Herodotus mentioned the "Arab city of Patumos" located in this region in connection with the canal construction begun by Necho II.

[6] Archaeologists therefore suspected that an ancient Egyptian city was located at the site, with the sand-covered monolith as a typical identifying feature.

[9] The French Egyptologist Jean Cledat carried out further investigations in the Wadi Tumilat region between 1900 and 1910 and was able to recover additional finds.

In the midst of this construction phase, sudden changes are recognizable, probably due to Nechos' defeat at Carchemish in 605 BC and the loss of his territories in Retjenu.

Prior to this, the Egyptian Pharaoh Apries, in alliance with Zedekiah, had failed in his attempt to prevent the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II.

Larger quantities of similar pottery turned up at Tahpanhes, located about 22 km from the mouth of the Pelusian Nile River, and at a site in the western Sinai region tentatively identified as Migdol.

After the destruction and reconstruction, Tell el-Maschuta developed into a highly frequented trading center during the Saite dynasty under the pharaohs Apries, Amasis and Psamtik III.

The reason for this may have been the central location between the Mediterranean and Red Sea as well as the trade connection to the Indian Ocean, especially as Tell-el-Mashuta was also roughly halfway between Suez and Bubastis.

Herodotus, Histories, 2nd book, 112Phoenician trade, which took on increasing proportions through the use of the Bubastis Canal, is documented by numerous finds of Phoenician amphorae in Tell el-Maschuta.

Further evidence is provided by a terracotta statue found in the ruins of a limestone shrine, which probably represents Tanit or Asherah as a seated goddess.

[13] The trade revived by the Phoenicians focused mainly on wine, olive oil, fish sauces and other durable foods.

The temple cult of the Egyptian god Atum experienced a new heyday, as evidenced by the cuboid altars made with South Arabian influence.

[15] The inscriptions on the bowls and additional silver coins found, which show the owl of Athena on their reverse, are dated to the transition from the fifth to the fourth century BC.

[16] The end of the 31st dynasty, which was replaced by Alexander's conquest of Egypt, led to an exodus of the inhabitants of Tell el-Maschuta, followed by a period without settlement until around 285 BC.

In addition, probably towards the end of the reign of Ptolemy II, there were up to six-room granaries or multi-room warehouses on the banks of the Bubastis Canal.

[13] The trading houses and warehouses discovered by Édouard Naville and assigned to the "Children of Israel"[18] probably date from the early days of the construction program under Ptolemy II, as only these were located in the immediate vicinity of the smelting furnaces on the banks of the Bubastis Canal.

After the end of Ptolemaic rule, Tell el-Maschuta experienced a decline, so that the site lost its main function as a trading post at the beginning of the 1st century BC and was therefore once again abandoned by its inhabitants.

When Trajan expanded the Bubastis Canal again after his reign, the region of Tell el-Maschuta functioned as a Roman necropolis and underwent the largest expansion in terms of area since its foundation under the Hyksos.

Previous smaller excavation campaigns had already partially uncovered the Roman cemetery, which is why the archaeological team from Toronto did not carry out any further intensive investigations at this site, but was able to confirm the large quantities of pottery found in the upper stratum.

[19] The findings revealed that the necropolis was mostly built for "privileged Roman citizens" and consisted of square underground tombs with vaulted superstructures.

In the upper part of an amphora from Gaza there was a Coptic inscription with two "Chi-Rho symbols" as Christ's monogram, which had been used by Christians since the 2nd century AD to represent their faith and to recognize each other.

[19] In the early 4th century AD, Tell el-Maschuta was abandoned as a Roman necropolis, as evidenced by the absence of the decorated grave illuminations.

Édouard Naville believed that his excavation findings confirmed his assumption that it was the "children of Israel" who built the "trading houses" at Tell el-Maschutah.

Kenneth Anderson Kitchen, on the other hand, considers Tell el-Maschutah to be the biblical Sukkot, where the Israelites camped on their exodus from Egypt.

Kitchen still stands by his hypothesis that both Tell er-Retaba and Tell el-Maschuta coexisted as settlements in the New Kingdom,[20] without, however, taking into account the pottery findings of John S. Holladay's archaeological team.

Donald B. Redford, on the other hand, agreed with Holladay's findings and sees Tell el-Maschuta as the biblical Pithom, which was only built 600 years after the Exodus from Egypt.

James K. Hoffmeier and Gary Rendsburg argue that the discovery of such large burial complex implies that there must have been a community dwelling at Tell el-Maschuta during the 19th Dynasty.

[21]: 8 The references to Sukkot in the Pentateuch (Ex 12:37, Num 33:5-6) remain unclear and leave open whether it is a city, a village, a fort or a region.

In light of the excavations, those historians who identified Pithom with Tell el-Maschuta judged the story of the Exodus from Egypt to be fiction or saw it as an anachronistic additional account that was only included in the scriptures around the 6th century BC.

[10] Detailed examinations of the ancient Egyptian papyri show that the name "Tjeku", from which the Hebrew equivalent "Sukkot" is derived, almost always referred to a larger area in the 19th and 20th dynasties[22] and was only written once with the city determinative.