Terah, Abraham's Father's Homeland and What He's Remembered For

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

They were immigrants in Ur.  Terah was Abram's  father.  He left the city of Ur of the Chaldees that sat near the Euphrates River to travel to the land of Canaan with Abram and his nephew, Lot.  On the way they settled in the town of Haran where Terah died.  The book, the Aggadah, depicts Terah as a devout idolator challenged in his beliefs by Abram, later to be called Abraham.  The land of Ur has become a city in Iraq!!!  One can conclude that the male line (Y haplotype is J1) as suggested by DNA and genealogy.  

Haplogroup J1 (J-M267) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup that originated in the Near East, specifically in the northern parts of West Asia around 20,000 years ago. The major branch, J1a1a1-P58, evolved later, around 9,500 years ago, in the Arabian Peninsula, southern Levant, and southern Mesopotamia. 

 Terah is listed as the son of Nahor and father of the patriarch Abraham. As such, he is a descendant of Shem's son Arpachshad. Terah is mentioned in Genesis 11:26–27, Book of Joshua 24:2, and 1 Chronicles 1:17–27 of the Hebrew Bible; and Noah's 3 sons Noah's three sons, according to the Bible, were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These three sons, along with their wives, and Noah and his wife, were the only survivors of the flood and would repopulate the earth, according to Genesis 9:18-29.  and Luke 3:34–36 in the New Testament.

Terah was an idol-maker.  In the stories, he scolded Abram when he came home because he found one of the idols smashed, lying on the floor.  Abram told him that the idol had a fight with the other one near him, and lost.  His father told him that he knew better;  the idols were only clay and couldn't move or fight.  ah ha!

When they left Haran, The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country and the people of your father's family. Go to the land that I will show you.

2 I will cause your descendants to become a great nation. I will bless you. Everyone will know your name. You will bring my blessing to other people. 3 I will bless those people who bless you. But I will curse anyone who insults you. Through you, I will bless all the families of people on the earth.’

4 Abram did what the Lord had told him. He left Haran. Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. Lot went with him. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot. He took everything that belonged to them. He also took the people that worked for them in Haran. They all left to go to the land of Canaan.
                                                                             

When they arrived in Canaan, 6 Abram walked through the land. He went as far as Shechem (renamed Nablus) , to the special oak tree of Moreh. At that time, Canaanites lived in this land. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram there. He said, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’ So Abram built an altar in that place to worship the Lord. He did that because the Lord had appeared to him.

Later, Abraham had a conversation with the pharaoh of Egypt and told him that they were a family of sheep-herders, which they were.  He was asked by the Pharaoh to also tend the Pharaoh's few cattle along his sheep.  Cattle and sheep do not get along, foraging differently for food, but he did well.  

His father, Terah, had come from sheep herders east of the Euphrates River that was between that river and the Tigris River-land.  The land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers was historically known as Mesopotamia, which is a Greek term meaning "between rivers". This region is also part of the larger Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shaped area where some of the earliest civilizations developed. 

In Bible literature, sheepherders, or shepherds, were individuals who tended flocks of sheep or goats. Many important figures from the Hebrew Bible, including Abraham, Moses, and King David, were also shepherds. Shepherding was a common occupation, and shepherds were often nomads, known for their simple lives and connection to the land. King David ruled from 1010 BCE to 970 BCE; or from 3,035 to 2,995 years ago.  

Mesopotamia was home to several early civilizations, most notably the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. The Sumerians are often considered the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia, and some believe they may have been the first human civilization. Other civilizations like the Akkadians and Babylonians later emerged in Mesopotamia, adopting and building upon aspects of Sumerian culture. 

As for Terah, it's likely that he came from the Babylonians of Mesopotamia since he found Ur a comfortable city to settle in, knowing the language and habits of thepeople.  Babylon was known as the land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees). TheBook of Genesis regards it as the cradle of humanity and as the scene of man's firstrevolt against G0d as in "THE TOWER OF BABEL." 

       Evosheep,  cuniform writing about sheep telling how to be raised :   from the third millennium BCE to the second millennium BCE

Yes, Mesopotamia was generally good land for grazing sheep, particularly in the steppe regions. While the area was arid, sheep were well-adapted to surviving on limited resources, and areas like the steppe provided grazing land. They focused above all on the cultivation of cereals (particularly barley) and sheep farming, but also farmed legumes, as well as date palms in the south and grapes in the north.

