The Nile River Delta of Goshen and It's Cities Where Jacob and 70 Lived

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Pithom:  the storage city mentioned in the Torah, is still being shown.  Pithom is one of the cities which, according to Exodus 1:11was built for the Pharaoh of the oppression by the forced labor of the Israelites. The other city was Ramses; and the Septuagint adds a third, "On, which is Heliopolis." (The Septuagint was the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (Ancient Greek: , and often abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BCE) by seventy-two Jewish translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

These cities are called by a Hebrew term rendered in the Authorized Version "treasure cities" and in the Revised Version "store cities." The Septuagint renders it πόλεις ὀχυραί "strong [or "fortified"] cities." The same term is used of certain cities of King Solomon in I Kings 9:19 (comp. also II Chronicles 16:4).

Qantir or Rameses: is a village in Egypt. Qantir is believed to mark what was probably the ancient site of the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses II's capital, Pi-Ramesses or Per-Ramesses ("House or Domain of Ramesses"). It is situated around 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) north of Faqous in the Sharqiyah province of the eastern Nile Delta, about 60 mi (97 km) north-east of Cairo. Rameses is mentioned along with Pithom as a "storage city"

that the Israelites had to build in the Torah.   The Arabic name of the village contains Coptic: ⲉⲛⲧⲏⲣ, lit. 'gods'.

An official wearing the "mushroom-headed" hairstyle also seen in contemporary paintings of Western Asiatic foreigners, from Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos. Dated to 1802–1640 BCE. Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst.

Haran is an offshoot of the Euphrates River.  They certainly did come from the "East", Mesopotamia of the Assyrian and Babylon regions.  

Was Abraham part of the Hyksos migration?  We know his father was Terah whose sons were Abram, Nahor, and Haran;  and Haran's son was Lot.  Haran died in the lifetime of Terah in his native land, in Ur Kasdim.  Abram married Sarai, and Nahor married Milcah the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah.  Terah took Abram and Lot, grandson Abram and Sarai and Isaac and left from ur for the land of Canaan;  they arrived at Haran and they settled there.  Terah lived for 205 years and died in Haran.  

The Hyksos,  the term Hyksos is used ethnically to designate people of probable West Semitic, Levantine origin, like Joseph and his father Jacob.  The Hyksos period marks the first in which Egypt was ruled by foreign rulers. Many details of their rule, such as the true extent of their kingdom and even the names and order of their kings, remain uncertain. The Hyksos practiced many Levantine or Canaanite customs as well as many Egyptian customs. They have been credited with introducing several technological innovations to Egypt, such as the horse and chariot, as well as the sickle sword and the composite bow, a theory which is disputed.

The Hyksos did not control all of Egypt. Instead, they coexisted with the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties, which were based in Thebes. Warfare between the Hyksos and the pharaohs of the late Seventeenth Dynasty eventually culminated in the defeat of the Hyksos by Ahmose I, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. In the following centuries, the Egyptians would portray the Hyksos as bloodthirsty and oppressive foreign rulers, now proved to be wrong. 

Avaris: The ancient site of Avaris is located around 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) south of Qantir. This was the older city in this area. Later on, Avaris was absorbed by Pi-Ramesses. 

A group of West Asian foreigners, possibly Canaanites, labelled as Aamu (ꜥꜣmw), with the leader labelled as a Hyksos, visiting the Egyptian official Khnumhotep II c. 1900 BCE. Tomb of 12th dynasty official Khnumhotep II, at Beni Hasan.

 Avaris was the Hyksos capital of Egypt located at the modern site of Tell el-Dab'a in the northeastern region of the Nile Delta. 

There were Ammonites of Ammon but no country with Amorites,  It is a name in the Torah living in Canaan.  In the 2nd millennium BCE, Abraham's day, there was an Amoritic state in central and S. Syria incorporating the Lebanese Mountains and important harbor towns.; an important link between Egypt and Mesopotamia, and after a long struggle between Egypt and the Hittite kingdom, was annexed to the latter. In Jacob's day they settled on both sides of the Jordan, especially in mountainous regions.  Moses conquered 2 Amorite kingdoms;  Heshbon and Bashan.  At this period, the Amorites were no longer a pure W. Semitic element but mixed with other strains in Canaan, especially the Horites and Hittites.  "The ways of the Amorite" is a term applied in rabbinic and medieval literature to folk practices alien to the spirit of Judaism.

