EARLY PEOPLE AND PLACE NAMES
THE ancient peoples and place names of Sinai claim separate attention.
The earliest Egyptian rock inscription at Maghara represents the
Pharaoh as a smiter, and describes him as such with the signs of a
hand, an eagle, and the determinative of hills. The term is held
to apply to no people in particular, and is therefore rendered as
“barbarians.”
King Khufu (IV 2), in addition, is described as a smiter of the Anu;
the word is written with the pillar sign. The word Anu was applied in
Egypt to cave-dwellers generally, more especially to those of Nubia.
The Anu are first mentioned on the Palermo Stone in connection with
a king of the First Dynasty whose name is broken away, but who was
probably King Den-Setui.
In the estimation of the historian Josephus (_c._ A.D. 60), the
inhabitants of Sinai at the time of Moses were cave-dwellers, for he
stated that Moses, in going to Sinai, went among the “troglodytes”
(_Antiq._, ii. 11).
Among the early inhabitants of the peninsula were the Horites. The
Babylonian kings who fought against the four kings of southern Syria
who revolted in the time of Abraham, “smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth
Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh-Kiriathaim,
and the Horites in their mount Seir unto El Paran, which is by the
wilderness” (Gen. xiv. 5-6). This associates the Horites with Mount
Seir, which extended along the depression between the head of the Gulf
of Akaba and the Dead Sea.
In the estimation of Prof. Robertson Smith the Horites of the Bible
were troglodytes, which would bring them into line with the Anu of
the Egyptian inscriptions. These Horites were accounted of low stock
by the Hebrews, and were probably in the stage through which the
Israelites had passed before they formed a confederacy. Prof. Robertson
Smith pointed out that the list of their so-called dukes (Gen. xxxvi.
20) is not a literal genealogy, but an account of their tribal and
local division, since five of the names are animal or totem names.[59]
The view that the Horites were cave-dwellers was based on the likeness
between the name Horite and the Hebrew word _hor_, which signifies
mountain. The connection between the names is now denied, and the
Horites of the Bible are identified with the Kharu or Khalu of the
Egyptian texts. The Kharu appear in the _Annals_ of Tahutmes III (XVIII
6) and of Amen-hotep IV (XVIII 10), among the people against whom the
Egyptians fought on the way to Naharain _i.e._ Mesopotamia.[60] But
the word Kharu on the Egyptian side has been interpreted as “mixed
multitude.”
The next people who are mentioned on the Egyptian monuments in Sinai
are the Mentu. King Ra-en-user (V 6) was described as “great god of
the smiting countries and raider of the Mentu.” Again, the tablet of
Men-kau-hor, mentioned a royal expedition to the Mentu; and Ptahwer in
Sinai of the Twelfth Dynasty was described as “bringing the Mentu to
the king’s heels.”
The Mentu took part in the great Hyksos invasion of Egypt between the
Twelfth and the Eighteenth Dynasties. For when the tide of foreign
nations was rolled back, they were among the conquered. King Aahmes
I (XVIII 1), after seizing the foreign stronghold Avaris, “made a
slaughter of the Mentu of Setiu, and going south to Khent-hen-nefer,
he destroyed the Anu-Khenti.”[61] Among the conquered people who were
represented around the throne of Amen-hotep II (XVIII 7) are the Mentu,
who have the appearance of true Asiatics. An Edfu inscription, as
mentioned above, stated that the Mentu were thrown back with the help
of the devotees of the god Sopd.
The people who figured most prominently in the Egyptian annals of Sinai
were the Retennu, who were mentioned again and again on the steles
which were set up at Serabit in the course of the Twelfth Dynasty.
