Pithom

References in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Greek and Roman sources[3] exist for this city, but its exact location remains somewhat uncertain.

[4] Others identified it as the earlier archaeological site of Tell El Retabeh (Arabic: تل الرتابة, romanized: Tall al-Ratāba).

The 10th-century Jewish scholar Saadia Gaon identified Pithom's location in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Hebrew Bible as the Faiyum, 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of Cairo.

[9] Édouard Naville and Flinders Petrie were looking for Pithom along the Wadi Tumilat, an arable strip of land serving as the ancient transit route between Egypt and Canaan across the Sinai—the biblical 'Way of Shur'.

At the beginning of the 19th Dynasty of Egypt, a newer settlement was established, and Ramesses II built new fortifications, a Temple of Atum and many other structures.

[10] This opinion goes back to the 19th century, when Alan Gardiner first identified Pithom with the site of Tell El Retaba, and this was later accepted by William F. Albright,[13] and Kenneth Kitchen.

Alternatively, the recent Italian excavators have suggested identifying the site as the ancient city of Tjeku (Biblical Sukkot).

[19] Here was found a group of granite statues representing Ramesses II, two inscriptions naming Pr-Itm (Temple of Atum), storehouses and bricks made without straw.

Modern excavations at Tel El Maskhuta were carried out by the University of Toronto 'Wadi Tumilat Project' under the direction of John S. Holladay Jr.

[20] This construction at the end of the 7th century may have been carried out by Pharaoh Necho II, possibly as part of his uncompleted canal building project from the Nile to the Gulf of Suez.