OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cairo | Thursday 2.00pm
AN Egyptian archaeologist announced on Thursday that he has discovered an ancient desert route which Moses might have taken to lead the Jewish people out of Pharaonic Egypt more than 3500 years ago.
A series of dried up wells revealed an ancient route of around 200km from the Nile Delta near Cairo to the west bank of the Gulf of Suez, Professor Mahmud Abdel Razik said.
He said his team also found “hieroglyphics engraved on a rock which show expeditions to the Sinai involving more than 4000 people at the time of the 18th dynasty (1580-1314 B.C.), under the reign of Amenhotep I and Amenhotep II.”
Abdel Razik, a German-trained archaeologist heading a team from Suez Canal University at Ismailiya, said usually only 700 people went on the ancient expeditions to the Sinai desert to work in the stone quarries.
The expedition’s “large number of people suggests it was not tied to the quarries but was in fact the Exodus because the rock is near the Gulf of Suez, which could be where Moses had the Jewish people cross the Red Sea,” he said.
After crossing the Red Sea, they reached the Sinai.
Although he said the hieroglyphics were found near the end of the route at Ain Al-Sokhna, he would not disclose the exact location so he can finish his research without other archaeologists joining the fray.
“We are continuing our dig in the area of Ain Al-Sokhna in the hope of finding other writings which explain the aim of the expeditions of Amenhotep I and Amenhotep II,” he said.
Until now, historians have spoken of three ancient routes from the Delta to the area west of the Sinai, but they are north of the route discovered by Abdel Razik. — AFP