Caphtor

Last updated
One reconstruction of the Generations of Noah, placing the "Caphthorim" on Ancient Crete. Noahsworld map Version2.png
One reconstruction of the Generations of Noah, placing the "Caphthorim" on Ancient Crete.

Caphtor (Hebrew : כַּפְתּוֹרKaftōr) is a locality mentioned in the Bible, in which its people are called Caphtorites or Caphtorim and are named as a division of the ancient Egyptians. [1] Caphtor is also mentioned in ancient inscriptions from Egypt, Mari, and Ugarit. Jewish sources placed Caphtor in the region of Pelusium, though modern sources tend to associate it with localities such as Cilicia, Cyprus, or Crete. [2]

Contents

Jewish accounts

The Caphtorites are mentioned in the Table of Nations, Book of Genesis (Genesis 10:13–14) as one of several divisions of Mizraim (Egypt). This is reiterated in the Books of Chronicles (1 Chronicles 1:11–12) as well as later histories such as Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews i.vi.2, [3] which placed them explicitly in Egypt and the Sefer haYashar 10 which describes them living by the Nile. A migration of the Philistines from Caphtor is mentioned in the Book of Amos (Amos 9:7).

Josephus, (Jewish Antiquities I, vi) [3] using extra-Biblical accounts, provides context for the migration from Caphtor to Philistia. He records that the Caphtorites were one of the Egyptian peoples whose cities were destroyed during the Ethiopic War.

Tradition regarding the location of Caphtor was preserved in the Aramaic Targums and in the commentary of Maimonides which place it at Caphutkia in the vicinity of Damietta [4] (at the eastern edge of the Nile delta near classical Pelusium). This view is supported by the tenth century biblical exegete Saadia Gaon, [5] and by Benjamin of Tudela, the twelfth-century Jewish traveller from Navarre, who both wrote that Damietta was Caphtor. [6] [7]

The Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 37:5 (page 298 in the 1961 edition of Maurice Simon's translation) says that the "Caphtorim were dwarfs". [8]

In archaeological sources

Mari Tablets

A location called Kaptar is mentioned in several texts of the Mari Tablets and is understood to be reference to Caphtor. An inscription dating to c. 1780-1760 BCE mentions a man from Caphtor (a-na Kap-ta-ra-i-im) who received tin from Mari. Another Mari text from the same period mentions a Caphtorite weapon (kakku Kap-ta-ru-ú). Another records a Caphtorite object (ka-ta-pu-um Kap-ta-ru-ú) which had been sent by king Zimrilim of the same period, to king Shariya of Razama. A text in connection with Hammurabi mentions Caphtorite (k[a-a]p-ta-ri-tum) fabric that was sent to Mesopotamia via Mari. An inventory thought to be from the same era as the previous texts mentions a Caphtorite vessel (GAL kap-ta-ri-tum) (probably a large jug or jar). [2]

Ras Shamra Texts

An Akkadian text from the archives of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria) contains a possible reference to Caphtor: it mentions a ship that is exempt from duty when arriving from a place whose name is written with the Akkadian cuneiform signs KUR.DUGUD.RI. KUR is a determinative indicating a country, while one possible reading of the sign DUGUD is kabtu, whence the name of the place would be Kabturi, which resembles Caphtor.

Within Ugaritic inscriptions from the Amarna period, k-p-t-r is mentioned and understood to be Caphtor: A poem uses k-p-t-r as a parallel for Egypt (H-k-p-t) naming it as the home of the god Kothar-wa-Khasis the Ugaritic equivalent of the Egyptian god Ptah. [2] Prior to the discovery of the reference to H-k-p-t scholars had already considered the possibility of iy Caphtor found in Jeremiah being the Semitic cognate of "Egypt". [9]

Egyptian inscriptions

The name k-p-t-ȝ-r is found written in hieroglyphics in a list of locations in the Ptolemaic temple of Kom Ombo in Upper Egypt and is regarded as a reference to Caphtor.

The reference to k-p-t-ȝ-r should not be confused with other inscriptions at the temple and from earlier sites mentioning a locality called Keftiu listed amongst lands to the northeast of Egypt and having different spelling and pronunciation, although it has been conjectured by some scholars that this is also a reference to Caphtor. [2] Attempts to identify Caphtor with Keftiu go back to the 19th century [10] [11] [12] and argue that r changed to y in the Egyptian language. [13] However the name k-p-t-ȝ-r more closely resembling "Caphtor" is from the (late) Ptolemaic era and still has the "r" and references to "Keftiu" occur separately at the same site. Those arguing for the identification suggest that k-p-t-ȝ-r is an Egyptian transliteration of the Semitic form of the name and that "Keftiu" is the true Egyptian form. [2] Sayce had however already argued in the 19th century that the names in the text in which k-p-t-ȝ-r occurs were not transliterations of the Semitic forms. Other scholars have disagreed over whether this can be said for the occurrence of k-p-t-ȝ-r. [2]

