Talk:Pi-HaHiroth

Disputed
What exactly is this article good for? Does a word that occurs just once in the Bible need its own article. Especially since the encyclopedic value of this article is zero? I have restored an older version of it now, but I am almost sure that the section with the Egyptian translation is baseless OR. Cush (talk) 18:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It is. I've deleted it. It would have needed a reliable source stating the whole thing, not just someone using Gardiner or whatever. dougweller (talk) 11:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What good are any of the articles mentioning the places mentioned in the ANE, or in Egyptology or in the Bible? The good is that they can be linked to make an encyclopedia encyclopediac. The sources for this article would be first of all its a Bible passage so that is an acceptable source about where it is. Its an Egyptian word that ends up being preserved in a Greek name about which we have many historical mentions in context. Its one of Egypts ports and its a part of the current excavations going on at Phyloteras. Read the site reports.Rktect (talk) 12:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * CUT IT OUT !!!! Cush (talk) 12:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And what site reports? There seems to be no such place as Phyloteras. dougweller (talk) 12:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Philoteras
 * Philoteras mentioned as a port
 * Just because you aren't aware of a source doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Philoterus is labeled on a map of Egypt in the Greco Roman period p 53 of Baines and Ma'lek, "Atlas of Ancient Egypt" already cited on the passage of the red Sea discussion page. References to it are in The Periplus of the Erythrian sea, Herodotus and Strabo. Archaeological references to the digs there in the Egyptians Eastern Region are on the Passage of the Red Sea discussion page. Its name in Egyptian was cited in the article. You ask for cites and references, I provide them, then you don't read them? The Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian from the List of Gardiner's signs should get you started learning the language, then you can read what it says, just like with any other language. There is no advantage or reason for pride in being illiterate in more languages than you speak



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 Mersa 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.


 * [http://projects.imrd.org/wadigawasis.htm Marsa Gawasis

Rktect (talk) 16:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I see you've changed the spelling from the spelling you used on the Passage of the Red Sea talk page and your edit just above (when I read it it had a 'y'. Which is why I had an edit conflict when I tried to reply to an earlier version of the edit above. Not providing the correct spelling and telling me to read unspecified site reports isn't exactly helpful now, is it? And you still do not mention Pi-hahiroth, which after all is the subject of the article. dougweller (talk) 17:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Philoteras is not Pi-hahiroth. No matter how often Rktect will post stuff that seems to hint at Exodus stations along the Wadi Hammamat, it will not change that most of the stations are already identified and they are all located in the eastern Nile Delta towards the Sinai peninsula. The Exodus starts at Avaris/Pi-Ramesse and leads eastwards. Cush (talk) 18:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sure that is your true belief, now all you have to do is explain away the date. We are given a date, c 1450 BC in the story. That is what we have to work with since thats what the story gives us. At that time the capital of Egypt is at Thebes and Avaris is uninhabited. I'd like you to consider that there is only one place named Ramesses before the Nineteenth dynasty and that is Thebes Egypt where Amun Re was worshipped. The pharonic names come from the place and the god not the other way around. Id love for you to explain how Pithom is a treasure city when it turned out just to be a canal depot near Per Atum a nome capital for the 8th nome near tell el-Maskuta. I think it would be great if you could explain how Moses is summoned into Pharoahs presence at Thebes then immediately, with the bread still unleavened in the peoples bags, leaves Sukkoth taking the bones of Joseph from his tomb across the river from Thebes at Karnak to leave from etham the way of the wilderness. How does that equate to the most populated and settled area of Egypt's delta.

There is no explanation of how we get from "the delta" to Elat where most of the major events take place, a distance of 300 miles at a pace of about 8 miles a day in 2 stations. To do that would require women and children, herds and flocks to travel at a pace of 150 miles per day. Maybe you could identify where the stations of Sukkoth, Etham, Pi-hahroth between Migdol and Baal Zephon are in relation to Elim. Presumably sukkoth is in Egypt and Etham is no further than its border. That leaves us a camp at Pi-hahroth, Marah and Elim and its from Elim that the people leave Egypt.

