by Norman A. Rubin

Created on: February 22, 2008

Akhenaten had long been forgotten when TANIS rose to prominence half a millennium later. Lying in the northeastern part of the Nile delta. The location offers easy water access to the cities of Egypt to the south, and to Judah, Israel, and Syria to the north. The city was designed to protect the Eastern Delta from invasion. The most impressive feature of the city of TANIS is a large rectangular enclosure of walls built with brick, 15 m. in thickness.

TANIS, is identified with AVARIS, capital of the Hyskos' kings who had invaded and settled in Egypt from 1730 to 1580 BC, "In the Land of Egypt, the country of Zoan" (Psalms 78:12-43). After the expulsion of the Hyskos hordes by Ahmois 1 (1580-1558 BC), TANIS was completely destroyed. However Rameses II (1301-1235 BC) rebuilt it completely and made it his main residence with the name "House of Rameses".

As slaves under the Pharaoh's taskmasters of Egypt the Hebrew people were forced with other enslaved peoples to build the cities of Pithom, and Raameses. Rameses II, was the Pharaoh who inflicted hard labor on the Israelites. "Then a new King ascended the thrones of Egypt This is how Pharaoh's store cities of Pithom and Rameses were built they treated their Israelite slaves with ruthless severity, and made life bitter for them with cruel servitude" (Exodus 1: 6-14).

The site of the city of Rameses, in all possibilities was probably the modern Egyptian town of San el-Hagar, known in the Hyskos period at the time of the patriarchs as Avarice and later as TANIS, the biblical Zoan. Archaeological evidence attested by statues and architectural remains bearing the cartouches of Pharoah Rameses II gives the required proof to the building of the city under his rule. Either Rameses II or his successor Mernepath (1225-12270) was the Pharoah of the Exodus, probably the former. A stele of Mernepath found at the site of the remains of the city of Tanis makes the first non-biblical allusion to the Children of Israel.

In the days of his reign there was no Pelusiac branch of the Nile River, as in the Iron Age, and the only nearby body of water during the Exodus was the Sea of Reeds (papyrus). It is most certain that the Route of the Exodus began in the vicinity of TANIS, not of the former view that Red Sea itself was crossed. (The results were achieved by the conclusion of an American expedition in Sinai 1947-8, where it was proved that the level of the Gulf of Suez had dropped 15 ft. since the 15th century BC).

The kings of TANIS were involved in historical developments in Judah and Israel. King Solomon loved many foreign women among them the daughter of a pharaoh, who had lived in Jerusalem as a child. Jeroboam, king of Northern Israel, fled from the presence of Solomon to King Shoghenq I (Shishak) of the twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt (945-924 BC). The king must have been exposed to the Egyptian custom of worshipping animal-headed gods: This may have had a strong influence on him as he set up cults for calf worship in Dan and Bethel. In the fifth year of the reign of King Rehoboam of Judah, King Shiskar or Shosheng, invaded Judah, attacking its fortified cities and carrying off the treasures from the Temple and of the royal palace of Jerusalem (I Kings 14:26-26).

Today the ruins of TANIS is a focal point for archaeologists to determine the site as the beginning of The Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt.

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