Caphtor
Encyclopedia
Caphtor is a locality mentioned in the Bible
and related literature. The people of Caphtor are called Caphtorites (or Caphtorim) and are named as a division of the ancient Egyptians. Caphtor is also mentioned in ancient inscriptions from Egypt
, Mari
and Ugarit
. Traditional Hebrew sources place Caphtor in the region of Pelusium
. Other sources associate Caphtor with localities outside Egypt such as Cilicia
, Cyprus
or Crete
. All sources equate them with Phoenician invaders.
(Egypt). This is reiterated in as well as later histories such as Josephus
' Jewish Antiquities i.vi.2, which placed them explicitly in Egypt and the Sefer haYashar
10 which describes them living by the Nile.
Josephus (Jewish Antiquities I, vi) 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 the commentary of Maimonides
which place it at Caphutkia
in the vicinity of Damietta
(at the eastern edge of the Nile delta
near classical Pelusium
) and by the tenth century commentator Saadia Gaon
and Benjamin of Tudela
, the twelfth-century Jewish traveller from Navarre, who both wrote that Damietta was Caphtor.
The Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 37:5 (page 298 in the 1961 edition of Maurice Simon's translation) says that the "Caphtorim were dwarfs".
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).
(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. (Akkadian did not distinguish between b and p.)
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
. 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".
in Upper Egypt
and is regarded as a reference to Caphtor.
The reference to k-p-t-3-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. Attempts to identify Caphtor with Keftiu go back to the 19h century and argue that r changed to y in the Egyptian language. However the name k-p-t-3-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-3-r is an Egyptian transliteration of the Semitic form of the name and that "Keftiu" is the true Egyptian form. Sayce had however already argued in the 19th century that the names in the text in which k-p-t-3-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-3-r.
The equation of Keftiu with Caphtor commonly features in interpretations that equate Caphtor with Crete, Cyprus or a locality in Asia Minor. 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
. Howoever 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.
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.
s translate Caphtor into Aramaic as Kaputkai, Kapudka or similar i.e. Caphutkia
explained by Maimonides
as being Damietta
.
Referencing Katpatuka, the Septuagint translated the name as "Kappadokias" and the Vulgate
similarly renders it as "Cappadocia". The seventeenth-century scholar Samuel Bochart
understood this as a reference to Cappadocia
in Anatolia but John Gill noted that these translations relate to Caphutkia.
, Cyprus
, Cappadocia
in Asia Minor, Cilicia
and Crete
.
The identification with Coptus is noted in Osborne's A Universal History From The Earliest Account of Time, where it is remarked that many suppose the name to have originated from Caphtor. While this interepretation 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 which is not associated with the name Caphtor.
Egyptian
kftı͗w (conventionally vocalised as Keftiu) is attested in numerous inscriptions. The 19th century view suggesting that Keftiu corresponded to Caphtor, and that Caphtor was to be identified with Cyprus or Syria shifted to an association with Crete under the influence of Sir Arthur Evans. It was criticised in 1931 by G. A. Wainwright, who located Keftiu in Cilicia
, on the Mediterranean shore of Asia Minor
, and he drew together evidence from a wide variety of sources: in geographical lists and the inscription of Tutmose III's "Hymn of Victory", 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 BC, in which Cilician and Syrian deities Sanda Tarku
and Kubaba
were claimed, 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 view is not generally 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 noted that crucial texts dissociate Keftiu from "the Islands in the Middle of the Sea", by which Egyptian scribes denoted Crete.
The stone base of a statue during the reign of Amenhotep III
includes the name kftı͗w in a list of Mediterranean ship stops as distinct from several Cretan cities such as Kydonia, Phaistos
, and Amnisos
, thus showing that the term does not refer to Crete.
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and related literature. The people of Caphtor are called Caphtorites (or Caphtorim) and are named as a division of the ancient Egyptians. Caphtor is also mentioned in ancient inscriptions from Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, Mari
Mari, Syria
Mari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria...
and Ugarit
Ugarit
Ugarit was an ancient port city in the eastern Mediterranean at the Ras Shamra headland near Latakia, Syria. It is located near Minet el-Beida in northern Syria. It is some seven miles north of Laodicea ad Mare and approximately fifty miles east of Cyprus...
. Traditional Hebrew sources place Caphtor in the region of Pelusium
Pelusium
Pelusium was a city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to the southeast of the modern Port Said. Alternative names include Sena and Per-Amun , Pelousion , Sin , Seyân , and Tell el-Farama...
. Other sources associate Caphtor with localities outside Egypt such as Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
or Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. All sources equate them with Phoenician invaders.
