Tell el-Maskhuta (Pithom)

Nubian prisoners of the tomb
of Horemheb in Saqqara

Modern Tell el-Maskhuta was known anciently as Per  Atum  (hence  biblical  Pithom),  Tukw  ("The Estate of Atum in  Tkw" [biblical Sukkoth]), Greek Heron-polis (Eroopolis, Heroon),  and  Roman  Ero  (Hero).  This  multicomponent  stratified  site  (30°33'N, 32°60'E) in the Wadi Tumilat region of the eastern Nile  Delta  was  occupied  during  the last  two-thirds  of  the  seventeenth  centmy BCE,  and again from around 610 BCE  to perhaps the early  fourth  century  CE.  It  experienced  brief  periods  of  decline  in  the  fifth century BCE and again in the first century BCE through the first  century CE. Probably founded in connection with overland trade to  southern Arabia during the Hyksos period, it was a control point  and entrepot on the sea-level canal of Necho II (610-595 BC), which ran from the Nile to the head of the Red Sea via the Wadi Tumilat and the Bitter  Lakes region.

Tell el-Maskhuta  was  the  first  site  excavated  by  the  Egypt  Exploration Society (Edouard Naville, 1.883). Prior to World War  I,  Jean  Cledat  conducted  excavations,  apparently  largely  in  the  temple precincts, which yielded numerous museum specimens but  little  of  scholarly  substance.  More  recently,  the  Egyptian  Antiquities Organization, now the Supreme Council of Antiquities,  has  conducted  numerous  excavations  in  the  northern  cemetery,  along the Ismailia Canal, and in a number of areas in and on the  margins of the modern village. Most current knowledge of the site  derives from a major series of surveys and excavations conducted  by a multidisciplinary University of Toronto team directed by John  S. Holla-day, Jr.

Recent Pages:

·        Petosiris
·        Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie
·        Petuabastis
·        Philae
·        Piety in Ancient Egypt
·        Piramesse