On three separate steles it says that the Egyptian expedition was
sped across the desert by the brother of the sheykh (_sen-heq-en_) of
the Retennu country, whose name was Khebdet or Khebtata, and who is
represented riding on an ass which is led by a man in front, with a
servant carrying his water flask behind him. On one stele six Retennu
are named.[62]
These Retennu who figure in the annals of the Sinai in the Twelfth
Dynasty are mentioned as dwelling in southern Syria in the Egyptian
_Tale of Sanehat_, otherwise _Sinuhe_. This tale describes how a
high-born Egyptian fled when news reached him of the death of King
Amen-em-hat I (XII 1). He was at the time on the western Delta and by
way of the Wadi Sneferu (unknown) reached the quarries of Khri Ahu
(perhaps Cairo), crossed the Nile and passed the domain of the goddess
Hirit, mistress of the Red Mountain (possibly Gebel Ahmar), and the
wall which the prince had constructed. He reached Keduma (or Aduma)
where Amu-anshi, sheykh of the Upper Tennu, took him for a sojourner or
son-in-law, and settled him in the adjoining Ya-a country, a land of
honey and figs, where wine was commoner than water. Sanehat remained
here many years till the death of the Pharaoh caused him to petition
his successor Sen-usert I (XII 2) for return to Egypt.[63] The name of
the land to which Sanehat fled was read either as Aduma which would be
the equivalent of Edom, but more probably (cf. Maspero and Dr. Alan
Gardiner) as Keduma, and is probably the land Kedem, _i.e._ the east
country, to which Abraham sent the sons of his concubines (Gen. xxv.
6). But the Retennu, who were peaceful neighbours of the Egyptians
during the Twelfth Dynasty, were among the peoples against whom they
afterwards waged war. Tahutmes I (XVIII 3) fought the Retennu on his
way from Egypt to Naharain, _i.e._ Mesopotamia; Tahutmes III (XVIII
6) again and again ravaged their country; and Sety I (XIX 2), whose
objective was Kadesh on the Orontes, was represented in his temple at
Karnak dragging after him the great sheykhs of the Retennu, whom he is
shown holding by the hair of their heads.[64] Again, Ramessu III (XX 1)
mentioned the tribute which was brought by the Retennu, in the great
inscription of his temple at Medinet Habu.[65]
The Retennu and their name survived in Sinai, for Ptolemy, the
geographer, named as its inhabitants the Pharanites, the Raithenoi and
the Munichiates. Again, in the year 1816 the traveller Burckhardt noted
that, attached to the mosque that stood inside the convent precincts,
there were certain poor Bedawyn “called Retheny,” whose duty it was to
clean the mosque. One of them had the dignity of _imam_, a leader in
prayer, and was supported by offerings.[66]
And not only did the Retennu continue, the language which they spoke
seems to have continued likewise. The sheykh who befriended Sanehat
about two thousand years before our era, was named Amu-anshi, as
recorded in the _Tale of Sanehat_. About the year A.D. 440 the
Christian community of Pharan in Sinai, in consequence of outrages
committed by the Arabs, lodged a complaint with their sheykh who stood
in the relation of phylarch to the Romans, and who dwelt at a place
described as twelve days’ journey from Pharan. The sequel of the
account makes it probable that it was Petra. The name of the sheykh was
Ammanus, which is the Latinised equivalent of Amu-anshi.
Another people who were associated with Sinai were the Rephaim who
are mentioned in the Bible among the people who were raided by the
Babylonian kings about B.C. 2100. “They smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth
Karnaim” (Gen. xiv. 5). The word Rephaim is related to Raphaka or
Raphia of the annals of Sargon II (B.C. 722-50).[67] It lies on the
high road from Syria to Egypt on the Mediterranean. Its modern name is
Rafa.
The Rephaim of the Bible were accounted giants. In Arabian tradition
we also hear of giants or tyrants, the Jababera. They were accounted
descendants of the Aulad bin Nuh (children of Noah), or Amalikah, from
their ancestor Amlah bin Arfexad bin Sam (Shem) bin Nuh. Masudi spoke
of the giants of the race of Amalekites who ruled in Syria at the time
of Moses.[68]
According to Arab belief the Amalekites were inspired with a knowledge
of the Arabic tongue, and settled at Medina, and were the first to
cultivate the ground and plant the date palm. In the course of time
they extended over the whole tract towards the Red Sea (El Hedjaz), and
the north-western part of the Indian Ocean (El Omar), and became the
progenitors not only of the Jababera, but also of the Faraineh (_i.e._
the Pharaohs) of Egypt.
In the Biblical genealogy Amalek appears as a descendant of Esau,
his mother, Adah, being a Hittite (Gen. xxxvi. 2, 12). But scholars
generally are agreed in assigning a high antiquity to the Amalekites.
