for a harbor along the coast and thats what it has been used for since the Egyptians first began using boats. Pan around a little and you will see that Quseir still has its springs and tall trees suitable for masts. (see image)


 * Myos Hormos was a Red Sea port constructed by the Ptolemies around the 3rd century BC. Following excavations carried out recently by David Peacock and Lucy Blue of the University of Southampton, it is thought to have been located on the present-day site of Quseir al-Quadim (old Quseir), eight kilometres north of the modern town of Quseir in Egypt.[1]

Some of its main destinations were the Indus delta, Muziris and the Kathiawar peninsula in India. According to Strabo (II.5.12), by the time of Augustus, up to 120 ships were setting sail every year from Myos Hormos to India:

"At any rate, when Gallus was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos to India, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise."

—Strabo II.5.12. [1]


 * You can follow the links from Myos Hormos to get to the Maritime Incense route."An ancient shipping manual, 'The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea' by an unknown author describes much of this trade. The principle ports for incense trade were Cane, Aden and Muza in the south, and Berinece, Philotera, Myos Hormos, Leuce Kome, and Aila in the north. These ports had routes that led them to Gaza and Alexandria."


 * From about the third millenium BC commercial bulk shipping became the first of two major technological advances that increased trade and commerce. There was trade between Mesopotamia and India, the second was the horse c 2000 BC. People have been using the same routes for 4000 years.

The Red Sea ships of the Ancient Egyptians were over 100 feet long, don't confuse them with the shallow draft vessels of the Nile.

The Eastern Desert

 * The Eastern Desert was also used as a through route from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea, as it was in most other periods. It is thought that official expeditions transported pre-fabricated but unassembled boats from Koptos to the Red Sea port of Marsa Gawasis, via the Wadi Hammamat. At the port, the boats were assembled and the expeditions proceeded by sea.  One of the commonly recorded destinations was Punt (Kitchen 2005).  The port of Marsa Gawasis, discovered in the 1970s and recently re-examined by Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn Bard between 2001 and 2004, has provided firm evidence for its use as a port during Middle Kingdom, with two periods of occupation - in the 12th and 13th Dynasties. It may also have been used during the First Intermediate period or the very late Old Kingdom. Fattovich states that both the archaeology and epigraphy support an “indisputably” maritime function for this site (2005, p.19). The port was probably located here for a number of reasons - a natural harbour is easily accessible from the sea via a chanel cut inot the coral reef, it provided a good natural shelter for ships, it was near to the Wadi Gawasis (only 1km to the north) which provided a direct route to the Nile Valley, playa lakes appear to have been formed which would have provided fresh water, and local raw materials could be employed for copper smelting and pottery manufacture whilst local half plant wre used for making rope (Fattovich 2005). The settlement has produced evidence to suggest how different parts of Marsa Gawasis were used. Components include storage rooms which held both cargo and the materials needed for shipping expeditions, temporary shelters, some with hearths, ceremonial monuments and tumuli, functional areas for metal working and pottery manufacture, and workshop where limestone anchors were made and lithic tools were manufactured.   The anchors seem to have had both practical and ceremonial purposes: “In particular, the anchors were placed in front of the entry of the shrines, and broken anchors were buried inside them, most likely as a votive deposit, suggesting that the shrines and possibly some of the tumuli were memoirs of naval expeditions, which were recorded in the small stelae usually associated with these structures” (Fattovich 2005, p.19). Boat building and operational materials included Lebanese cedar for manufacturing sea-worthy boats, and halfa leaves used to make rope. On the basis of inscriptions on stelae and ostraca, Sayed identified the site at Marsa Gawasis as the Pharaonic port S3ww, from which expeditions were sent to Punt.  The stela of Antefoker dating to the reigns of Senusret I records 3756 men sent to the port fore an expedition to Punt. Unfortunately there is only scarce data for long distance trade.

The earliest mention of the Medjay dates to this time. The nomads of the Eastern Desert are mentioned for the first time in the Semnah Dispatches in the reign of Ammenemes III. In the 12th Dynasty tomb chapel at Meir a frieze shows Medjay tribesmen herding cattle, supervised by Egyptian overseers (Berg 1998 WR).

Finally, Aufrere concludes that “Theoretically or religiously speaking, each nome was linked to an aspect of the traditional desert economy, and most of these links can still be observed in the late religious texts” (2002, p.211).

The New Kingdom
New Kingdom At the end of the Second Intermediate period the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt under the leadership of Ahmose, the first Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. The Egyptian empire was expanded into S.W. Asia and Nubia was once again brought under Egyptian control, bringing new economic opportunities to Egypt. The 18th Dynasty had a capital in Thebes and was quite clearly a period of enormous wealth, albeit interrupted by the Amarna period, when the Pharaoh Akehnaten established both a new religion and a new capital on a temporary basis, before the old order was re-established. The succeeding 19th Dynasty, with a new capital in the Delta at Piramesse (Qantir), was a period of great military activity with campaigns taking place far beyond the borders of modern Egypt. The 20th Dynasty was a period of instability, with Egypt having to defend itself against military challenges. The end of the New Kingdom is somewhat unclear, but sees the succession of Smendes from Ramesses XI as first Pharaoh of the 21st Dynasty. Smendes ruled from Tanis, but the 22nd Dynasty was established with the reign of the first of the Libyan rulers, Sheshonq I. The Libyans appear to have had control over most of Egypt at this time, with a period of retreat in the face of brief Nubian incursions which established the 24th Dynasty. His withdrawal resulted in the establishment of the Late Period.

Another religious temple is the Speos Artemidos, a rock cut shrine 3km from Beni Hasan in a small wadi. The shrine probably dates tot he Middle Kingdom, but it is most commonly associated with teh new Kingdom and hte New Kingdom. It was dedicated to the lion goddess Pakhet, who was an aspect of Hathor. The facade of the shrine consists of four pillars cut into the rock with a central doorway. the entrance opens into a hall with four pillars decorated with hieroglyphs and damaged reliefs. The most important inscription was left during the reign of Hatshepsut, and describes the stabilizing effect of the reign of Hatshepsut following the chaos of the Hyksos rulers. The following translation is available on the following page, adapted from Allen 2002 http://www.ancientneareast.net/texts/egyptian/speos_artemidos.html:

So listen, all you elite and multitude of commoners: I have done this by the plan of my mind. (36) I do not sleep forgetting, (but) have made form what was ruined. For I have raised up what was dismembered beginning (37) from the time when the Asiatics were in the midst of the Delta, (in) Avaris, with vagrants in their midst, (38) toppling what had been made. They ruled without the Sun, and he did not act by god's decree down to my (own) uraeus-incarnation. (Now) I am set (39) on the Sun's thrones, having been foretold from ages of years as one born to take possession. I am come as Horus, the sole (40) uraeus spitting fire at my enemies. I have banished the gods' abomination, the earth removing their footprints.

Other scenes, texts and cartouches date to the reigns of Tuthmosis III and Seti I, and there is graffiti from later periods. A temple near to the Speos Artemidos, called the Speos Batn el-Bakarah, is located near to the Speos Artemidos, and was dedicated to Pakhet, apparently by Hatshepsut and her daughter, although ti was decorated during the reign of Alexander. Both temples probably had more to do with the Nile than the Eastern Desert. The small wadi in which they were located does not appear to have been used as a through-route to elsewhere. However, their presence in the Eastern Desert indicates a respect for the deserts.

The data for the New Kingdom, as with other Dynastic periods is fragmented, based on what is known about expeditions into and through the desert.

Kanais Temple, located on the south side of a wadi, a tiny temple dedicated to Seti I, located near a number of rock art sites. It consists of a portico of stone blocks extending into a cliff overhang, with the inner sanctum carved into the rock face. The roof is supported by four columns. The inner sanctum is sealed at the moment to protect it, but the walls of the temple itself display scenes of Set I smiting defeating captives, and making an offering to Amun Ra (Rohl 2000, p.15-16).

By the New Kingdom, the main routes within Egypt and leading beyond her borders were well established. this provided a network for trade, communication and industry. Bomann and Young say that these “include Tell Abu Sefa to el-Arish (the ‘Way of Hours’). the wadi Tumilat, the Wadi Gasus to Safaga, the Wadi Hammamat to Quseir and the Wadi Abbad to Berenice”, and they add that a main route during the New Kingdom on the border of Middle Egypt was the Wadi Araba “whose estuary opens into the Gulf of Suez at Safarana, opposite Abu Zenima on the west coast of Sinai (1994, p.28). They also point out that the negative evidence within the Middle Eastern Desert is of interest, with no major routes crossing from the Nile Valley to the coast - it was not until the Roman period that the Via Hadriana linked Middle Egypt and the Red Sea (Bowmann and Young 1994, p.28). Probably the most famous use of the Wadi Hammamat as a through-route to the Red Sea is recorded at Deir el Bahri, where Hatshepsut’s text describing her expedition to Punt (land of the Gods) is recorded. Judging by the products, including ebony, baboons, spices and gold) together with the images of Red Sea and Indian Ocean fish in the sea, the land of Punt could have been located in East Africa or South Arabia (Kitchen 2005).

