Tahpanhes or Tehaphnehes (; or ) known by the Ancient Greeks as the ( Pelusian) Daphnae () and Taphnas () in the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, now Tell Defenneh, was a city in

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

. It was located on Lake Manzala on the Tanitic branch of the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

, about 26 km (16 miles) from

Pelusium Pelusium (Ancient Egyptian: ; /, romanized: , or , romanized: ; ; ; ; ) was an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, to the southeast of the modern Port Said. It became a Roman provincial capital and Metropolitan arc ...

. The site is now situated on the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

Name

The meaning of the name remains uncertain although it appears to be of an

Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...

origin. Biblical scholar John L. McKenzie refers the name to ''T-h-p-nhsj'' meaning ''Fortress of the Nubian'', while William Albright adds it means ''Fortress of Pinehas''. Daressy and Spiegelberg connect the name with the hieroglyphic word ''Tephen''.

History

King Psammetichus (664–610 BC) established a garrison of foreign mercenaries at Daphnae, mostly

Caria Caria (; from Greek language, Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; ) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Carians were described by Herodotus as being Anatolian main ...

ns and

Ionia Ionia ( ) was an ancient region encompassing the central part of the western coast of Anatolia. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who ...

n Greeks (

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

ii. 154). According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

fled to this place after the death of Gedaliah and settled there for a time (

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

2:16; Jeremiah 43:7,8,9; 44:1; ;

Ezekiel Ezekiel, also spelled Ezechiel (; ; ), was an Israelite priest. The Book of Ezekiel, relating his visions and acts, is named after him. The Abrahamic religions acknowledge Ezekiel as a prophet. According to the narrative, Ezekiel prophesied ...

). After Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC, the Jewish refugees, including

, came to Tahpanhes ( Jeremiah 43– 44). A platform of

brickwork Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by ...

, which has been tentatively described as the pavement at the entry of

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

's palace, has been discovered at this place. "Here," says the discoverer, William Flinders Petrie, "the ceremony described by Jeremiah ; 'brick-kiln' (i.e. pavement of brick) took place before the chiefs of the fugitives assembled on the platform, and here

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

spread his royal pavilion". When

Naucratis Naucratis or Naukratis (Ancient Greek: , "Naval Command"; Egyptian: , , , Coptic: ) was a city and trading-post in ancient Egypt, located on the Canopic (western-most) branch of the Nile river, south-east of the Mediterranean sea and the city ...

was given the monopoly of Greek traffic by

Amasis II Amasis II ( ; ''ḤMS'') or Ahmose II was a pharaoh (reigned 570526 BCE) of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the successor of Apries at Sais, Egypt, Sais. He was the last great ruler of Ancient Egypt, Egypt before the Achaemenid Empire, Persian ...

(570–526 BC), the Greeks were removed from Daphnae and its prosperity never returned; in Herodotus' time the deserted remains of the docks and buildings were visible. According to the Phoenician papyrus letters, Phoenicians settled in the site. The site was discovered by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie in 1886; it was then known by natives as Qasr Bint al-Yahudi, the "Castle of the Jew's Daughter". There is a massive fort and enclosure; the chief discovery was a large number of fragments of pottery, which are of great importance for the chronology of vase-painting, since they must belong to the time between Psammetichus and Amasis, i.e. the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 6th century BC. They show the characteristics of Ionian art, but their shapes and other details testify to their local manufacture. Egyptologist Noël Aimé-Giron proposed to identify Tahpanhes with the biblical location of Baal-zephon based on the Saqqara letter.Noël Aimé-Giron, ‘Baʿal Saphon et les dieux de Tahpanhes dans un nouveau papyrus Phénicien’, ASAE (1941): 433–460.

Notes

References

*WMF Petrie, "Tanis II., Nebesheh, and Defenneh" (the ''Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund'', 1888) * {{Phoenician cities and colonies, state=Egypt Hebrew Bible cities Archaeological sites in Egypt Former populated places in Egypt Phoenician colonies

Name

History

See also

Notes

References