The prophet Balaam, inspired by Jehovah, uttered the words, “Amalek was
the first of the nations” (Num. xxiv. 20).
Whatever their origin, the Amalekites were in the possession of Sinai
when the Israelites came there, since they opposed their entrance and
harried them on their way to the holy mount, and later attacked them
in Rephidim, where the Israelites carried the day (Deut. xxv. 17;
Exod. xvii. 8-16). Later, acting in concert with the Canaanites, they
smote the Israelites on their way to Hormah (Num. xiv. 25-45), and
in the time of Saul they still occupied the land “from Havilah unto
Shur” (from Arabia to the Wall of Egypt), which, according to another
account, was allotted to the sons of Ishmael (Gen. xxv. 18). Saul waged
a fierce war against them.
The connection of the Amalekites with Sinai continued in the mind of
the Arab, for Makrizi († 1441) speaking of Pharan, the city of Sinai,
described it as a city of the Amalekites.[69]
The Amalekites of the Bible and of Arab tradition are probably the
Milukhkha of the ancient annals. As mentioned above, they appear on
the statue of Gudea of about the year B.C. 2500, and in the Assyrian
fragment of geography of about B.C. 600.
Pharan, which the Arab writers described as a city of the Amalekites,
was from early times a place-name in Sinai. According to the Bible,
the Babylonian kings (_c._ B.C. 2100) pressed the Horites as far as
“El Paran, which is by the wilderness,” a phrase which the Septuagint
rendered as “the terebinth of Pharan,” as though it were a site marked
by a tree. Pharan, to all appearance, was a general name given to the
peninsula of Sinai. It is like the name Pharaoh, and this is apparently
the reason why the name “Bath of Pharaoh,” Gebel Hammam Faraun, is
given to a hill near the west coast, and the name Giziret el Faraun
to the island near Akaba, the idea of the Pharaoh leading to various
localised legends.
In the Bible we read that the Israelites, after leaving the Holy Mount,
passed through “the wilderness of Paran” on their way to Edom, which
would locate it to the Badiet Tîh. Again, King Hadad (_c._ B.C. 1156),
on his way from Midian to Egypt, passed through Paran (1 Kings xi. 17).
The Septuagint and the classical writers rendered Paran, as Pharan, and
Ptolemy, the geographer, named a village (κώμη) Pharan, the position
of which corresponds with the seat of the later Christian bishopric in
the Wadi Feiran. He also named the southernmost point of the peninsula,
the present Ras Mohammad, as the promontory of Pharan, and included the
Pharanites among the inhabitants of Sinai.
Again, Pliny († A.D. 79) mentioned a variety of precious stone as
_sapenos_ or _pharanites_, so called from the country where it is found
(xxvii. 40). Perhaps turquoise is meant, in which case Sapenos, a word
otherwise unknown, may be connected with the name Sopd; Pharanites
would refer to Pharan or to Pharaoh.
The Egyptologist Ebers was the first to suggest that the name Paran
shows Egyptian influence, and may be the place-name Rahan _plus_ the
Egyptian article _Pa_, in the same way as Pa-kesem is the land of
Kesem, _i.e._ Goshen.[70]
The word Rahan occurs in an Egyptian inscription of the Twelfth
Dynasty, according to which an envoy coming from Egypt crossed Desher
to the Rahan country.[71]
The word Raha as a place continues in different parts of the peninsula
to the present day. The north-western part of the Tîh is called Gebel
er Raha, and the wide sandy plain that extends north of the Gebel Musa
is the Plain of Raha.[72]
According to the Bible, Ishmael “a wild man and an archer,” dwelt in
the wilderness of Paran, and his mother, who was an Egyptian, “took him
a wife out of Egypt.” The Septuagint rendered this as “out of Pharan
of Egypt” (Gen. xvi. 12; xxi. 21). The Ishmaelites in the Bible are
referred to Abraham himself, which shows that they were regarded as an
allied stock by the Hebrews, a certain inferiority being implied by
their having Egyptian blood in their veins. The acceptance of a joint
divinity El seems to have made a bond of union between the twelve
tribes of Ishmael, as it did between the tribes of Israel. According
to Genesis the Ishmaelites dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, “living in
houses and castles,” or rather in “tents and booths,” as the Septuagint
rendered the passage (Gen. xxv. 16).