Marsa Gawasis and the belief that the Egyptians did not travel long distances by sea

 * Sailing to Punt

Well-preserved wrecks of Pharaonic seafaring vessels unearthed last week on the Red Sea coast reveal that the Ancient Egyptians enjoyed advanced maritime technology, Nevine El-Aref reports

The long-held belief that the Ancient Egyptians did not tend to travel long distances by sea because of poor naval technology proved fallacious last week when timbers, rigging and cedar planks were unearthed in the ancient Red Sea port of Marsa Gawasis, 23 kilometres south of Port Safaga.

The remains of seafaring vessels were found in four large, hand-hewn caves which were probably used as storage or boat houses from the Middle Kingdom to the early New Kingdom periods. Early examination revealed that each cave measured 60 square metres and had an entrance constructed of reused anchors, limestone blocks and wooden beams. Other stone anchors were located outside the entrances.

One of these caves contains more than 80 perfectly preserved coils of different sized ropes which were once used on ships. The Italian mission director, Rodolfo Fattovich of the University of Naples " l'Orientale ", says: "Today, we have access to the rear of the cave and we can see that most of its walls are concealed with these coils of lines, each about a metre long and 60cms wide. Each bundle of ropes represents from at least 20 to 30 metres of line."

Fattovich said that in the second cave the rope bundles were easily visible from the entrance; they had horizontal wraps of 18 turns around one-metre vertical loops. "It is really spectacular," he said.

Egyptologist Mohamed Mustafa, a specialist in maritime archaeology, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the amount of rigging discovered in Marsa Gawasis was the largest ever found.

The pieces of rigging are very fragile, but consolidation work will be carried out before restoration to facilitate their transportation to the on-site restoration laboratory. Mustafa said that rigging was considered highly important and was very costly. According to Old Kingdom inscriptions, a 1000-metre length of riggings was worth 40 head of cattle, and during the New Kingdom it cost the price of a bull.

"This is a very important discovery and sheds light on Ancient Egyptian naval technology and the elaborate ancient Red Sea trade network," Mustafa told the Weekly. He said that people tend to assume that the Egyptians did not do many long-distance trips because very few remains of these sites have been found. Based on this belief, they also thought that Punt was located in southern Sinai and not in southern Sudan or the Eritrean region of Ethiopia.

Large, well-preserved ships' planks and their fastenings were also unearthed, and the presence of extensive damage to the planks by marine worms or borers provides irrefutable evidence of seafaring. Most of the timbers were in a context that indicated their reuse in ramps and walkways, but many were significantly reworked.

Analyses made by Rainer Gerisch of the Free University, Berlin, on the different types of wood used in boat construction revealed that it was imported from far and wide: from Syria and Palestine to the Nile Valley and Red Sea mountains.

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), is enthusiastic about the find. "It is very exciting," he says. "It reveals the world's oldest remains of seafaring ships." Hawass says a deposit of 21 plastered wooden boxes of ships' cargo was found buried in sand outside the caves. One of these boxes bears a painted inscription saying: "the wonderful products of Punt", indicating that the boxes once contained cargo imported from Punt. The boxes also bear a partially preserved cartouche of Pharaoh Amenemhat III, who ruled about 1,800 B.C. "This inscriptions was very carefully recorded on site but could not be preserved as the state of preservation of the wood was very bad," Hawass says.

Fragments of pottery marked with the 12th- Dynasty seal imprint were scattered near the boxes, and a stela with the five names of Amenemhat III was installed in a niche. Archaeologists also discovered two ostraca, of which one seems to be an administrative board recording food provisions. Both ostraca are now under comprehensive study by El-Sayed Mahfouz from Assiut University. That these ostraca should have been preserved with little damage for so long is unusual. Indeed the preservation of organic material in the caves is truly remarkable.

"This discovery is shedding light on other aspects of the Red Sea trade," Hawass says. Inside the small cave the team found fragments of pottery that the Italian archaeologists believe originated in Yemen, which suggests that Egyptians either sailed further than had been previously thought or were part of a more complex trade network.

A geophysical survey with a magnetometre was conducted on site, revealing some interesting anomalies at the base of the western and southern slopes of Marsa Gawasis's fossilised-coral terrace. Geo-physicist Glen Dash said that a test excavation in correspondence to a long anomaly at the southern slope suggested that this could be an ancient shoreline. Shells found here contain a great quantity of marine organisms, which means that the bay was much deeper in the past. Close to this shore line, a large conglomerate anchor and Middle Kingdom potsherds were found. Meanwhile, geo-archaeological investigations carried out support the hypothesis that the mouth of Marsa Gawasis was originally a lagoon.

Sailing to Punt required a tremendous investment of manpower. Egyptian shipbuilders harvested cedarwood from the mountains of Lebanon and transported it up the Nile to a shipbuilding site, where the vessels were first assembled and then disassembled into travel-ready pieces that could be carried on a 10-day journey across about 100 miles of desert to the coast.

Based on texts discovered more than a century ago, researchers have known that Egyptians mounted naval expeditions to Punt as far back as the Old Kingdom to obtain gold, ebony, ivory, leopard skins and the frankincense necessary for religious rituals. The hides of giraffe, panther and cheetah, which were worn by temple priests, were imported along with live exotic animals -- either for the priests' own menageries or as religious sacrifices -- including the sacred cynocephalus or dog-faced baboon. Little wonder, then, that Punt became known as the "Land of the Gods", and as the personal pleasure garden of the great god Amun.

Trade between Egypt and Punt appears to have been suspended after the 12th Dynasty and not resumed until early in the 18th, when the most famous expedition to Punt, that of Queen Hatshepsut, came as an outcome of a consultation with the oracle of the god Amun in which she was instructed to send a fleet of ships there. The expedition is featured in relief in Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir Al-Bahari. It portrays a total of 10 ships, five entering harbour and five loading and setting sail. It is assumed that the ships were prefabricated on the Nile at Coptos, a point where it most closely approaches the Red Sea, and were then stripped down and the components transported through Wadi Hammamat by donkey caravan to Quseir, where they were reassembled. On completion of the mission to Punt, an often dangerous journey, and the equally dangerous return journey to the Egyptian port, the ships had to be stripped down again and their parts carried back through the desert valley along with their rich cargoes to the Nile, where they would be reassembled, reloaded, and set sail to Thebes.

What triggered Fattovich and his colleague Kathryn A Bard from Boston University to work at the Marsa Gawasis site for five consecutive archaeological seasons was their quest to solve the enigma of an African civilisation. During the 1990s, both archaeologists had conducted a 10- year excavation near Aksum, Ethiopia, where they found evidence of a previously unknown period in African history. However when war broke out along the Eritrean border in 1998, they decided to relocate to the Egyptian coast. The team first went to Marsa Gawasis in 2001 to investigate, as they describe it, "the other end of the Red Sea trade."

Fattovich selected the site because Egyptian archaeologist Abdel-Moneim Sayed from Alexandria University had identified it in the 1970s as the likely location of the ancient seaport of Saaw, known from texts as the departure point for expeditions to Punt. The team limits its excavation to the six weeks between semesters each winter, avoiding the extreme heat and humidity during the summer.

Thrilled by the recent cave discoveries, Mustafa notes that they have only begun to learn the secrets of Marsa Gawasis. "I'm sure there are more caves we haven't excavated yet," he says. "It was the find of a lifetime and there's much more to discover there."
 * The following is from a discussion of the Arabian Incense trade, but it makes a couple of important points. The trade is ancient. Part of it is overland and part of it is across the Red Sea. One end of it is tied to the Nabateans who were located at Petra a short distance up the wadi Arabah from Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba which is where Solomon based his fleet. The trade goes across the Red Sea to Myos Hormos. In addition to frankincense and Myrrh coming up the Araba to Petra there were bitumen, natron, juniper oil and other things the Egyptians beeded for their mummification process at Karnak across the nile from Thebes. Another port is mentioned on the Arabian side Leuce Kome. I should mention I have traveled this route from the Rub al Khali through the mountains of the Red Sea up to somewhere close to Leuce Kome and there are still to this day stone towers (Khamis Mushat) about every eight miles marking the way.