Traditional accounts
The Caphtorites are mentioned in the Table of Nations, as one of several divisions of MizraimMizraim
Mizraim is the Hebrew name for the land of Egypt, with the dual suffix -āyim, perhaps referring to the "two Egypts": Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt....
(Egypt). This is reiterated in as well as later histories such as Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
' Jewish Antiquities i.vi.2, which placed them explicitly in Egypt and the Sefer haYashar
Sefer haYashar (midrash)
The Sefer haYashar is a Hebrew midrash also known as the Toledot Adam and Dibre ha-Yamim be-'Aruk. It is known in English translation mostly as The Book of Jasher...
10 which describes them living by the Nile.
Josephus (Jewish Antiquities I, vi) 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
Ethiopic War
The Ethiopic War was a war between Ancient Egypt and Kush discussed by Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities....
.
Tradition regarding the location of Caphtor was preserved in the Aramaic Targums and the commentary of Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...
which place it at Caphutkia
Caphutkia
Caphutkia in Aramaic קפוטקיא ,קפוטקאי ,קפודקאי, was the name used in mediaeval Jewish and Syriac writings for the town in the vicinity of the former Ptolemaic city of Pelusium and its later Arab counterpart Damietta...
in the vicinity of Damietta
Damietta
Damietta , also known as Damiata, or Domyat, is a port and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the intersection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile, about north of Cairo.-History:...
(at the eastern edge of the Nile delta
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline—and is a rich...
near classical Pelusium
Pelusium
Pelusium was a city in the eastern extremes of Egypt's Nile Delta, 30 km to the southeast of the modern Port Said. Alternative names include Sena and Per-Amun , Pelousion , Sin , Seyân , and Tell el-Farama...
) and by the tenth century commentator Saadia Gaon
Saadia Gaon
Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon was a prominent rabbi, Jewish philosopher, and exegete of the Geonic period.The first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Arabic, he is considered the founder of Judeo-Arabic literature...
and Benjamin of Tudela
Benjamin of Tudela
Benjamin of Tudela was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 12th century. His vivid descriptions of western Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by a hundred years...
, the twelfth-century Jewish traveller from Navarre, who both wrote that Damietta was Caphtor.
The Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 37:5 (page 298 in the 1961 edition of Maurice Simon's translation) says that the "Caphtorim were dwarfs".
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 tinTin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
from Mari
Mari, Syria
Mari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria...
. 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
Zimrilim
Zimrilim was king of Mari from about 1775 to 1761 BCE.He was the son or grandson of Iakhdunlim, but was forced to flee to Yamkhad when his father was assassinated by his own servants during a coup. The city was occupied by Shamshi-Adad I, the king of Assur, who put his own son Yasmah-Adad on the...
of the same period, to king Shariya of Razama. A text in connection with Hammurabi
Hammurabi
Hammurabi Hammurabi Hammurabi (Akkadian from Amorite ʻAmmurāpi, "the kinsman is a healer", from ʻAmmu, "paternal kinsman", and Rāpi, "healer"; (died c...
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).
Ras Shamra Texts
An Akkadian text from the archives of UgaritUgarit
Ugarit was an ancient port city in the eastern Mediterranean at the Ras Shamra headland near Latakia, Syria. It is located near Minet el-Beida in northern Syria. It is some seven miles north of Laodicea ad Mare and approximately fifty miles east of Cyprus...
(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. (Akkadian did not distinguish between b and p.)
Within Ugaritic inscriptions from the Amarna
Amarna
Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty , and abandoned shortly afterwards...
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
Kothar-wa-Khasis
Kothar-wa-Khasis is a Canaanite god whose name means "Skillful-and-Wise" or "Adroit-and-Perceptive" or "Deft-and-Clever". Another of his names means "Deft-with-both-hands". Kothar is smith, craftsman, engineer, architect, and inventor...
the Ugaritic equivalent of the Egyptian god Ptah
Ptah
In Ancient Egyptian Religion, Ptah was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead cosmogony, which was more literally referred to as Ta-tenen , meaning risen land, or as Tanen, meaning submerged land, though Tatenen was a god in his...
. 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".
Egyptian inscriptions
The name k-p-t-3-r is found written in hieroglyphics in a list of locations in the Ptolemaic temple of Kom OmboTemple of Kom Ombo
The Temple of Kom Ombo is an unusual double temple built during the Ptolemaic dynasty in the Egyptian town of Kom Ombo. Some additions to it were later made during the Roman period. The building is unique because its 'double' design meant that there were courts, halls, sanctuaries and rooms...
in Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt...
and is regarded as a reference to Caphtor.
