_Saft-el-Henneh or Goshen._--In more than one season Mr Naville carried
on operations to discover the locality of Goshen, which had always been
matter of conjecture and controversy. He has come to the conclusion
that Goshen was a city a little to the east of the modern Zagazig,
and situated in a district of the same name. The land of Goshen may
be described as a district roughly triangular in shape, with its apex
to the south; having Zagazig at its north-west angle, Tel-el-Kebir
north-east, and Belbeis at the lower extremity. The town of Goshen
appears to have been at Saft-el-Henneh, nearly half-way between the
eastern and western points of the triangle. Here we find the name Tel
Fakûs, the Phakusa of the Greeks, and apparently the same as Kesem,
Gesem, or Goshen. Saft-el-Henneh itself is a large village, standing in
the midst of a country peculiarly fruitful, corresponding thus to “the
best of the land,” which was given to the Israelites.
“At the first glance,” says Mr Naville, “one sees that Saft-el-Henneh
stands on the site of an ancient city of considerable extent. The whole
village is constructed on the ruins of old houses, many of which are
still to be seen on the south side.”
The monuments discovered at Saft include a colossal statue, in black
granite, of Rameses II., which, probably, belonged to a temple of some
importance; and a shrine of Nectanebo II., with a dedicatory hymn, and
the information that the place where the shrine was erected was called
Kes.
The Book of Genesis tells us that Goshen was a pasture land. We
may thence infer that it was not thickly inhabited, and not yet
organized into a province with its capital, its temples, its priests,
and its governor. Since then the name is absent from the earliest
Egyptian lists of provinces--namely, those of Seti I. and Rameses
II. (the Pharaoh that oppressed Israel)--Mr Naville maintains that
the hieroglyphic records which simply omit the name, and the Bible
narrative which incidentally shows us the reason why, are remarkably in
accord.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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