Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Thank you, Walter, for your excellent evidence in support of the 
theory (proposed by David Rohl) dating the Exodus in the Middle 
Bronze, at the end of the 13th dynasty. This was the period when the 
site was occupied by Asiatics and then abandoned by them, exactly 
according to the Exodus traditions.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
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Subject: Dating the Pentateuch, Pithom/Succoth
Author:  <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com> at Internet
Date:    19/03/2000 12:32


As noted in earlier posts to this list, I am attempting to establish dates 
for the composition of the Pentateuch via its mention of cities, towns and 
sites, whose archaeological foundation dates have been established.
<snip>

Naville, excavating at Tell el-Maskhutah (1880's), found inscriptions 
suggesting the site was known by two names, Pi-Tum, "the house of Tum" 
referring to a temple erected for Tum/Atum,  a god of Egypt, and Tukw/Tukwt, 
the region's name, which he argued has been transliterated into the Hebrew 
form, Succoth. He also found what he regarded to be large mud-brick 
storehouses which he attributed to the Israelites, and he argued that the 
site was known by two interchangeable names, religiously as Pithom, and 
civically as Succoth.

Holladay has concluded from the excavations conducted at Tell el Maskhutah 
in the 1980's that this site was occupied from ca. 1750-1625 BCE (Middle 
Bronze II-III) by Asiatics, then abandoned apparently until circa 610 BCE, 
when Necho II established a fortress there to protect the canal he was 
creating from the Nile to the Red Sea.

<snip>