Resource:

https://archeorient.hypotheses.org/24818

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

Jewish Traders and Their Affects In The World

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

            During the Stone Age, people traded goods through a barter system, exchanging one item for another. Trade was a significant change that occurred when people began to settle in towns and villages and develop a surplus of food and other resources. Eretz Yisrael was created from Canaan, and Abraham headed there with niece/wife Sarah and family.  This would be today's Syria from 15th to 13th century BCE along the coast of  Eretz Yisrael, called Palestine after 135 CE.  People lived in  small city-states then.                                     

 Abram and Sarai, as they were first called, came from Ur of the Chaldees,  on the Euphrates River, an ancient Babylonian city full of interesting man-made items.  Abram's journey took him first to Haran, a trading town of NW  Mesopotamia, also the center of a moon cult.  There was a Habiru (Hebrew?) settlement there as well.   You can be sure that they must be on a trading quest, meeting people and trading with them till they arrive at  their destination, Hebron (Kiriath-Arba) , which became part of Judah.  It used to be a city under control by the Hittites.  Abraham bought a plot of land here, the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron in which to bury Sarah, and himself when the time came.                                            

Trading would have gone on between the people neighboring Eretz Yisrael.  Trading would have started when they saw what Judeans used and made and needed. Trading practices must have started early in stone age periods.   The history of trade is the evolution of commerce over time, from local exchanges to global interactions. Trade has been a part of human existence for over 100,000 years, and has played an important role in the development of civilizations                                        

                                        Turkey (Anatolia) Greece and Israel 

The Philistines were a Mediterranean people most likely originating from Asia Minor.  Asia Minor is now part of Turkey. Asia Minor, also known as Anatolia, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up most of Turkey's land area.  They also came from   Greek locations that were fairly close by via the sea.  They came in different time periods. 

     Gerar, a  Nahal (River) and Negev Desert.  

One group arrived in the pare-patriarchal period and settled South of Beersheba in Gerar where they came into conflict with Abraham and his son, Isaac.  Gerar is a city and region in the Hebrew Bible that appears in the Book of Genesis and the Second Book of Chronicles:  Gerar, in Hebrew meaning "lodging-place, was a Philistine town and district in whatis today south central Israel, mentioned in the bible.  Gerar was also a Philistine town in the Negev,  south of Gaza and near the Mediterranean coast.  It was a reference   point for the southern end of the Canaanites territory.    Abraham and Isaac lived here.(Gen.chs.20,26) Abraham traveled here during a famine and presents Sarah as hissister to avoid being killed by the locals.   (The Negev or Negeb is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba)

                                                                                       

Another group came from Crete, an island off of the shores of Greece after being driven out of Egypt by Rameses III in 1194 BCE.  They then seized the southerncoastal area of Eretz Yisrael where they founded 5 principalities:  Gaza, Ascalon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath.    Gaza stands to this day but with Palestinian Arabs.  It's 2 miles from the sea. 

Commercially, it was noted for its black pottery and in Nabatean times was an entrepot of trade passing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. Entrepot trade, also known as transhipment, is a type of international trade where goods are imported into a country and then re-exported without being distributed within the importing country.

                                        In the 12th century  BCE,  Gaza was captured by the Philistines and taken over and  was used for the       Temple of Dagon, god of the soil and plant-growth and widely worshipped in the Middle Eastern countries.    

By nature, they were a fighting people, not traders.  They dominated parts of Judah in the period of the Judges when they would have interaction with the people, around 1220 to 1950.    

From the time of Herodotus, Greeks called Eretz Yisrael after the Philistines; the Syrian Palaestina.  Under Hadrian,  the Romans gave the name officially to the former land of Judah.                      

Shalmaneser , king of Assyria, (860-825 BCE) held a siege of Samaria, part of Israel;  and Sargon, his successor, captured it  in 721 BCE.  He then annexed the country and deported  27,290 Israelitesto Assyria, which had been an aggressive kingdom by the 20th century BCE expanding rapidly in the 13th -10th centuries, no doubt through trading peopleand goods.                                   

Jews were leaving Eretz Yisrael for trading before the Greek and Roman invasions.They went to Rome first, and Spain for trade, possibly decided by the rabbi they werefollowing  into safety.  

