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Rameses

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Pi-Ramesses, the House of Ramesses, lay at Qantir in the north-eastern Nile delta, on the Pelusiac branch of the river, about 30 km south of Tanis. It grew beside the ruins of Avaris at Tell el-Dab'a, the capital of the Hyksos, the foreign kings of northern Egypt, whom Ahmose I drove out in the mid-sixteenth century BC; the soldier Ahmose son of Ebana tells in his tomb at Elkab how he fought at the siege and capture of Avaris.

Seti I seems to have had a palace here, and his son Ramesses II (1279–1213 BC) made Pi-Ramesses his chief residence, close to the roads leading to Egypt's provinces in Asia. When the Pelusiac branch silted up, the kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty moved to Tanis and carried many of its monuments there, so that Tanis was long taken for Pi-Ramesses. Labib Habachi placed the city at Qantir in 1954, and from the 1960s Manfred Bietak, mapping the old branches of the Nile, confirmed it; excavations at Tell el-Dab'a and at Qantir have since uncovered both cities.

Joseph settled his father and his brethren in the land of Rameses, in the best of the land. The oppressed Israelites built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses, and on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the morrow after the passover, they journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. Biblical Rameses is usually identified with Pi-Ramesses, while the date of the Exodus remains disputed.

In the 380s, by the usual dating, the pilgrim Egeria passed through a place shown to her as Rameses, four miles from the town of Arabia. She found it a bare field without a single dwelling, though its fallen ruins were endless; only one huge Theban stone stood there, carved with two great statues said to be Moses and Aaron, and an old sycamore said to have been planted by the patriarchs.

Scripture: Gen 47:11; Exod 1:11; Exod 12:37; Num 33:3; Num 33:5

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Verses (5)

Gen 47:11
And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.
Exod 1:11
Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.
Exod 12:37
And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children.
Num 33:3
And they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians.
Num 33:5
And the children of Israel removed from Rameses, and pitched in Succoth.

King James Version

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