The Nabateans
The Nabataeans maintained two ports that we know about. The first was Aila at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. The Nabataeans also maintained a port on the Red Sea known as Leuce Come (meaning white village.) This harbor later served as a port of trade for European ships as well as the smaller Arab dhows that would come loaded with freight from Arabia. (Periplus 19) The Nabataeans/Romans maintained a customs office at Leuce Come as well as a centurion and a detachment of soldiers. The usual customs on luxury goods was 25%. This port may have been located at the modern village of Khuraybah. (See Where was Leuce Come?) From Leuce Come a caravan route wound it's way north to Petra. (Strabo 16.781)

To date, no one has established the exact location of Leuce Come. The Periplus describes briefly describes it, mentioning that there was a fort there where taxes were collected. It also mentions that small ships used this port. Perhaps this was due to coral reefs. Strabo mentions Leuce Come in his narration about the Roman attempt to take Arabia. He tells how the Romans had trouble navigating their ships through the coral reefs to land.. "After enduring great hardships and distress, he arrived on the fifteenth day at Leuce-Come, a large mart in the territory of the Nabataeans, with the loss of many of his vessels, some with all their crews, in consequence of the difficulty of the navigation, but by no opposition from an enemy. These misfortunes were occasioned by the perfidy of Syllaeus, who insisted that there was no road for an army by land to Leuce-Come, to which and from which place the camel traders travel with ease and in safety from Selah, and back to Selah, with so large a body of men and camels as to differ in no respect from an army." XVI.iv.24

The fort and taxation center at Leuce-Come demonstrates to us that foreign caravans would frequent the place, and that they would be taxed. Nabataean caravans and boats were part of internal trade, and may not have been taxed in the same way. Interestingly enough, to date this is the only reference we have of the Nabataeans taxing goods passing through their land.

Several suggestions have been made about the location of Leuce Come. Check out these links:. Where was Leuce Come? . A Possible Solution for Leuce-Come

There has been an Incense Trade Route for as long as there has been recorded history. As soon as the camel was domesticated, Arab tribes began carrying incense from southern Arabia to the civilizations scattered around the Mediterranean Sea. By the time of King Solomon, the incense route was in full swing, and Solomon reaped rich rewards in the form of taxes from the incense passing into and through his kingdom.

The records of Babylon and Assyria all mention the incense trade but it wasn't until the Nabataean tribe of Arabs dominated the Incense Road that Europeans suddenly took notice. For the Nabataeans completely monopolized not only the Incense Road but the Silk Road as well.

Up until 24 BC the Nabataeans moved large caravans of frankincense, myrrh and other incenses from southern Arabia and spices from India and beyond to the Mediterranean ports of Gaza and Alexandria.

From this page you can visit some of the stopping places on the Incense Road. The Roman historian Pliny the Elder mentioned that the route took 62 days to traverse from one end to the other. Many of these stops were cities or towns while others were simply watering locations or dry encampments in the desert. They averaged between 20 and 25 miles apart. We have listed twenty five of the caravan stopping places on the left side of this web page. Each of these links opens a page about the stopping place. From these pages you can follow even more links as you explore further in Nabataea.net and beyond.

It is important to note that the Incense Route was not fixed. As towns or kingdoms tried taxing the caravans passing through them, the merchants would switch their routes, using different passes or treks through the desert. As a result, towns along the route would wax and wane, depending on the route that the caravans took.

At its height, the Incense Route moved over 3000 tons of incense each year. Thousands of camels and camel drivers were used. The profits were high, but so were the risks from thieves, sandstorms, and other threats.

Soon after 24 BC, the Incense Road began to be replaced by the Incense Sea Route. As Nabataean dhows carried Incense from ports along the southern coast of Arabia north to Nabataea and Egypt, the inland route slowly passed out of existence.

Early Travels and Trade Some people are surprised at the thought of early sea trade by the Arabs, but around 510 BC Darius the Great, king of Persia, sent one of his officers, Scylax of Caryanda, to explore the Indus. Scylax traveled overland to the Kabul River. Having reached the Indus he then followed it to the sea. From there he sailed westward, and, passing by the Persian Gulf, which was already well known, explored the Red Sea, finally arriving at Arsino', near modern Suez.

Another early historian, Herodotus, wrote of Necho II, king of Egypt in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC, that "when he stopped digging the canal . . . from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf . . . sent forth Phoenician men in ships ordering them to sail back by the Pillars of Hercules." According to the story, they did this in three years. Upon their return, "they told things . . . unbelievable to me," says Herodotus, "namely that in sailing round Libya they had the sun on the right hand." Whatever he thought of the story of the sun, Herodotus was inclined to believe in the voyage in his comment: "Libya, that is Africa, shows that it has sea all round except the part that borders on Asia." Strabo records another story with the same theme. One man named Eudoxus, returning from a voyage to India about 108 BC, was blown far to the south of Cape Guardafui in Africa. When he landed he found a wooden prow with a horse carved on it, and he was told by the Africans that it came from a wrecked ship of men from the west. The greater part of the campaigns of the famous conqueror Alexander the Great were military exploratory journeys. The earlier expeditions through Babylonia and Persia were through regions already familiar to the Greeks, but the later ones, through the enormous tract of land from the south of the Caspian Sea to the mountains of the Hindu Kush, brought the Greeks a great deal of new geographical knowledge. Alexander and his army crossed the mountains to the Indus Valley and then made a westward march from the lower Indus to Susa through the desolate country along the southern edge of the Iranian plateau. Nearchus, his admiral, in command of the naval forces of the expedition, waited for the favorable monsoon and then sailed from the mouth of the Indus to the mouth of the Euphrates, exploring the northern coast of the Persian Gulf on his way.

During the time of the Ptolemies of Egypt, Nabataean merchants regularly brought eastern goods to the various Egyptian ports on the Red Sea. These goods then made their way to Alexandria, allowing the city to become the world's greatest center of trade.

The Periplus Maris Erythraei is an ancient manual for merchants traveling to India. It was written in the second half of the 1st century A.D. by a man with a Greek name, living in Alexandria. This manual is very important as it shows us to what extend the shipping lanes had gained in importance at the expense of the overland caravan routes, and provides us with details about ancient cargoes and ports.

As the coasts became well known, the seasonal character of the monsoon winds was skillfully used. The southwest monsoon was long known as Hippalus, named for a sailor who was credited with being the first to sail with it direct from the Gulf of Aden to the coast of the Indian peninsula. During the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD, traders reached Siam (now Thailand), Cambodia, Sumatra, Java, and a few seem to have penetrated northward to the coast of China. In AD 161, according to Chinese records, an "embassy" came from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius to the Yellow Emperor Huan-ti, bearing goods that Huan-ti gratefully received as "tribute." Were these Romans or Nabataean traders acting "in the name of Rome?" It is interesting to note that Ptolemy, the Roman geographer, did not know of these voyages, and on his maps he brought the peninsula of Colmorgo (Malay) southwestward to join the eastward trend of the coast of Africa, thus creating a closed Indian Ocean. He presumably did not believe the story of the circumnavigation of Africa by earlier explorers, and did not know of sailors arriving in China in the name of Rome. The Arabs were very successful in dominating the eastern sea routes from the 1st century BC to the 15th century AD. A collection of Arabian tales called The Thousand and One Nights recounts the daring exploits of Sinbad the Sailor. Behind the fiction the knowledge of these adventurous Arab sailors and traders can be found, as the stories supply us with detail to fill in the outline of the geography of the Indian Ocean. Regarding the Nabataeans of this time, it is interesting to notice that the historian Strabo mentions that the Nabataeans "are not very good warriors on land, rather being hucksters and merchants, not like their fighting at sea." One can infer from Strabo that the Nabataeans were known for their seamanship and piracy, but their land-based military was rather poor. Later, Josephus gives us the story of Cleopatra and Antony's foiled escape. After their defeat by Octavian (soon known as Augustus) at Actium in 31 BC, Antony and Cleopatra tried to escape on the Red Sea, but their fleet of 60 ships was caught by the Nabataeans and destroyed. This left the Nabataeans again masters of the seas, and Cleopatra and Antony ended their lives by suicide.