From Egypt to Mount Horeb at Elat we have the people crossing the Red Sea and coming to the wilderness of Sin, then they go on to Dophkah and Rephidim which is at Mount Horeb. Rktect (talk) 19:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No one should be explaining anything. (at least not in the sense that I understand Rktect to mean) That's not our role, and if you do it it is original research. Our role is to report all significant views proportionately that can be verified by reliable sources, not to try to argue a case, figure something out, etc. Rktect, do you agree with this and if not how do you see the role of an editor? dougweller (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The Route of the Exodus has been examined over and over and over again in the past 150 years in which egyptology and archeology have become real sciences instead of just religionist attempts to confirm biblical tales. The Exodus article is as it is as a result of these examinations. Especially with excavations in the recent 10 to 15 years certain fringe interpretations have been thoroughly debunked, and even the almighty Mr Kitchen is now forced to admit errors in his assumptions with folks like Ryholt, Rohl and Bietak giving him a hard time to explain all the inconsistencies in the (his) orthodox chronology. The point is that while the circumstances of the Exodus may not be fully understood yet, the coarse route is. And I really think that this article should be deleted, as is serves no purpose on its own. Cush (talk) 20:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Its good that you are knowledgable about and satisfied with the examination of the route. If you wouldn't mind saying do you agree that Both Kitchen and Rohl are contraversial and not the only ones who have made speculations that have drawn fire?
 * Do you agree taking the dating as established by the story is a condition for considering it historical?
 * It seems like you want to comment on whether real scientists examining the text without the religious bias that its all holy and miraculous can use textual artifacts from the story to confirm or deny its historical accuracy, for example by matching up the names of places then and now in terms of the geo-political context.
 * At the same time it seems that despite 150 years of thorough examination you don't think that any conclusions can be drawn yet.
 * I have observed Wnt making pretty good progress wading through all the speculation. I wonder if you would agree that by the 9th station the Exodus has progressed to Mount Horeb?
 * Do you agree that he can then successfully locate Kadesh Barnea by metes and bounds as if it were a deed using its heading and assumed rate of march and proceed from there not by original research but by the plain language of the story.
 * Allowing the story can be taken as self refferential; ie point B is 11 days march from point A?do you agree that points can be identified by the intersection of conditions referenced to those places?
 * Can you establish a better route than the speculations of some fringe thinkers using science, archaeology, history ,and linguistics? Rktect (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Whatever the answers, it doesn't matter. This is Wikipedia, where we report (I'm getting a bit tired of repeating this) what reliable and verifiable sources have to say about a subject. What we do not do is try to do it ourselves, in this case we do not put into the article what we think a route might be. What makes you think that this is an appropriate thing to do? dougweller (talk) 21:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The issue of this article definitely lacks notability. And the sources on the route of the exodus are already presented in the respective articles and there is no need to have a separate article on one station of the route. Although I deviate from the mainstream opinion in certain points I do not alter articles to enforce my opinion as Rtect does it. My opinion is expressed in the map I have posted, yet you will not find it in any article.Cush (talk) 23:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm asking what we consider appropriate criteria for reliable sources. If Ken Kitchen, David Rohl, Graham Hancock and Zachariah Sitchen are considered mistaken and misleading by scientists and archaeologists and historians reporting on their findings then we probably don't want to include them. Indeed it would be better to include references to the scientists work. In order to make judgements about what is and isn't constructive it helps to know where to look. The digs at Philoteres or Wadi Gawarsis are considered important work right now. I'm suggesting less focus on telling every story about every place in the ANR from a religious point of view. Rktect (talk) 22:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have re-read the article and I have come to the conclusion that the article should really be deleted. The "Archaeologists and Egyptologysts suggestions for reading Egyptian Toponyms" is in bad linguistic style and its content is doubtful at best, if not plain OR. The sentence in the lead "The first three stations, Ramesses, Succoth and Etham are all near Thebes" is clearly Rktect's own baseless creation. Cush (talk) 09:02, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In an encyclopedia where even a hamlet can be included, I don't think this would ever be deleted. But it needs cleaning up and as it stands, it appears that it is mainly a list of 'references', some of which have at best an extremely distant relationship to the article. It just looks silly to have an article in which well over 80% is just a list of things to read. The article is not about the Exodus, for a start. Toponyms for Canaan? Mensurational references? In Search of the Indo-Europeans? All this smacks of OR, and only references mentionings Pi-hahiroth should be included. dougweller (talk) 15:12, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * But since there is no material on Pi-hahiroth, why not just leave it in the various articles about the Exodus? Cush (talk) 15:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Turns out there is a ton of material on Pi-hahiroth which I have referenced into the article. In particular there are the references to Asherah, also spelled athiroth. She is the consort of El or Yahwah, associated with the worship of Baal, the sea, Asherah poles or terabitham, the high and mighty trees used by the Phoenicians, the Migdol or high place and mighty winds. She is also associated with the seventy trees of Elim. Placing Pi-ha hiroth between Migdol and the sea facing Baal zephon is as clear a reference to her as its possible to give. The associated Greek Philoteras means "love of 'teras" portents or wonders. Libyan ateras "I spring over a ditch" Rktect (talk) 17:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Turns out that you have added a lot of OR. You are editing against consensus as well right now, Rktect. Clear or not, it is not our job to add our own research to articles and you've been told that many, many times. dougweller (talk) 17:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Its not original research to add references to an article. Please cite the reference I added that you don't think is sufficiently erudite. Your track record of calling everything I edit WP:OR "many many times" indicates a personal bias. Perhaps it would be better to do as other editors do and flag anything you lack knowledge of so I can add more references, or references in the format you prefer, maybe just read the edits before you comment on them based on your assumptions.Rktect (talk) 17:46, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You keep presenting your own research and conclusions in the articles you edit. That is WP:OR and WP:SYN and against WP:NPOV. It doesn't matter how many references you add while you keep adding what is basically just YOUR OWN OPINION.

Rktect, I'm reverting you. You still have no concept of what a reference/footnote is supposed to be, nor of what a reliable source is, nor what constitutes original research. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 18:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)