While Paran in the Bible was associated with Ishmael the adjoining land
of Edom was connected with Esau, the incidents of whose story are more
or less mythical, but a clue to them is yielded by the word Edom which
signifies red in Aramaic.
Esau was red-haired at birth. “And the first came out red, all over
like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau” (Gen. xxv.
25). Again, Esau, in exchange for his birthright, _i.e._ herds and
flocks and precedence after his father’s death, took “very red food,”
literally the “red, red thing,” which the Septuagint rendered as “fiery
red” (πυῤῥοῦ). In the further development of the story, the red thing
is described as a pottage of red lentils. “And Esau said to Jacob, Feed
me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore
was his name called Edom” (Gen. xxv. 30). The hairiness of Esau has
been connected with Mount Seir, a word signifying rough;[73] on the
same basis the idea of redness conveyed by the word Edom, is referable
to the red sandstone of the district.
The Edomites, according to the Bible, took possession of the land of Uz
(Lam. iv. 21), which was the land of Job (Job i. 1). Uz was described
as the son of Aram, the son of Shem (Gen. x. 23), or, according to
Masudi († 957), “Aud, the son of Aram, the son of Shem.”[74]
Uz and Aud are thus identified, and in keeping with this, Septuagint
described Job as dwelling in the land “Ausitis.”
Aud was a divinity by whom a group of Arabs took their oath, and the
people of Ad or Uz were among the great people of the Arab legendary
past, who were smitten by misfortune. The calamities which befell them
are, perhaps, reflected in the story of Job.
In the Koran the utterance was put into the lips of Moses, “Hath not
the story reached thee of those who were before thee, the people of
Noah and Ad and Themud” (xiv. 9).[75] “And unto Ad we sent their
brother Hud ... and unto Themud we sent Saleh, but the people received
them not as their prophets, and they were destroyed” (vii. 63). “And we
destroyed Ad and Themud” (xxix. 38). According to Masudi († 957) Aud,
who was sent to the Adites, and Saleh, who was sent to the Thamudites,
lived immediately after the Flood, before Abraham.[76]
Many stories were current among the Arabs concerning the wealth and
influence of the Adites. They were said to have lived twelve hundred
years, when their sons the Shaddad, subjected the country of the
Egyptian, and in this they remained two hundred years, and built the
city Aour or Awar.[77] The reference is to the great fortress of the
Hyksos, the Hatuar of the Egyptians, the Avaris of Manetho-Josephus,
situated about twenty miles north of Cairo. If the Adites were
instrumental in erecting this city, they must have taken part in the
great Hyksos invasion which happened during the Fourteenth Dynasty of
Egypt, _i.e._ about B.C. 2500.
According to Makrizi († 1441), the Adite king who marched against
Egypt was Shaddad ben Haddad ben Shaddad ben Ad, and the Pharaoh whom
he conquered was Ashmoun ben Masir ben Beisar, son of Cham, son of
Noah, whose buildings he destroyed and in his turn he raised pyramids
(probably pillars), traced Alexandria and then left for the Wadi el
Korah between El Nabouyah and Syria. He built a series of square
reservoirs, which resulted in many kinds of cultivation, which extended
from Raïah (_i.e._ Raithou) to Aila (at the head of the Gulf of Arabia)
to the western sea (_i.e._ the Mediterranean). His peoples’ dwellings
covered the district between El Dathmar, El Arish, and El Goufar, in
the land of Shaleh (along the Mediterranean sea-board in northern
Sinai), where there were wells and fruit-trees, and cultivation
including that of saffron of two kinds and of the sugar-cane. This
land was occupied by Khodem ben El Airan, when God, because of the
over-bearing of the Adites, raised a storm, and sand of the desert
covered the land they inhabited. Hence the words of the Koran, “And
in Ad: when we sent against them the desolating blast, it touched not
aught over which it came, but it turned it into dust.”[78]
The Adites at one period controlled the gold and incense route from
Inner Arabia to Syria, and the Koran credited them with erecting
pillars, probably _mazzeboth_, in high places. “Hast thou not seen
how the Lord dwelt with Ad at Iram, adorned with pillars whose like
have not been raised in these lands” (lxxxix. 6). And again, “Build ye
land-marks on all heights in mere pastime” (xxiv. 128). Ptolemy, the
geographer (A.D. 140), located the Oaditæ to the east of the Gulf of
Akaba, and named as their chief city Aramava, which was an important
watering station on the way between Petra and Mecca. Aramava is perhaps
Iram of the Koran.[79]
The Adites as traders were succeeded by the Thamudites, who, according
to the Koran, “hewed rocks in the valley” (xxxix. 8). The reference is
possibly to Petra. According to tradition they occupied Aila.[80]
A prophet of the Thamudites was Saleh, who has a special interest for
southern Sinai, since the Benu Saleh, who claim descent from him, are
among the oldest and most powerful tribes of the peninsula. Saleh in
the Biblical record is named as third in descent from Shem, and as the
progenitor of Eber (Gen. x. 24).