How information on the talk page adds to the article
Rktect (talk) 12:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

And all of this is supposed to be used in the article exactly how? dougweller (talk) 22:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * To locate the ports, their names in different periods, who used them to trade what goods when. There are a lot of different things to consider since archaeologists have moved off the Nile and into the eastern desert they have discovered catches of boats, inscriptions, and artifacts of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Nabateans, and Arabs. Since the trade is ongoing for about 5,000 years and a lot of people don't know much about it there is a lot to say. The articles above make it clear that Egyptian Thebes, (Greek Coptos) was linked to four Red Sea ports, Myos Hormos, [some external links edited for Wikipedia spam filter] projects imrd org/wadigawasis htm Mersa Gawasis, (Greek www traveljournals net/explore/egypt/map/m467649/philoteras html), Phoenician Elim Greek (Lykos Limen ), and Bernice. The first three traded with Phoenician Elat (Arabic Aqaba), and Greek Bernice with Lykos Kome. Plus theres the Medway, the Nubians, and the ships of Punt and Ophir trading with Solomon at Elat.


 * I see, in other words, more OR. The lead says "The Passage of the Red Sea refers to the Biblical account of the passage of the Red Sea by Moses". That is the subject of the article. We can include reliable sources that discuss the Biblical account, but NOT speculation about ports. dougweller (talk) 10:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That the Passage of the Red Sea refers only to the Biblical account of the Passage of the Red Sea by Moses is just wrong on every level. To start with it reflects the opinion that the account was by Moses which has long since been shown to be false in the Documentary Hypotheis. Secondly its about the Passage of the Red Sea. The passage of the Red Sea by Moses has a place there, but its far from being the only one. It certainly adds to the article to include more information as user Wnt is pointing out Rktect (talk) 12:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The article is about the Biblical text, it is not about travel on the Red Sea. dougweller (talk) 14:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions

 * I'd suggest an opening thats better written, a summary section, a mention of the trade in ornamental stone, Serabit el-Khadim, the mines for gold, copper, Peridot, and Emeralds, the trade in Carnelian and Lapis Lazuli from Afgahanistan, a section on the 4th, 12th, 18th and later Egyptian dynasties,, a mention of canals connecting the Nile and the red Sea, a mention of the passage of the Red Sea by Moses a Section on the Phoenicians and their role in exploring the trade routes and naming Elim and Elat, some discussion of ports on the other side of the Red Sea, a section on the Greeks, their Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a section on the Romans who went as far as China, a section on the Arab frankincense trade, the trade with the Indian Ocean, a section on the Medjay, the Nabatean pirates and their artifacts in Egypt, a section on the archaeology, a section on the gold fields that line the coast from the wadi Hammamat down through Nubia and on the other side at Dophkah and the Role of the Paran oases and possibly some pictures of the cartouches in the Wadi Hamamat that go back to Pepi the second king of the sixth dynasty. Rktect (talk) 00:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Note though that the Wadi Tumilat you mentioned as one of the "main routes from Bomann and Young" is described in Suez Canal as the basis of one of the major ancient canals linking to the Red Sea, and according to that article was functioning that way in the 12th century BC. So I don't at all see "the negative evidence within the Middle Eastern Desert is of interest, with no major routes crossing from the Nile Valley to the coast"  Unfortunately, Google Earth shows this as the Ismailia Canal and a major agricultural corridor, so I suppose it's unlikely that anyone is going to brush away a little dust and find legions of dead Egyptians or graffiti about Moses there. :(  The Cairo to Suez Canal by comparison looks beautifully preserved - I didn't have to know where it was to pick out bits and pieces of it in the desert terrain, complete with some of the weirdest stuff I've spotted in Google Earth (giant perfect circles, multitudes of weird little bunkers... it's fun looking at but I haven't got a clue).
 * By the way, Rktect, I think your comments, if a bit verbose, are useful - if nothing else it provides a long long list of articles to request! It seems like in the past few months that the deletionist disease has started spreading into the talk pages, but I think that a disorganized chattiness is necessary for growth.  But it's hard to keep track of places - I've once again adorned your answer with Wikilinks, and if you can fill in some of the red ones (either by alternate spelling or by creating stub articles, even a couple of lines and one reference) it would sure help.
 * Another question: is there only the one Elim? If it just means tall trees could there be a different one for the Exodus story? Wnt (talk) 08:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The Suez canal is as you know focused on connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. From the perspective of the Egyptians from about the 11th dynasty onwards the Mediterranian was full of the enemies that eventually became the Hyksos and the Sea People while the Red Sea was turning out to be the source of a lot of Money. All those routes from Thebes through the eastern desert to its ports led through goldfields, to mines for peridot, emeralds and beautiful ornamental stone. The trade roots it developed there across the Red Sea were largely Egyptian monopolies forcing other traders from the Mediterranean to take long and costly overland routes through the desert and then down along the ridges of the mountains fronting the Red Sea. I blew an engine trying to climb some of them. Climbing from Taith and Abha, up to Khamis Mushat and back down Tathlith there is some pretty rugged country.


 * Using google to explore it is a good idea. Those giant perfect circles come where a well is used to provide water to a pipe which rotates around a field and irrigates it. You can get enough detail most places to pick out where the routes were, not to mention where oil and gas exploration have destroyed a lot of ancient infrastructure and trade routes through the deserts of Saudi Arabia.


 * Oh, sorry, not those circles! See  30°10'24.53"N  32° 5'2.04"E.  Actually they're not as big or as perfectly round as those massive fields, but I was just very surprised to see them.  Sorry for the distraction. Wnt (talk) 20:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry for not getting your meaning. Those circles are near Tel el-Mashkuteh, and about 600 feet in radius. the agricultural circles are about 1500 feet in radius
 * I don't know what they are but I'd bet they are some part of archaeological excavations. I expect the trenching around the perimeters is designed to look for walls or footings. A lot of the little apparently U shaped structures in the area that are measuring about 36' in width look like mastaba graves or burial mounds; they don't appear to be houses though some have roads going to them. I expect all that stuff has been long since excavated.


 * The regions where the Phoenicians took Terebinths generally show as mountainous oases. Closer to their home turf there is Mt Hermon and the cedar mountain with Elim and Elat the southern end of a mountian chain called the Seir but so far as I know there is only the one coupled pair Elim and Elat. I'm working on a stub for Elim incorporating some of the above, its in my user space and you can work with me on editing it there if you like. At the moment I'm just cutting and pasting to categorize and then I'll edit and wikify.


 * That work for Neco I is really the only time and place the Phoenician fleets had a point of contact with Egypt. Gaza and the coast of Canaan was more of a proto Greek seapeople thing.


 * Most people have looked at the reference to the Hyksos as being foreign or Phoenician kings and the Beni Hasan inscription as dating their entry to c 1900 BC, but the emporia in Egypts delta included Minoans, Myceneans, the proto Greeks referred to as Libyans from Cyrene, the Medjay from the Eastern deserts, Nubians, Bedouins from al Kharge, Hittites, Canaanites, Nabateans, Shashu and envoys from every group in the ancient near east and parts of Europe and Asia. There has been more exploration by Biblical archaeologists digging in that region than there has been for oil in Saudi Arabia. Rktect (talk) 09:52, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Other ports with names refering to the plural of el as in Elim (Leukos Limen) and Elat
Elaea or Elaia (Greek: Ελαία), also Elaias Limen is an ancient harbor town at the mouth of the Acheron river of Epirus. The town is mentioned by both Scylax and Ptolemy. Thucydides calls the surrounding district Elaeatis (Greek: Ελαιατις) further evidencing the town.

Biblically there is also the related Elohim, the waters above and the waters below, and the idea of an upper and lower sea refering to the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf or Erythrian Sea.

Elef which means clan but has the sense of the power of thousands may also be related.