The equation of Keftiu with Caphtor commonly features in interpretations that equate Caphtor with Crete, Cyprus, or a locality in Anatolia. Jean Vercoutter in the 1950s had argued, based on an inscription of the tomb of Rekhmire that Keftiu could not be set apart from the "islands of the sea" which he identified as a reference to the Aegean Sea. However in 2003, Vandesleyen pointed out that the term wedj wer (literally "great green") which Vercoutter had translated "the sea" actually refers to the vegetation growing on the banks of the Nile and in the Nile Delta, and that the text places Keftiu in the Nile Delta. [14]

This issue is not settled though. In Caphtor / Keftiu: a New Investigation, John Strange argues that the late geographical lists referenced in the preceding paragraph cannot be taken at face value, as they appear to be "random" collections of antique place names, and contain other corruptions and duplicates. [15]

Translation

The Targums translate Caphtor into Aramaic as Kaputkai, Kapudka or similar i.e. Caphutkia explained by Maimonides as being Damietta on the coastland of Egypt. [4] [6] [16]

Referencing Katpatuka, the Septuagint translated the name as "Kappadokias" and the Vulgate similarly renders it as "Cappadocia". The seventeenth-century scholar Samuel Bochart [17] understood this as a reference to Cappadocia in Anatolia but John Gill writes that these translations relate to Caphutkia. [6]

Modern identifications

"Four Foreign Chieftains" from TT39 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, MET DT10871). The second from the right is a Keftiu. Four Foreign Chieftains, Tomb of Puyemre MET DT10871.jpg
"Four Foreign Chieftains" from TT39 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, MET DT10871). The second from the right is a Keftiu.

From the 18th century onwards commentators attempted several identifications of Caphtor which increasingly disregarded the traditional identification as an Egyptian coastal locality in the vicinity of Pelusium. These included identification with Coptus, Colchis, Cyprus, Cappadocia in Asia Minor, Cilicia, and Crete.

The identification with Coptus is recorded in Osborne's A Universal History From The Earliest Account of Time, [18] where it is remarked that many suppose the name to have originated from Caphtor. While this interpretation agrees with tradition placing Caphtor in Egypt it disregards the tradition that it was a coastland (iy rendered island in some Bible translations) and more precisely Caphutkia; and this contradiction is noted in Osborne. It is now known that the name Coptus is derived from Egyptian Gebtu [19] which is possibly not associated with the name Caphtor.

detail of a generic captive enemy with the hieroglyph for Keftiu under it at Ramses II's temple at Abydos Name-Keftiu-at-Abydos-Ramses-Temple.jpg
detail of a generic captive enemy with the hieroglyph for Keftiu under it at Ramses II's temple at Abydos

Egyptian kftı͗w (conventionally vocalized as Keftiu) is attested in numerous inscriptions. [20] The 19th-century belief that Keftiu/Caphtor was to be identified with Cyprus or Syria [21] shifted to an association with Crete under the influence of Sir Arthur Evans. It was criticized in 1931 by G. A. Wainwright, who located Keftiu in Cilicia, on the Mediterranean shore of Asia Minor, [22] and he drew together evidence from a wide variety of sources: in geographical lists and the inscription of Tutmose III's "Hymn of Victory", [23] where the place of Keftiu in lists appeared to exist among recognizable regions in the northeasternmost corner of the Mediterranean, in the text of the "Keftiuan spell" śntkppwymntrkkr, of ca 1200 BCE, [24] in which the Cilician and Syrian deities Tarku (the Hittite sun god), Sandan (the Cilician and Lydian equivalent of Tarku), [25] and Kubaba were claimed, [26] in personal names associated in texts with Keftiu and in Tutmose's "silver shawabty vessel of the work of Keftiu" and vessels of iron, which were received as gifts from Tinay in northern Syria. Wainwright's theory is not widely accepted, as his evidence shows at most a cultural exchange between Keftiu and Anatolia without pinpointing its location on the Mediterranean coast.