According to historical evidence, Jews likely traveled to Greece for trade before the time of Alexander the Great, with some records indicating a Jewish presence in Greece dating back to the Babylonian exile, even though these communities were likely small and scattered before Alexander's conquests established a more significant Jewish presence in the region.   Jews were in Spain (Sepharad) from the period of the destruction of the 1st Temple of Solomon in 597 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia.  The history of the Jews in Greece can be traced back to at least the fourth century BCE. The oldest and the most characteristic Jewish group that has inhabited Greece are the Romaniotes, also known as "Greek Jews."                                            

            Part of Arch of Titus, proof of Romans invading and stealing goods from the Temple in 70 CE before they burnt down Temple and Jerusalem.  It shows how Jews, taken as slaves, were forced to carry their holy articles from the Temple for the greedy Romans.              

Jews were in Rome in 139 BCE as Judeans.  The first century B.C. in Rome corresponds with the last decades of the Roman Republic and the start of the rule of Rome by emperors.  It was an exciting era dominated by strong men, like Julius Caesar, Sulla, Marius, Pompey the Great, and Augustus Caesar, and civil wars.                                                            

      Whoops!    Silk Roads!  many ways to get there.  One leaves from Gaza.  

The Silk Road trade brought Jews to Kaifeng, China in the early 12th century (1100 CE). For 800 years this community maintained both economic and religious contact with the rest of world Jewry, which in turn allowed them to maintain their own Jewish practices.  The Silk Road was a transportation hub that connected China and the Mediterranean region, and it played a significant role in the history of Jewish people:                                                           Jewish merchants

• Jewish merchants traveled the Silk Road as early as the 9th century, and may have been involved in forming the basis for some Jewish communities. Jewish traders from Persia and Western Europe began to settle in China in the 8th century, and a Persian-speaking Jewish community settled in Kaifeng in the 12th century. This community maintained economic and religious ties with the rest of the Jewish world for 800 years. Jews may have arrived in India as early as the 1st century CE, and a large Jewish community developed in the port city of Cochin. After the Sasanian ruler Cyrus freed the Jewish population in 559 B.C.E., many Jews chose to stay in Iran and created Jewish settlements along the Silk Road. There was a large Jewish population in Afghanistan, especially in the north near the trade routes. 

  

                                                                 Genetic connection
• Genetic analysis suggests that there is a direct genetic connection between Jews and Chinese, with some Eastern Eurasian haplogroups shared between the two groups. The Silk Road is experiencing a renaissance, with the World Tourism Organization promoting international tourism ventures along the road.  Many male Jews have the Y haplotype of J1, or J2.  Many women have the Mt haplotype of K.  
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• Jews were in China from Persia in about 1000 CE.  They had a community at KAI FENG FU  and became completely assimilated to Chinese customs and mores.  They disappeared at the end of the 18th century.  In the 19th century, Jews from Baghdad lived in Hong Kong and Shanghai.  Even during WWII, a few Jews managed to escape to a Chinese city for refuge.  They weren't persecuted over religion and being forced to convert or harmed for being Jewish.  

  

  
  
• As Germany ended their use of the Jewish people and forced them to leave, they sought out other hopeful places for homes in eastern Europe.  
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• Lithuania  had Jews living there from 1321.  1492's Spanish Inquisition caused Jews to flee for their lives.  10,000 Jews  entered Lithuania in Vilna, Grodno and Kovno by 1495.  They soon monopolized foreign trade.  They would not convert, so the Jewish badge was forced upon them to wear from 1566 to 1572. 
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•  Jews lived in Poland since the 9th century (800s).  Their 1st Jewish settler came from either West Germany, Bohemia, or the south of the kingdom of Kiev and the Byzantine Empires, and were reinforced by KHAZAR elements.  They would have been traders, who in the Dark Ages helped to open up the area to civilizing influences.  According to legend, the 1st  charter was granted in 905.  Polish coins of the 12th-13th centuries struck by Jewish mint-masters bear Hebrew inscriptions, thus showing the significance of the Jews in economic life.  

Many countries invited Jews to come and live in order to have someone deal with the needed trading businesses. Jews have had a significant presence in European cities and countries since the fall of the Roman Empire, including Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, and Russia, mainly to help out the kings by loaning money or doing foreign trade.

 Jews were literate and had experience.  After they brought success to the emperor or king,  they were often discarded;  no longer needed.  

Resource:

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/02/how-jews-became-merchants.html

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.southwesternrugsdepot.com/history-native-american-baskets/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Greece#:~:text=The%20history%20of%20the

%20Jews,least%20the%20fourth%20century%20BCE.

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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