Problems with the article
I've deleted some of the OR in it, specifically speculating about ports, etc. I've also removed the stuff about the Song of the Sea as it should all be in the section on the Song of the Sea (which is still pretty bad), and some of it was OR. There are still serious problems with the article. In 'Causes' it mentions with no references Priestly and Elohist sources, then 2 sections down is the "Biblical edits by authors J and P adding a role for God" section. And 2 sections after that is a brief unreferenced mentioned of the Documentary hypothesis. Confusing and especially so to the reader who has no idea what this is about. Oh, and 'priestly source' is mentioned in the 2nd paragraph. Probably the lead should only include the first paragraph. dougweller (talk) 11:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It might be good to discuss things before we remove them Doug. There are certainly plenty of references on the talk page to show the article is anything but original research. Rktect (talk) 11:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You seem to have a definition of original research that isn't exactly shared. If something doesn't mention the biblical passage in question, it almost certainly does not belong in this article. dougweller (talk) 14:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * According to Wikipedias guidelines, if the article is about the Passage of the Red Sea then any article from a reliable source having to do with the Passage of the Red Sea whether or not you personally think its important should be included. If you disagree with any of the authors cited why not produce an author who says that the Egyptians were incapable of crossing the Red Sea or whatever idea it is that you do disagree with?Rktect (talk) 16:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Anything that discusses the biblical story is fine if it is a reliable source. But it has to discuss the biblical story, not just something you think is relevant. dougweller (talk) 18:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Rktect, I think it's pretty clear that this article is intended to describe the Biblical passage - in fact, it really should be restricted mostly to events surrounding the actual crossing of the Red Sea and not the full story of Exodus. Broader topics - ranging from the full Exodus to the common ancient Egyptian trade routes (?) in use at the time - should be mentioned in WP:summary style but they should have their own articles to cover them in fullest detail. Wnt (talk) 21:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with the article discussing the biblical passage of the Red Sea but it should also give some context from reliable sources that might help people understand where the stations of the Exodus were, when the Exodus was, who went along, where the crossing started and where it arrived. Drawing on reliable sources from archaeology, history and linguistics that discuss those issues broadens the encyclopedic function of the article. Its why we wickify and reference almost every noun in every article.Rktect (talk) 23:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Rktect's latest edit
Rktect has just made some major changes to the article which I have reverted. Not only were they badly written with broken wiki links, spelling problems, etc, they were OR and I believe changes the thrust of the article with the lead being changed to discuss the navigation of the Red Sea over thousands of years. Such major changes need agreement and probably should be done piecemeal, and certainly should not leave behind spelling etc problems for others to clean up. dougweller (talk) 18:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll respond to Rktect's suggestion that I never add anything by pointing to my edits today on Narmer Palette and Avaris (on top of doing quite a bit of reversion of vandalism, etc.). More tomorrow on these two articles probably as I've been gathering some sources. dougweller (talk) 22:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Basic model
I just want to clarify what I'm drawing as the model most consistent with what I'm reading in most of the related articles.

The first four stations in the Stations list seem to bring the Israelites straight east along the canal from Cairo to the modern Suez Canal. 1. Raamses is identified with Avaris in the Cairo suburbs, a treasure city where Nile and canal meet and trade routes meet between Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and Nile. 2. Sukkot, which the "Stations list" article identifies with Tell el Maskhuta or Tjeku, which is on the Wadi Tumilat [external link edited for Wikipedia spam filter] www egyptsites co uk/lower/delta/eastern/maskhuta html and therefore near the beginning of the Ismailia Canal. It represents the place where the Israelites leave civilized Egypt and wander into the desert - but along a canal that provides a lifeline of Nile water. 3. Etham is identified in the Stations list as Ismailia, where the canal bends and turns south (also where it joins the modern Suez Canal). 4. Pi-hahiroth, listed as "probably a channel opening into one of the Bitter Lakes or the Mediterranean". Literally it means the "end of the canal", and in fact this is where the canal flows out into the Great Bitter Lake. According to Suez Canal, much later Ptomely installed a lock right where the Nile water flowed into the Great Bitter Lake, but I don't know if anything was there at the time (it would always have been desirable though, since it would keep the water pure for irrigation, and the Egyptians would not be the culture to miss a chance to irrigate!)

So here we are at the moment of the great miraculous Passage of the Red Sea. Note that according to Suez Canal the Bitter Lakes might at one point have been contiguous with or at least much less separated from the Red Sea - I think that looking at Google Earth it is apparent that that end of the Red Sea has silted up dramatically sometime not so long ago in geologic terms, with river mouths and old ruins now separated from the sea by huge swaths of sand. Alternatively there's the question of "Red Sea" or "Reed Sea". Whatever the reason, our Israelites are now sitting ducks in a right-angled death trap, with the Nile flowing merrily to the east of them, the Great Bitter Lake (or "Red Sea" or "Reed Sea") blocking them to the south, and the Pharaoh's Army no doubt forming up phalanxes and carefully preparing to slaughter a trapped and defenseless enemy.

Now with a flourish, Moses waves his rod... and the Nile water stops flowing. It probably would be hard to cross a canal, empty or full, but perhaps the tide is at a low point in the Red/Reed Sea, and perhaps as the river stops flowing the water drops a little further. And the Israelites start out onto the sandy beach and walk their way down the coast, straight across the channel of the empty river, and out to the western side. The Egyptians notice something is up and start after them... but alas, that Nile water starts flowing again. If someone broke down a lock or two it might even be a pretty impressive flash flood of water spraying out and sending them to sea. After all, the Israelites have just walked all the way down the canal from Cairo - they've had their chance to bribe or replace everyone controlling so much as an irrigation ditch for the entire length of it. They could have arranged to stop and start a whole lot of water.

After that it gets more hazy. Marah (Bible) is speculated to be somewhere near the Small Bitter Lake, Elim (Bible) could be just about anywhere - one guess puts it fairly close to the Port of Suez, while an older guess puts it 100 miles southeast of Suez. (There is a nice ruin of a walled city by a wadi mouth 98 miles southeast of Suez visible on Google Earth) Now the Israelites could go up the wadi into the Wilderness of Sin, mostly because it's shorter than the seacoast route. There are plants visible all up and down that wadi, there are oases on it, it goes fairly near some of the guessed locations for Mount Sinai, and it seems to cut through easily to another wadi heading out to the east coast, but at this point everything starts to look alike, and I'm not really that interested in that part of the trip right now. Wnt (talk) 08:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)




 * The stations list used to make sense but it was reverted by an anonomous editor who systematically blanked most of its content and then substituted nonsense. You can go back and look at the diffs but for someone like you who really wants to check out the sources right now as it stands its useless. Go back and look at them in the Bible, or better yet set Google for terrain and look at the terrain. The unit of a days march is about 7 1/2 miles. Allow about 8 miles a day for a people on the march walking not riding or marching with flocks and herds, old people, young people, lots of plunder... each time they camp they need water. Space out the stations using the distance tool and let me know where you end up. Above all use the places that are known points, Elat and Mt Horeb are an anchor point at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. The stations from there compass Edom and return down the arabah through Petra. I think some of them show up on Placeapedia when you google now.


 * The Exodus tells us that right before the people plunder the Egyptians and leave (Exodus 12:35), (Exodus 12:31 Pharoah summoned Moses and Aaron.) they are having discussions with the Pharoah at his court. In the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt that's at Thebes. Start with that. You aren't anywhere near Cairo. Thebes has no sdministrative or court presence in the south until the time of Horemhab.


 * The route you are giving me dates to some 19th century speculations by the excavator of Tell el-Maskhuta a wadi through which a canal was built in the late period allowing ships to sail from the Nile to the Red Sea. In 1883 E. Neville excavated a large brick enclosure and speculated it was Pithom. Most scholars now identify it with or Atum, the capital of the eigth Egyptian nome.


 * The problem is that because it was built in the late period it didn't exist in the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. No building and no canal. When it was built it was part of a canal not a treasure city.Additionally I note that you are speculating that they messed with the locks of the canal to create a wave of water that frowned the Egyptians in their chariots. The canals there have no locks, there is no change of height in the waters.


 * Essentially, that route doesn't work on any level and needs a better explanation already, but it gets worse. They need to pick up the bones of Joseph and they do so at Succoth.


 * Thebes is known as the city of Amon Ra and has a huge temple to that gods worship. It is in fact where the proper name Ramesses comes from. The Exodus tells us they then left Rameses for Succoth. They left in such a hurry they didn't have time to leaven their bread. many people in the past have assumed Ramesses was the palace of Rameses but this wasn't built until the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt That's strike two. There is a temple of Amun Ra at Thebes near the administrative district which existed in the right time period. "However, as the city of the god Amon-Ra, Thebes remained the religious capital of Egypt until the Greek period.[2] The main god of the city was Amon, who was worshipped together with his wife, the Goddess Mut, and their son Khonsu, the God of the moon.(iah) With the rise of Thebes as the foremost city of Egypt, the local god Amon rose in importance as well and became linked to the sun god Ra, thus creating the new 'king of gods' Amon-Ra. His great temple, at Karnak just north of Thebes, was the most important temple of Egypt right until the end of antiquity" It helps to know that Rameses isn't just a proper name associated with the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. (Modern) Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes, the great capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom, and the glorious city of the God Amon-Ra. In ancient Egypt the temples were like colleges. The temple of Amun Ra was a fertility center specializing in turning out mid wives who (mes) birth (ses) protect. The city was regarded in the Ancient Egyptian texts as WST (Pronounced "Waset"), which meant "the foremost" or "city of the sceptre" and also as T-IPT (probably pronounced as "ta ipet" and meaning "the shrine") and then, in a later period, the Greeks called it Thebai and the Romans after them Thebae.


