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Tell-el-Maskhuta or Pithom-Succoth.—The Pharaoh who enslaved the Israelites appears to have been Rameses II., son of Seti I., of the nineteenth dynasty. This dynasty only began with Rameses I., the grandfather of Rameses II. The store cities built by the Israelites were called Raamses and Pithom; and when the Exodus took place the starting point was Rameses and the first resting-place Succoth (Ex. i. 11; xii. 37). None of these places were known, and it had hardly been suspected that Pithom and Succoth were so closely associated as they are now found to be. But the site of Pithom has lately been discovered. We all remember Kassassin, where Sir Garnet Wolseley halted the British troops, in the campaign of 1882, just before that silent midnight march to storm Arabi’s entrenchments. It is twelve miles west of Ismailia on the Suez Canal. Close by Kassassin is a low mound called Tell-el-Maskhuta, the Mound of the Statue. Here, at the end of the last century, was found a red granite monolith, representing Rameses II. sitting between the two solar gods Ra and Tum. In 1860 M. Paponot’s men came across another monolith, and it is probable that the pair stood symmetrically at the entrance of some edifice. Further excavation brought to light two sphinxes in black granite, placed also on each side of the avenue; and then, farther on, a shrine or naos in red sandstone, and a large stele in red granite, lying flat. All these monuments had been dedicated to the god Tum.

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