The reference to k-p-t-3-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. Attempts to identify Caphtor with Keftiu go back to the 19h century and argue that r changed to y in the Egyptian language. However the name k-p-t-3-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-3-r is an Egyptian transliteration of the Semitic form of the name and that "Keftiu" is the true Egyptian form. Sayce had however already argued in the 19th century that the names in the text in which k-p-t-3-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-3-r.
The equation of Keftiu with Caphtor commonly features in interpretations that equate Caphtor with Crete, Cyprus or a locality in Asia Minor. Jean Vercoutter
Jean Vercoutter
Jean Vercoutter was a French Egyptologist. One of the pioneers of archaeological research into Sudan from 1953, he was Director of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale from 1977 to 1981....
in the 1950s had argued, based on an inscription of the tomb of Rekhmire
Rekhmire
Rekhmire was a noble and official of 18th dynasty Egypt who served as "Governor of the Town" and Vizier during the reigns of Tuthmosis III and Amenhotep II. He was the nephew of Vizier User, who took office at the time of the fifth year of Queen Hatshepsut’s reign. User's official titles included...
that Keftiu could not be set apart from the "Islands of the Sea" which he identified as a reference to the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
. Howoever 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.
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.
Translation
The TargumTargum
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...
s translate Caphtor into Aramaic as Kaputkai, Kapudka or similar i.e. Caphutkia
Caphutkia
Caphutkia in Aramaic קפוטקיא ,קפוטקאי ,קפודקאי, was the name used in mediaeval Jewish and Syriac writings for the town in the vicinity of the former Ptolemaic city of Pelusium and its later Arab counterpart Damietta...
explained by Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...
as being Damietta
Damietta
Damietta , also known as Damiata, or Domyat, is a port and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the intersection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile, about north of Cairo.-History:...
.
Referencing Katpatuka, the Septuagint translated the name as "Kappadokias" and the Vulgate
Vulgate
The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...
similarly renders it as "Cappadocia". The seventeenth-century scholar Samuel Bochart
Samuel Bochart
Samuel Bochart was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet...
understood this as a reference to Cappadocia
Cappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...
in Anatolia but John Gill noted that these translations relate to Caphutkia.
Etymology and interpretation
The name Caphtor is identical to the Biblical Hebrew word for a knob-like structure.Non-traditional identifications
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, ColchisColchis
In ancient geography, Colchis or Kolkhis was an ancient Georgian state kingdom and region in Western Georgia, which played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the Georgian nation.The Kingdom of Colchis contributed significantly to the development of medieval Georgian...
, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, Cappadocia
Cappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...
in Asia Minor, Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
and Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
.
The identification with Coptus is noted in Osborne's A Universal History From The Earliest Account of Time, where it is remarked that many suppose the name to have originated from Caphtor. While this interepretation 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 which is not associated with the name Caphtor.
Egyptian language
Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...
kftı͗w (conventionally vocalised as Keftiu) is attested in numerous inscriptions. The 19th century view suggesting that Keftiu corresponded to Caphtor, and that Caphtor was to be identified with Cyprus or Syria shifted to an association with Crete under the influence of Sir Arthur Evans. It was criticised in 1931 by G. A. Wainwright, who located Keftiu in Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
, on the Mediterranean shore of Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, and he drew together evidence from a wide variety of sources: in geographical lists and the inscription of Tutmose III's "Hymn of Victory", 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 BC, in which Cilician and Syrian deities Sanda Tarku
Tarku
Tarku is a small town in the South Sikkim district of the Indian state of Sikkim....
and Kubaba
Kubaba
Kubaba is the only queen on the Sumerian King List, which states she reigned for 100 years – roughly in the Early Dynastic III period of Sumerian history...
were claimed, 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 view is not generally 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 noted that crucial texts dissociate Keftiu from "the Islands in the Middle of the Sea", by which Egyptian scribes denoted Crete.
The stone base of a statue during the reign of Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...
includes the name kftı͗w in a list of Mediterranean ship stops as distinct from several Cretan cities such as Kydonia, Phaistos
Phaistos
Phaistos , also transliterated as Phaestos, Festos and Phaestus is an ancient city on the island of Crete. Phaistos was located in the south-central portion of the island, about 5.6 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea. It was inhabited from about 4000 BC. A palace, dating from the Middle Bronze...
, and Amnisos
Amnisos
Amnisos, also Amnissos and Amnisus, is a Bronze Age settlement on the north shore of Crete used as a port to the palace city of Knossos. It appears in Greek literature and mythology from the earliest times, but its origin is far earlier, in prehistory. The historic settlement belonged to a...
, thus showing that the term does not refer to Crete.