 * Exodus 13:19 "Moses took with him the bones of Joseph" Karnak on the west bank of the river from Thebes was Egypts mortuary complex. If Joseph was as important a person in Egypt as the story tells us, that is where he would have been buried. Succoth"Sukkot is Egyptian for the place of entering into the darkness. It's the place where the Sons of Israel went to retrieve the bones of Joseph from his tomb at Karnak(Exodus 12:37)."


 * My editorial comment here is that all the parts need to work together. If you choose to place Pi-hahiroth in the incredibly flat plain that was chosen for the site of the canals, where is Migdol, the high place, where are Baal Zephon, Marah and the port of Elim with its twelve wells and seventy palm trees? Where do they get the bones of Joseph from? Where are their herds and flocks and the Egyptians from whom they loot tons of gold and silver? I want to empathise that Elim cannot be anyplace, its tied to Elat and though Leukos Limen to modern Quseir.


 * This sort of speculation often gets coupled with vulcanism to explain the ten plagues and the parting of the waters. I think that comes originally from Velikovsky. Its a favorite of writers who write hype to sell books such as like Zachariah Sitchin, Graham Hancock, David Role and Ken Kitchen.


 * From Succoth they moved on (headed for the sea) and encamped at Etham. In Egyptian there is no letter E, so the construction is more likely t' ham (the wilderness of the land of Ham using ta to mean land and Ham to refer to Egypt. Between Thebes and the sea lies the Wadi Hammamaat. We know that Etham is the edge of the wilderness  between Succoth and Pihahiroth which is another sensible Egyptian phrase. We know that its on the edge of the sea between Migdol which is a high place and Baal Zephon which refers to the power of the gentle west wind, and that from there they move on and come to Marah and then Elim. That describes the wadi Hamamaat a lot better than the land around the Suez canal.

Mumbers 33: 5 And the children of Israel removed from Rameses, and pitched in Succoth. 6 And they departed from Succoth, and pitched in Etham, which [is] in the edge of the wilderness. 7 And they removed from Etham, and turned again4 unto Pihahiroth, which [is] before Baalzephon: and they pitched before Migdol. 8 And they departed from before Pihahiroth, and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, and went three days' journey in the wilderness of Etham, and pitched in Marah. 9 And they removed from Marah, and came unto Elim: and in Elim [were] twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they pitched there.

10 And they removed from Elim, and encamped by the Red sea.

All of the following bolded places are in and around Elat.

11 And they removed from the Red sea, and encamped in the wilderness of Sin. 12 And they took their journey out of the wilderness of Sin, and encamped in Dophkah. 13 And they departed from Dophkah, and encamped in Alush. 14 And they removed from Alush, and encamped at Rephidim, where was no water for the people to drink. 15 And they departed from Rephidim, and pitched in the wilderness of Sinai. 16 And they removed from the desert of Sinai, and pitched at Kibrothhattaavah.

17 And they departed from Kibrothhattaavah, and encamped at Hazeroth. 18 And they departed from Hazeroth, and pitched in Rithmah. 19 And they departed from Rithmah, and pitched at Rimmonparez. 20 And they departed from Rimmonparez, and pitched in Libnah. 21 And they removed from Libnah, and pitched at Rissah. 22 And they journeyed from Rissah, and pitched in Kehelathah. 23 And they went from Kehelathah, and pitche4 in mount Shapher. 24 And they removed from mount Shapher, and encamped4 in Haradah. 25 And they removed from Haradah, and pitched in Makheloth. 26 And they removed from Makheloth, and encamped at Tahath. 27 And they departed from Tahath, and pitched at Tarah. 28 And they removed from Tarah, and pitched in Mithcah. 29 And they went from Mithcah, and pitched in Hashmonah.

Moserath is Moab 30 And they departed from Hashmonah, and encamped at Moseroth. 31 And they departed from Moseroth, and pitched in Benejaakan. 32 And they removed from Benejaakan, and encamped at Horhagidgad. 33 And they went from Horhagidgad, and pitched in Jotbathah. 34 And they removed from Jotbathah, and encamped at Ebronah. 35 And they departed from Ebronah, and encamped at Eziongaber. 36 And they removed from Eziongaber, and pitched in the wilderness of Zin, which [is] Kadesh. 37 And they removed from Kadesh, and pitched in mount Hor, in the edge of the land of Edom Rktect (talk) 16:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Two points. Rktect, you write "My editorial comment here is that all the parts need to work together". True if you are writing an essay or an article for publication. But here, no. We just report what reliable sources have to say, we don't try to reconcile them. My second point is that this article is not a place for discussing all the stations. There is at least one appropriate article for that. dougweller (talk) 20:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Wnt's Question

 * Did you see Wnt's question on this page? The absurdity of a route that contradicts itself six different ways from Sunday is bad enough, but what its doing is wasting peoples time when they try to follow it, in this case using Google. I'm really impressed by what he's doing. He's reading and then questioning what he's read and then looking for another source to either confirm or point him in a better direction. He asks and answers like a born dialectician. There are no reliable sources in that article and very little information. It fails. Rktect (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Whether or not it fails, why in the world would we be discussing another article on this talk page? dougweller (talk) 22:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's start with what we have on Rames(s)es - Ex 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." So there shouldn't be any doubt that Rameses is a city, not a palace or a temple, and it was a newly named place.  So I am prone to go along with this naive notion that it could have something to do with Ramesses I or II and that shiny new canal to the Red Sea.  Somewhere elsewhere in this discussion I remember someone suggesting that "treasure cities" were actually customs-houses, so right there is a good source for all that loot you asked about.  Oh, and look at the New Kingdom/Battle of Kadesh.  The Egyptians were running right through where Israel should be, to attack the Hittites to the north during the nineteenth dynasty.  The New Kingdom article also very interestingly describes labor strikes and civil unrest beginning under Ramesses III, which sounds like the right context for the Exodus.  The article on Israelites describes the Israeli power rising only around 1025 BC.


 * Further I should point out that the Migdol article says that the term can mean a raised island or platform in the middle of a river or canal. And while the modern Suez Canal has no locks from ocean to ocean, the Nile was a river and must have had a change of elevation, and surely no good Egyptian would have looked at all that water without plotting a way to block it up and divert it into irrigation systems, even if the flow was normally too sluggish to require locks for ships.  (I don't know what the flood of the Nile would have been like for one of eight main branches)  The canal also answers your objection about where such a multitude of people would have found water.  By comparison ... where on Earth do you suppose six hundred thousand unwanted refugees and their herds and flocks would have managed to find ships?  I doubt they would have found a way to go by ship even today!


 * The Pharaoh and Joseph's bones each seem very weak objections. The bones could have been sent down the river and canal at any time.  Succoth was the place where they went to retrieve the bones of Joseph from Karnak, which means it wasn't Karnak, right...?  The Pharaoh probably jetsetted around Egypt all the time.  Wherever he was, that was his court, right?


 * As for Elim and Elat, I don't really understand what relation you see between them. What I see is that Elim should be roughly where Moses turned up the wadi and abandoned the shoreline, thus going "into the wilderness", and Elat might be the place where he comes out the other wadi on the far end of the Sinai Peninsula.  It's much like the map shown in this article (the southern line)  The Elim-Elat route to me sounds like a land route - could you cite/quote whatever makes you think otherwise?


 * As for Mt. Horeb/Mt. Sinai, I have no idea where it is, but most pilgrims seem to agree that it's one of two peaks in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula e.g. Mount Catherine, and so not near Aqaba. Wnt (talk) 23:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, and Doug, sooner or later we can split this discussion off from the main talk page here - certainly this is as relevant an article as any to keep it with, but there's a use for archiving. But I just got Rktect to name and group five different major authors about the Passage of the Red Sea here, who we really should mention in the article whether or not any of us necessarily believes what they say.  It's clear to me that Rktect knows quite a bit about this topic that I don't - it's just a matter of talking it out of him. ;)  Mostly though, the point is that as we talk this out it becomes more clear what the schools of thought are. Wnt (talk) 23:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Last but not least. Exodus 15:22 - "22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter..."  This is right after they're doing the victory dance in 15:21, mind you; they reach Marah after they cross the Red Sea.  So your first figure of the route showing Marah somewhere deep in mainland Egypt before the crossing just doesn't work at all. Wnt (talk) 00:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes store cities are emporia., ie ports where foreigners could come to trade without coming further into the country. Yes they could be looted by people leaving a port, but the people who left on the Exodus were not slaves, they had herds and flocks, weapons and military training, included skilled craftsmen and professionals typical of the populatio of an emporia. If we allow the passage that there was a new Pharoah who knew Joseph not, then what that part about cruel overseers in the context of professional people might mean is a loss of status and infliuence; The entire city of Thebes was devoted to the worship of Amun Re so its not like a single building or temple, think university campus in the context of a port with a lot of foreigners.