In 1980 J. Strange drew together a comprehensive collection of documents that mentioned Caphtor or Keftiu. He writes that crucial texts dissociate Keftiu from "the islands in the middle of the sea", by which Egyptian scribes denoted Crete. [27]

The stone base of a statue during the reign of Amenhotep III includes the name kftı͗w in a list of Mediterranean ship stops prior to several Cretan cities such as Kydonia, Phaistos, and Amnisos, showing that the term clearly refers to the Aegean. [28]

See also

Notes

  1. Genesis 10:13-14
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strange, J. Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation (Leiden: Brill) 1980
  3. 1 2 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews - Book i, Chapter vi, Section 2, partial: Now all the children of Mesraim, being eight in number, possessed the country from Gaza to Egypt, though it retained the name of one only, the Philistim; for the Greeks call part of that country Palestine. As for the rest, Ludicim, and Enemim, and Labim, who alone inhabited in Libya, and called the country from himself, Nedim, and Phethrosim, and Chesloim, and Cephthorim, we know nothing of them besides their names; for the Ethiopic war,[*Antiq. b. ii. chap. x.] which we shall describe hereafter, was the cause that those cities were overthrown.
  4. 1 2 John Lightfoot, From the Talmud and Hebraica, Volume 1,Cosimo, Inc., 2007
  5. Saadia Gaon (1984). Yosef Qafih (ed.). Rabbi Saadia Gaon's Commentaries on the Pentateuch (in Hebrew) (4 ed.). Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook. p. 33 (note 39). OCLC   232667032.
  6. 1 2 3 The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible, Amos 9:7
  7. Yosef Kapach trans., Saadia Gaon Al-Hatorah, Mossad HaRav Kook, 1963
  8. Midrash Rabbah Genesis Volume I, Maurice Simon (39.4M PDF page 346 of 560) Simon's footnote on the "dwarfs"[sic] says: "Kaftor [Hebrew : כפתור] is Hebrew for "button", and he probably interprets 'Caphtorim' as meaning "button-like — little and rotund people."
  9. Edward Wells, An historical geography of the Old and New Testament, Clarendon Press, 1809
  10. Steiner, From Minoan farmers to Roman traders: sidelights on the economy of ancient Crete, 1999, Stuttgart, p.124
  11. Dickinson, The Aegean Bronze age, 1994. Cambridge University Press, pp.243-4
  12. Roemer, Ancient perspectives on Egypt, 2003, Routledge-Cavendish, p.10
  13. Bromiley, Geoffrey Williams, The international standard Bible encyclopedia / general ed.: Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Vol. 3. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1999, p.844
  14. Claude Vandersleyen, Keftiu: A Cautionary Note, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, vol 22, issue 2, 2003
  15. John Strange (1980). Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation. Brill Archive. p. 43. ISBN   90-04-06256-4.
  16. Navigating the Bible, World ORT, 2000, commentary Caphtorim
  17. Geographia Sacra seu Phaleg et Canaan (Caen 1646) l. 4. c. 32. .
  18. An Universal History From The Earliest Account of Time: Compiled from Original Authors And Illustrated with Maps, Cuts, Notes etc. With A General Index to the Whole, Volume 1, Osborne, 1747
  19. Toby A. H. Wilkinson, The Egyptian world, Routledge worlds Edition 10, illustrated, Routledge, 2007
  20. J. Strange, Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation (Leiden: Brill) 1980, has brought together all the attestations for Caphtor and Keftiu.
  21. Steindorf 1893; W. Max Müller 1893; the history of the locating of Keftiu is set out briefly in Wainwright 1952:206f.
  22. Wainwight, "Keftiu: Crete or Cilicia?" The Journal of Hellenic Studies51 (1931); in response to critics who shifted the locale to the mainland of Greece, Wainwright assembled his various interlocking published arguments and summarized them in "Asiatic Keftiu" American Journal of Archaeology56.4 (October 1952), pp. 196-212.
  23. Text in Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt II, 659-60.
  24. The spell is a rosary of divine names according to Gordon (JEA18 (1932) pp 67f.)
  25. A deity that occurs in Luwian contexts, in theophoric names in Hittite texts and at Ugarit and Alalakh, and later in Greek Sandos, in Lycian and Cilician contexts, according to Albrecht Goetze, "The Linguistic continuity of Anatolia as shown by its proper names" Journal of Cuneiform Studies8.2 (1954, pp. 74-81) p. 78.
  26. Wainwright 1952:199.
  27. Strange, John (1980). Caphtor/Keftiu: a new investigation. Leiden: Brill Archive. p. 125. ISBN   978-90-04-06256-6.
  28. Ahlström, Gösta Werner; Gary O. Rollefson; Diana Edelman (1993). The history of ancient Palestine. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. p. 315. ISBN   978-0-8006-2770-6.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philistines</span> Ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan

The Philistines were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canaan</span> Region in the ancient Near East

Canaan was a Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Generations of Noah</span> Genealogy of the sons of Noah in Genesis

The Generations of Noah, also called the Table of Nations or Origines Gentium, is a genealogy of the sons of Noah, according to the Hebrew Bible, and their dispersion into many lands after the Flood, focusing on the major known societies. The term nations to describe the descendants is a standard English translation of the Hebrew word "goyim", following the c. 400 CE Latin Vulgate's "nationes", and does not have the same political connotations that the word entails today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Via Maris</span> Ancient trade route linking Egypt with Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia

Via Maris is one modern name for an ancient trade route, dating from the early Bronze Age, linking Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia — along the Mediterranean coast of modern-day Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Syria. In Latin, Via Maris means "way of the sea", a translation of the Greek ὁδὸν θαλάσσης found in Isaiah 9:1 of the Septuagint, itself a translation of the Hebrew דֶּ֤רֶךְ הַיָּם֙ . It is a historic road that runs in part along the Palestinian Mediterranean coast. It was the most important route from Egypt to Syria which followed the coastal plain before crossing over into the plain of Jezreel and the Jordan valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saadia Gaon</span> 10th-century rabbi

Saʿadia ben Yosef Gaon was a prominent rabbi, gaon, Jewish philosopher, and exegete who was active in the Abbasid Caliphate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artaxerxes III</span> King of the Achaemenid Empire from 359/8 to 338 BC

Ochus, known by his dynastic name Artaxerxes III, was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 359/58 to 338 BC. He was the son and successor of Artaxerxes II and his mother was Stateira.

Ludim is the Hebrew term for a people mentioned in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In the Biblical Table of Nations Genesis 10:13 they were descended from Mizraim. The biblical scholar Victor P. Hamilton believes that the available evidence "suggests" that the Ludim are the Lydians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brook of Egypt</span> Biblical river

Brook of Egypt is the name used in some English translations of the Bible for the Hebrew נַחַל מִצְרַיִם‎, naḥal mizraim, a river (bed) forming the southernmost border of the Land of Israel. A number of scholars in the past identified it with Wadi el-Arish, an epiphemeral river flowing into the Mediterranean sea near the Egyptian city of Arish, while other scholars, including Israeli archaeologist Nadav Na'aman and the Italian Mario Liverani believe that the Besor stream, just to the south of Gaza, is the "Brook of Egypt" referenced in the Bible. A related phrase is nahar mizraim, used in Genesis 15:18.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pelusium</span> Place in Egypt

Pelusium was an important city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km (19 mi) to the southeast of the modern Port Said. It became a Roman provincial capital and Metropolitan archbishopric and remained a multiple Catholic titular see and an Eastern Orthodox active archdiocese.

Pithom was an ancient city of Egypt. References in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Greek and Roman sources exist for this city, but its exact location remains somewhat uncertain. A number of scholars identified it as the later archaeological site of Tell el-Maskhuta. Others identified it as the earlier archaeological site of Tell El Retabeh.

Anamim is, according to the Bible, either a son of Ham's son Mizraim or the name of a people descending from him. Biblical scholar Donald E. Gowan describes their identity as "completely unknown."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casluhim</span> Ancient Egyptian people mentioned in the Bible and related literature

The Casluhim or Casluhites were an ancient Egyptian people mentioned in the Bible and related literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pi-Ramesses</span> Capital of the ancient Egyptian 19th dynasty

Pi-Ramesses was the new capital built by the Nineteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses II at Qantir, near the old site of Avaris. The city had served as a summer palace under Seti I, and may have been founded by Ramesses I while he served under Horemheb.

Samuel ben Hofni. He was the gaon of Sura Academy in Mesopotamia ("Babylonia") from 998 to 1012.

The Avim, Avvim or Avvites of Philistia in the Old Testament were a people dwelling in Hazerim, or "the villages" or "encampments", on the south-west corner of the sea-coast. Their name is first used in Deuteronomy 2:23 in a description of the conquests that had taken place in the Land of Israel before the Israelites arrived. The passage relates that they were conquered by the Caphtorites who usurped their land. They were also theorized to be Rephaim based on the chapter's overall focus on historic wars against the Rephaim.

Caphutkia was the name used in some mediaeval Jewish and Syriac writings for the town in the vicinity of the former Ptolemaic city of Pelusium and its later Arab counterpart Damietta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sack of Damietta (853)</span> Part of the Arab–Byzantine wars

The Sack of Damietta was a successful raid on the port city of Damietta on the Nile Delta by the Byzantine navy on 22–24 May 853. The city, whose garrison was absent at the time, was sacked and plundered, yielding not only many captives but also large quantities of weapons and supplies intended for the Emirate of Crete. The Byzantine attack, which was repeated in the subsequent years, shocked the Abbasid authorities, and urgent measures were taken to refortify the coasts and strengthen the local fleet, beginning a revival of the Egyptian navy that culminated in the Tulunid and Fatimid periods.

Shur is a location mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible.

Purushanda was an Anatolian kingdom of the early second millennium prior to the common era. It was conquered by the Hittites sometime between 1650 and 1556 BCE.

References