Pi-Ramesses: The Lost Capital

Masses of broken stonework from Ramesses' era lay scattered across Tanis, in Egypt's Delta, when Pierre Montet explored it in the 1930s. Archaeologists took it for a lost capital.

Scripture: Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.

Verse eleven names two cities built for Pharaoh. Pithom means House of Atum. Raamses is often linked to Pi-Ramesses, which means House of Ramesses.

In the 1960s, Manfred Bietak mapped the Delta's ancient river branches, meaning its separate channels. In Ramesses' reign the easternmost was the Pelusiac, and the one beside Tanis did not yet exist.

Digging began at Tell el-Dab'a and Qantir, where nothing showed on the surface. Tell el-Dab'a proved to be Avaris, the capital of a ruling people called the Hyksos. Qantir, 30 kilometres south of Tanis, was Pi-Ramesses.

Ground-penetrating radar, which reads what lies beneath soil, showed a huge central temple, riverside mansions on a grid, and workshops to the east. Its population is put at over 300,000, according to Wikipedia.

In 2017, archaeologists from the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum unearthed children's footprints at the bottom of a mortar part, plus painted wall, possibly a fresco, meaning a painting made on a wall, awaiting study. Their current home is not recorded in my material.

According to World History Edu, around 1060 BC the Pelusiac branch began silting up, cutting off the city's water, and the 21st Dynasty moved to Tanis, taking obelisks, statues and stelae, meaning carved stone slabs, and some dismantled buildings. That is why Tanis held stone from the age of Ramesses.

Today the site lies at Qantir. Ramesses' palace is believed to lie beneath the modern village. Some of its monuments were moved to Tanis, and some buildings were rebuilt there.

Pi-Ramesses is often associated with the biblical Raamses, but sources disagree on what it shows. According to World History, Ramesses II's records never mention Israelite slaves, and one source says no evidence supports an Israelite settlement then.

Mapping lost river branches helped archaeologists find the real Pi-Ramesses. Follow for the next find, and may the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today.