 * It can't have anything to do with Ramesses II, he comes along c 1285 BC and here we are talking c 1450. If we are going to use the story for data we can't cherry pick so for our purposes we have to live with the stories dating.


 * Rameses II comes along after the campaigns of Thutmoses I, Thutmoses III, Amenophis II and Seti I against the king of Kadesh. He fights the battle of Kadesh that puts an end to about three centuries of warfare between Egypt and Kadesh with the result a major retreat for Egypt from its northern borders. Keep in mind that you need time after the Exodus for Joshuah and Judges which didn't happen overnight. Yes the Egyptians were running right through the same parts of Canaan mentioned in the Amarna letters as being under attack by Haibrw even as their account has them putting cities under the ban.


 * Rameses III is fighting the Libyans and the sea people.


 * Let me just say that it sounds like you are typing away at a computer keyboard you can hardly reach because its covered with books, and you probably have half a dozen web pages open. I know that feeling, but if you are thinking Israel is just getting started c 1025 you have a lot of characters to cram in before you get to Solomon c 970 BC.


 * Judges 11:26 where Jephthah, the ninth judge of Israel, states that it has been 300 years since Israel began occupying Ammorite territory. The occupation began just prior to the death of Moses and the conquering of the land of Canaan (Numbers 21:25-26, Deuteronomy 2:36).


 * There are a couple of suitable places for a Migdol near Tell el-Mashkuta, the Egyptians fortified wells would certainly fall in that category, the only problems with that are that the fortified wells were garrisoned with Egyptian troops and the story says it avoided going that way.


 * There wouldn't have been 600,000. That comes from a confusion about the use of the word elef, another one of those phoenician plural of el words. It can mean clan or the power of thousands. In numbers it refers to 603 clans, a total of about 7200 fighting men and maybe 20,000 all told including women, children, goyim and men too old to fight. 600,000 people would have meant taking half the population of Egypt along.


 * Elim and Elat are both ports located opposite eachother halfway down the Red Sea so not suggestive of a land route. Get your Google map out and locate Elim where the wadi Hammamat arives at the Re dSea from Thebes. it should be labled Quseir. On the other side Elat is at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba at Mount Horen between Edom and Midian where the wadia Araba meets the Gulf of Aqaba. They are connected as Phoenician words meaning the plural of el or power in relation to the terabintha tree which was high and mighty and used for Asherah poles and masts. The Phoenicians built a Red Sea fleet for Neco I at Elim and Elat just as Hatshepset had done earlier, and then he had them sail down the Red Sea and return from the Atlantic through the pillars of Hercules, it took them three years and when they were done they had an ocean empire larger than Libya and Asis combined because it was the water that surrounded them. Some of the stuff I put in up above tells you all about this. Elim eventually became Leukos Limen and then Quseir. Elat is where Solomon kept his fleet.


 * Horeb is located at Elat in Deuteronomy and 1 kings. To check that out type Horeb into Strongs concordance and you will get all the Bible references to it. Tourists go where the tour guide takes them, but most scholars acknowledge its not Mount Catherine or Jebel Musa because they are nowhere near Moutn Horeb.


 * Thebes has three routes to its ports that run within a few miles of one another Myos Hormos, is the northenmost, almost directly opposite the tip of the Sinai peninsula, then comes Phloteras and then Elim or Greek Leukos Limen. Thebes is located right at that little bulge in the Nile. There is a fourth route that goes south down to Bernice which is that little cape you see down in Nubia. Between Phyloteras and Elim is Mersa Gawisis. The Shur is the shore. Use googles terrain map and you will see there is a belt of sandy shore acting as a desert between the mountains and the sea. In the wadi Hammamat there were wells dug to make the trip easier but probably no wells between the ports


 * 6 And they departed from Succoth, and pitched in Etham, which [is] in the edge of the wilderness. I take that as the start of the journey down the wadi Hamamat


 * 7 And they removed from Etham, and turned again unto Pihahiroth, which [is] before Baalzephon: and they pitched before Migdol.


 * I take that as them heading down the trail to Greek Phy lo teras or Egyptian Pi ha hiroth.


 * 8 And they departed from before Pihahiroth, and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, and went three days' journey in the wilderness of Etham, and pitched in Marah.
 * 9 And they removed from Marah, and came unto Elim: and in Elim [were] twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they pitched there.


 * at the Red Sea as they went along the shore from Phyloteras to Mersa Gawis they had to cross some wadis draining into the sea to get to Elim. use Google and have a look. Rktect (talk) 05:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

passage of the Red Sea

 * Rktect, are you saying you think that the dramatic deliverance from the Egyptians that they were singing about amounted to the crossing of a wadi somewhere on the shoreline of Egypt? True, those impressive tracks do speak of dramatic flash floods now and then, but it seems like a stretch, especially since you then place them crossing the Red Sea between the wooden "walls" of ship hulls in a separate later event.


 * I see that you changed Joshua to match your timeline, but I wish you'd make clearer what this "Pritchards the ANE" is that you reference.

The timeline you use is inconsistent with the Othniel Ben Kenaz article that says he reigned 30 years after the death of Joshua, and the Biblical judges article that says Othniel started 1228 BC. That would place the death of Joshua at 1258 BC, whereas that article says 1370 BC - all other interpretations being equal, that should mean that if the Judges article is right your timeline is moved up 112 years and so the Exodus would not be 1450 BC but 1338 BC. Weirdly this is consistent with neither your ideas nor mine, but puts his departure very close to the end of Akhenaten's reign, which oddly enough was a notion proposed by Sigmund Freud in Moses and Monotheism. I'm not sure if that one qualifies as a reliable source, but there you go.
 * But seriously, if there is any one part of the Biblical story that I would throw out first, it would be the lifespans listed. If there's any truth at all to this "documentary hypothesis" and if not every last syllable is the Anointed Word Of God, then we know somebody was really getting carried away exaggerating the lifespans of some of the early historical figures, such as Joshua and Moses.  So I'd want more than that timeline to be sure the Nineteenth Dynasty was out of reach.  Of course, none of this helps with our problem of actually doing something with this article, but it still would be nice to know more about the answer before we write the story. Wnt (talk) 07:54, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. For what it's worth, Deuteronomy 1:2 says that it takes eleven days to go from Kadesh Barnea to Mount Horeb by the "Mount Seir road".  Assuming 7.5-8 miles per day as has been mentioned above, that is 83.5-88 miles.  "Kadesh Barnea" into Google Earth gets me "נחל קדש ברנע", in the Sinai Peninsula, but I think this is one of the thousands of coordinates from an alternate universe that are indexed by that company - at least, there's no obvious sign of a city at that point.  The Kadesh Barnea everyone's heard of is in Israel (then again, perhaps the name just means "holy desert" and so...  But Mount Seir actually is one of those rarest of places, one for which I have a card carrying source to place | at Jebal Shara.  Alas Google Earth doesn't index the latter and for the former it dumps me at a handy placemark for "Kadesh Barnea" on the southern border of Israel distinct from the preceding two places I mentioned.  Bottom line... except for the pretty pictures Google Earth is not a reliable source!  Yet I think it does actually have it right that time.  Tracing east from Kadesh Barnea toward Petra, Jordan (which is where NASA says Mount Seir is near) I hit the article Makhtesh Ramon which says that there was in fact a Spice Trail of the Nabateans that ran west from there all the way to Gaza.  I noticed it by the way because there is in fact a beautiful black dramatic volcano "Giv'at Ga'ash" in it, making me wonder how many other black marks to the west were older volcanoes.  But Moses is quoted in Deuteronomy 5 as speaking on Mount Horeb to the east of the River Jordan!  So it must have been somewhere past Petra, which makes it less of a surprise that one direction he says to go is to the Euphrates.  So while I admit huge confusion, the most straightforward interpretation is that this is so far from Aqaba ... or the trail either of us expects the Exodus to be taking at this "station", it isn't funny.  I wonder if Mount Horeb is some kind of geological Air Force One that only exists wherever and whenever Moses steps on it? Wnt (talk) 08:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

{unindent} again, for the benefit of other readers, we should keep discussion of articles such as Joshua on the talk page of that article. Pritchard is James Bennett Pritchard, who wrote a couple of anthologies (which can be used to quote texts, but not to draw conclusions). dougweller (talk) 11:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The unvarnished story
Its interesting that the story gets told and then summarised both less the drama of the deliverence and emphasising it. One author has a literary style that would be appreciated by modern fans of the paperback novel. The next couple are content to just give a list of places encamped and removed from.