A few researchers are  calling  Hyksos for convenience sake, Amorites,  as the little onomastic evidence we have, shows that they had mainly Western-Semitic personal names.  Interesting, because the Amorites were also people living in Canaan before the Exodus that were either annihilated or assim-ilated  by the Israelites. 

As the main course of the Nile migrated eastward, its position at the hub of Egypt's delta emporia made it a major capital suitable for trade. It was occupied from about the 18th century BCE until its capture by Ahmose I. It's strange that a pharaoh had to capture a city of Egypt when a pharaoh with Joseph ha chosen the Nile Delta, Goshen, as the home of Joseph's father and brothers with their families.  Had the dynasty of pharaohs lost ground and had to fight to gain it back or what?  

The site was originally founded by Amenemhat I on the eastern branch of the Nile in the Delta. Its close proximity to Asia made it a popular town for Asiatic immigrants. Many of these immigrants were from Canaan and they were culturally Egyptianized, using Egyptian pottery, but also retained many aspects of their own culture, as can be seen from the various Asiatic burials including weapons of Syro-Canaanite origin. One palatial district appears to have been abandoned as a result of an epidemic during the 13th dynasty. 

In the 18th century BCE, the Hyksos conquered Lower Egypt and set up Avaris as their capital. Kamose, the last pharaoh of the Seventeenth Dynasty, besieged Avaris but was unable to defeat the Hyksos there.

A few decades later, Ahmose I captured Avaris and overran the Hyksos. Canaanite-style artifacts dated to the Tuthmosid or New Kingdom period suggest that a large part of the city's Semitic population remained in residence following its reconquest by the Egyptians.                             

                Luxor and Ancient Thebes, Egypt:

The pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty set up a capital in Thebes and the palatial complex at Avaris was briefly abandoned, but areas such as the Temple of Seth and G6 region remained continuously occupied. Head across the River Nile to the West Bank and discover the great necropolis of ancient Thebes. Of its many sections, the most visited is the Valley of the Kings, where the pharaohs of the New Kingdom chose to be entombed in preparation for the afterlife.

 Thebes: of Upper Egypt;   known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, was an ancient Egyptian city located along the Nile about 800 kilometers (500 mi) south of the Mediterranean. Its ruins lie within the modern Egyptian city of Luxor. Thebes was the main city of the fourth Upper Egyptian nome (Sceptre nome) and was the capital of Egypt for long periods during the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom eras. It was close to Nubia and the Eastern Desert, with its valuable mineral resources and trade routes. 

Thebes was a cult center and the most venerated city during many periods of ancient Egyptian history. The site of Thebes includes areas on both the eastern bank of the Nile, where the temples of Karnak and Luxor stand and where the city was situated; and the western bank, where a necropolis of large private and royal cemeteries and funerary complexes can be found. In 1979, the ruins of ancient Thebes were classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

After Ramesses II constructed the city of Pi-Ramesses roughly 2km to the north and "superseding Avaris", large portions of the former site of Avaris were used by the inhabitants of Pi-Ramesses as a cemetery and part of it was used as a major navy base, while the "Harbor of Avaris" toponym continued to be used for Avaris' harbor through the Ramesside period. The name "Avaris" is also referred to in Papyrus Sallier I in the late 13th century BC. In addition, the 'Avaris' toponym is also known to Manetho in the 3rd century BCE, quoted by Josephus in his Against Apion 1.14.

Heliopolis or On:  In the Hebrew's scriptures, Heliopolis is referenced directly and obliquely, usually in reference to its prominent pagan cult. In his prophesies against Egypt, Isaiah claimed the "City of the Sun" (Ir ha Shemesh) would be one of the five Egyptian cities to follow the Lord of Heaven's army and speak Hebrew. Jeremiah and Ezekiel mention the "House of the Sun" (Beth Shemesh) and Ôn, claiming Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon would shatter its obelisks and burn its temple and that its "young men of Folly" (Aven) would "fall by the sword".  Its traditional Egyptological transcription is Iunu but it appears in biblical Hebrew as ʾŌn (אֹ֖ן‎, אֽוֹן‎), and ʾĀwen (אָ֛וֶן‎) leading some scholars to reconstruct its pronunciation in earlier Egyptian as *ʔa:wnu, perhaps from older /ja:wunaw/. Variant transcriptions include Awnu and Annu. The name survived as Coptic ⲱⲛ ŌN.  Coptic the language of the Copts, which represents the final stage of ancient Egyptian. It now survives only as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church-who are today's Christians in Egypt.  Copts have historically spoken the Coptic language, a direct descendant of the Demotic Egyptian that was spoken in late antiquity.