The remembrance of the Thamudites survives in the present Diar (or land
of) Themoud, in north-western Arabia, which includes the great Wadi El
Korah which is followed by the pilgrims from Damascus to Mecca. In the
Wadi El Korah lie the Medaïn (cities of) Saleh, and some distance south
of these, is the pass which is associated with the destruction of the
she-camel, the creation of Saleh. For the people of Themoud to whom
Saleh was sent, did not accept him. They asked for a sign, whereupon he
produced from the rock the Naga or she-camel that gave milk. “Let her
go at large,” was his command, “and feed on God’s earth, and do her no
harm. Drink there shall be for her and drink there shall be for you,
on a several day for each; but harm her not, lest the punishment of
a tremendous day overtake you. But the Thamudites hamstrung her, and
repented of it on the morrow, for the punishment overtook them.”
This story of the she-camel preserves the tradition of man’s right to
the free use of an animal, which was indispensable to the well-being of
the man of the desert. According to the Koran, it will be the end of
all things when “the sun is folded up, the stars fall, the mountains
rock, the she-camel is abandoned and the wild beasts are gathered
together” (lxxxi. 1).
In the year 1873 Doughty, coming from Damascus, stayed at the Medaïn
Saleh, where he saw and described the well, now enclosed in a tower,
where the she-camel was watered. He also visited the pass some way
further along the road, the Mubrak en Naga, where the she-camel was
killed.[81]
According to one tradition this was done by Codar el Ahmar (_i.e._
the Red), a name in which Caussin de Perceval, saw a likeness to
Chedorlaomer of the time of Abraham.[82] This agrees with Masudi’s
statement that Saleh came to the rescue of the Thamudites when their
existence was threatened by a descendant of Ham.[83] Saleh and King
Djundu fled to Sinai where they became hermits, and Saleh died and was
buried in El Ramlah. The tomb of Nebi Saleh is located in the present
Wadi Sheykh near the Gebel Musa, and is the site of the great annual
encampment of the Arabs of southern Sinai.
In the newly discovered annals of King Sargon of Assyria (B.C.
722-705), the people of Tamud are named among “the Arabians living
at a distance in the desert of whom the Wise Men and the Magi knew
nothing, who never brought tribute to (my father) the king, whom I
overthrew, and the remainder I carried off into Palestine.”[84]
This transportation explains the re-appearance of the Thamudites in
different localities. Ptolemy knew of Thamuditæ who dwelt along the
Gulf of Akaba, and of Thamudenæ who dwelt further inland.[85] Diodorus
Siculus (_c._ B.C. 50) mentioned Thamudeans living in Arabia.[86] As
late as about A.D. 452-3 a _Notitia Dignitatum_ mentioned _equites
Thamudeni_, who were in the service of Rome, of whom one division, the
_equites Saraceni Thamudeni_ camped on the frontier of Egypt, another,
the _equites Thamudeni Illyriciani_, were stationed in Judæa.[87] The
present Bir Themed, in Sinai, situated half-way between Akaba and
Kala’at en Nakhl, recalls the connection of the Thamudites with the
peninsula.