(4) _Period of the Oppression and the Exodus._--The statement in Exodus 1:11 that the Pharaoh who oppressed the Egyptians built the store-cities of Pithom and Raamses, indicates that this Pharaoh was Ramses II, for Naville, who excavated the site of Pithom (Egyptian _Pi-tum_, “House of the god Tum”) in 1883, found much work of Ramses II there, including colossal statues of this king, and also found no evidence that there had been any town of importance on the site before.[5] The name of the other city, Raamses, also points to the same king, since Ramses I, the only other king of the name Egypt had known, reigned less than two years--a time insufficient for the building of a city. The Bible evidently refers, then, to Ramses II. Concerning Ramses II and his reign much is now known, as has been pointed out in § 6 (7); (see Fig. 10). All through the nineteenth dynasty peoples from Syria were employed by the kings on public works. Among these was a people called _‘prw_ = Aperu or Apuri, which some have thought to be Hebrews. Whether the Hebrews are really mentioned in this way is doubted by others, for references to the _‘prw_ do not cease at the time the Exodus of Israel must have occurred. They were employed by Ramses IV, of the twentieth dynasty, as late as 1165 B. C. Much has been learned from archæology about Egyptian brick-making, and it corresponds to the description of it given in Exodus. We have pictures of men at the work. No one thought of burning bricks in Egypt. The clay was moulded and dried in the sun. Straw was mixed with the clay to increase its adhesive quality. Naville says that some of the corners of some of the buildings at Pithom were actually built of _bricks without straw_. (See Exod. 5:7-18; and Fig. 11.) The name Pithom continued as one of the names of this store-city or fortress until at least 250 B. C., for it is found on a pillar which Ptolemy Philadelphus set up there, but side by side with this name the place, all through its history, bore the name Thakut, which is philologically the Egyptian equivalent of the Hebrew Succoth. As this was the first station of the Hebrews when they left Egypt (Exod. 12:37; 13:20; Num. 33:5, 6), Naville holds that the Hebrews, after leaving the land of Goshen, must have passed out on the south side of the Isthmus of Suez.