Mendes: (ancient Egyptian: ḏdt, modern: Tell el-Rub'a) is an Ancient Egyptian city in Lower Egypt, located in the western Nile Delta. It was the provincial capital of Hatmehit, the sixteenth name of Lower Egypt. Just 500 meters to the south lies the ancient city of Thmouis..

                         The ruins of Tanis today.  

Tanis:The Biblical story of Moses being found in the marshes of the Nile River (Book of Exodus, Exodus 2:3–5) is often set at Tanis, which is often identified with Zoan (Hebrew: צֹועַן  Ṣōʕan) or Tzovaan.  An accumulation of remnants from different epochs contributed to the confusion of the first archaeologists who saw in Tanis as the biblical city of Zoan in which the Hebrews would have suffered pharaonic slavery. Pierre Montet, in inaugurating his great excavation campaigns in the 1930s, began from the same premise. He was hoping to discover traces that would confirm the accounts of the Old Testament. His own excavations gradually overturned this hypothesis, even if he was defending this biblical connection until the end of his life. It was not until the discovery of Qantir/Pi-Ramesses and the resumption of excavations under Jean Yoyotte that the place of Tanis was finally restored in the long chronology of the sites of the delta. 

 Saft el-Hinna:  a village, lies on the ancient Egyptian town of Per-Sopdu or Pi-Sopt, meaning "House of Sopdu", which was the capital of the 20th nome of Lower Egypt and one of the most important cult centers during the Late Period of ancient Egypt. As the ancient name implies, the town was consecrated to Sopdu, god of the eastern borders of Egypt.  During the late Third Intermediate Period, Per-Sopdu – called Pishaptu or Pisapti, in Akkadian, by the Neo-Assyrian invaders – was the seat of one of the four Great chiefdom of the Meshwesh, along with Mendes, Sebennytos and Busiris.

Sais:   was an ancient Egyptian city in the Western Nile Delta on the Canopic branch of the Nile, known by the ancient Egyptians as Sꜣw. It was the provincial capital of Sap-Meh, the fifth nome of Lower Egypt and became the seat of power during the Twenty-fourth Dynasty of Egypt (c. 732–720 BCE) and the Saite Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (664–525 BCE) during the Late Period. On its ruins today stands the town of Sa el-Hagar .Dating to 5000 BCE, agriculture appears here during this period, as well as at another similar site, Merimde Beni Salama, which is located about 80km south of Sais., leading to gradual changes in climatic conditions from 4600 BCE onwards. It is believed that the Middle Holoce evolution of activity from fish processing to a settled hunting and agricultural phase may be connecene Moist phase started at that time.                        

The Nile delta (Goshen) is situated in northern Egypt, where the river Nile reaches the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in the world. It originates near the equator and flows nearly 7000 km (4349.6 mi) northward. The Delta begins approximately 20 km (12.4 mi) north of Cairo and extends North for about 150 km (93 mi). At the coast the delta is about 250 km (155 mi) wide, from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east. The area of the Nile Delta is about 20.000 km2 (7.7220432 Square Miles). The Nile Valley and the Nile Delta rank among the world's most fertile farming areas and are surrounded by a highly arid environment.

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

alliance.org/deltas/nile-delta

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithom

https://ancientegypt.fandom.com/wiki/Mendes#:~:text=Mendes%20(ancient%20Egyptian%3A%20%E1%B8%8Fdt%2C,the%20ancient%20city%20of%20Thmouis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopolis_(ancient_Egypt)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saft_el-Hinna

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sais,_Egypt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thebes,_Egypt

https://ioa.ucla.edu/content/friday-seminar-tell-el-dabaavaris-capital-hyksos-town-different-ethnicities#:~:text=Avaris%2C%20capital%20of%20the%20Hyksos,mainly%20Western%2DSemitic%20personal%20names.

https://parkcityhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Teacher-Background-Information.pdf