Pithom

Pithom, one of the "treasure cities" stated to have been built for Pharaoh by the Hebrews in Goshen during the Oppression (Exod. i. 11). We have here the Hebraized form of the Egyptian Petom "House of (the sun-god) Etom," in Greek, Patumos, capital of the 8th nome of Lower Egypt and situated in the Wadi Tumilat on the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. Succoth (Egyptian Thuket) was identical with it or was in its immediate neighbourhood. The site, now Tell el Maskhuta, has yielded several important monuments, including the best preserved of the trilingual stelae of Darius which commemorated his work on the canal. The earliest name yet found is that of Rameses II. of the XIXth Dynasty, but in one case he has usurped earlier work, apparently of the XIIth Dynasty (a sphinx), and the city was evidently very ancient. Several of the monuments from Pithom have been removed to Ismailia on the Suez Canal.

See Ed. Naville, The Store City of Pithom and the route of the Exodus (London, 1885); W. M. F. Petrie, Tanis, pt. i. (London, 1885); W. Golenischeff, "Stele de Darius" in Recueil de travaux relatifs a la philologie et l'archeologie egyptiennes et assyriennes, xiii. 99, and the article RAMESES. (F. LL. G.)