Bottom line its clear that they have to cast about a bit to find a good route. They aren't able to go the way they usually would go. They go off road through the wilderness. They are led then pushed or if you prefer heading for a distant cloud of smoke and fire then heading away from it as one might if travelling across broken ground making your way down a series of wadis between ridges off the road.

Depending on where you are in the story, version 1 has the people just following orders, then terrified and crying out, then complaining. They go from Succoth to Etham heading east then changing direction away from it. The turn back from Etham and pitch camp in front of Pi-hahiroth between Migdol and the sea facing Bael Zephon or the west wind.

The Pharoah of Egypt and 600 chariots come up on them near Pi-hahiroth facing Baal Zephon or facing the power of the west wind. The people change direction again so that the Pillar of cloud is at their rear. There is an east wind and the people go into the water in small boats like those recently found there, they lift their masts raise their yard arms stretch out their sails and go into the water dry "between walls" or "inside" a boat.

Now according to the story they have at least 7200 armed fighting men so 600 chariots is not going to be much of a match for them, but it probably would be wiser to avoid confrontaion and just take their pluder and leave. The Egyptian chariots are more of a garrison and a blocking force than an army. If your theory about their looting the store cities of the ports is correct then they may be there to prevent that.

The literary style of the time is to proclaim yourself the victor even when badly routed and as in the song of Deborah and Barak to describe the enemy forces uterly destroyed when they stop to pick up the loot you abandoned running off the field. Its not quites so big a deal as the editors make out with the incorporation of another document that again similar to Judges V and the song of Deborah and Barack, comes from another source. We have the song of Miraim summarising rather more enthusiastically than was likely at the time; The people returned to grumbling almost immediately.

They haven't gone far when we pick the story up again. They are still encamped somewhere between Pi-hahiroth or Phylotera and Mara or Mersa Gawisis. From there they moved along the shore for three days without water. At Marah there was water but it was bitter or brackish so now they are not exulting but grumbling again until Moses put a wood into the water which filtered and sweetened it.

Now they reach Elim, still on the shore of the Red Sea and then they leave Egypt. It takes them 45 days after they had left Egypt before they reach Sinai. Now since Sinai borders Egypt at the Bitter Lakes if you leave Egypt headed for Sinai from there it doesn't take long to cross the border and be in Sinai.

Pritchard and the Ancient Near East or ANE are a standard reference available on line. They include snipets of the Amarna letters, references to the gods of the region and Egyptian campaigns and literature. I put most of my formal cites on my user page and sometimmes refer to them colloqially as Gardiner or Pritchard like I would the Bible.


 * James B. Pritchard,

Your questions regarding the correlations between Exodus and Egyptian campaign accounts are probably the point where just about everybody recognizes the accounts are too close together not to be related and at the same time very hard to match up exactly. For one things the ages of patriarchs like the success of the Israelites in their campaigns seems to have been somewhat inflated. A related counterpoint is that in the Bible names need not refer only to individuals, they can refer to places as descendant from other places as for example Canaan from Ham or Egypt. Still more confusion might be introduced by the fact that a semitic calendar is lunar and has approximately ten less days in a year than a Solar Egyptian calendar. To futher confuse that aspect there is a western semitic calendar with 13 lunar months of four weeks of seven days. The solar cycle is approximated with the phrase a year and a day and the lunar cycle with the phrase a month and a day. On top of all that the different books that have been comiled have some places where they overlap as with Judges and Joshuah which overlap with the accounts of the Exodus from the Penteteuch.

Judges begins with a summary account. There is a first introduction and then a second introduction and finally the story of the judges told in episodes. What that tells you is the scribes composing this are working with a small library of material on their desks and trying to put it in some kind of orderly account. A lot of what they are working off of is geneologies they compose from references to people in their archives of births, deaths, marriages, and notable events. What they are making is a concordance.

In the portion labeled A we learn that Cushan-rishathaim was king of Edom for eight years while the people of Israel lived among other people and served Baal and Asherah. In the forty years that the people spend compassing Edom and served Baal and Asherah Othneil son of Kenaz, Calebs younger brother became a judge and served c 1450-1442 BC. Joshua his contemporary who is a young man when Moses dies c 1410 lives to be 110 so allowing he was twenty in 1410 BC he dies 90 years later c 1320 BC

Re the locations from the stations list try putting them on a map as you were describing.

Rktect (talk) 14:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Knowing more about the whole story before editing part of it
Where Deuteronomy 1:2 says that it takes eleven days to go from Kadesh Barnea to Mount Horeb by the "Mount Seir road". 7.5-8 miles per day = s 83.5-88 miles. Its good to begin with Strong's concordance which gives you all the references, then maybe do a google search for the name, eventually you should find consensus that its between Elat and Gaza, AKA the brook of Egypt, another oases, on the slopes of Mt Sepher. There is a map on the frontspeice of Nelson Gluecks book "Rivers in the desert" that locates it at Kuntillah or Gerasa where there are the remains of an old fort. Emanual Anati has excavated there and you can find references to him on the article on Petra. If you go to the Biblical Archaeological Review (BAR) website, many of the Biblical Archaeologists publish their excavation reports there. From Elat onward most archaeologists agree on the location of the stations. They head up from Elat to the Gaza strip go along it following the kings highway from Rafah past ancient Sharunen to Gaza, then head east through Beersheba and Beth Pelet to Sodom and Moab at the bottom of the Dead Sea, then south back to Elat through Petra compassing Edom and the Negev as if walking the property bounds of a deed. If you are using Google and you click on the Wikipedia box it will bring up placepedia where many of the stations are named by the Israeli tourist department or some such. This map shows you where some of the places are.



There are two places named Kadesh marking the northern and southern boundaries of Canaan and Israel, more or less allowing for political changes over time. The southern one is called Kadesh bar neah with Bar being equivalen to beth and bit meaning house or town. Its marked on Google on the right axis running between Elat and the Gaza strip but probably better located at the old fort. Anyway between 69.17 and 85 miles up route 10 from Elat there are all kinds of old ruins, wells, Nabatean rock walls laid out to catch the rain when it rains and bring it to the wadis where they would try to grow their crobs.

The Mount Horeb article discussion page cites Deuteronomy 1.1 and 1 kings to exactly locate Horeb at Elat. Its on the boundary between Edom and Midian at the end of the arabah where it meets the gulf of Aqaba at Elat. Its where Moses tends the flocks of Jethro priest of Midian and talks to the burning bush. Its where at Alush he strikes his staff into the ground and brings forth water from the rock. its where he is reunited with Jethro his father in law. Its where he stands to direct the battle of Rephedim with Aaaron holding up one arm and Hur of Midian holding up the other and its where he gives the people the ten commandments. Its 11 days south of Kadesh following the bounds of Edom with the Sinai and its a point on the Nabateans spice trail as you say. If you continue the Jordan south following the line of the Dead sea and the Arabah it empties into the Gulf of Aqabah at Horeb, see te map above. In the stations list the cleft in the rock marks the entance to Petra and its south of that. The scholars who wrote Deuteronomy referenced the line of the mountain range called the Seir from Horeb at Elat to Hammath at Mount Hermon

Rktect (talk) 16:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

removal of section about rejoining their relatives
Just to say that that was indeed more OR from Rktect. Thanks. dougweller (talk) 18:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup
This article seems to have got into a bit of a mess. If no-one objects I plan to give it a "make-over" - mostly just tidying up (without adding or taking away significant details) and I also think a short section on the Biblical narrative would be appropriate. Thought it best to flag my intent here before going ahead in case anyone should have any objections.--FimusTauri (talk) 09:13, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

My April 2009 edit
This was too long to explain in an edit summary. Prior to my edit, the two sections on the documentary hypothesis were probably incomprehensible to people who don't already understand the hypothesis, which is to say, the large majority of laypeople. I copied a few sentences from the documentary hypothesis article to explain who "J" and "P" are - previously the article just launched into discussion of them without any explanation.

I also removed some misplaced tags that seem to address problems with the article that have been resolved. --Chiliad22 (talk) 20:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)