Meaning of PI-HAHIROT

Pi-hahirot and archeology. The El Arish Monolith, in the Ismailia museum, was discovered sometime after 1860; in 1890 a partial translation of the text was made (F. L. Griffith); It was not until 1936 that a serious attempt was made to translate it fully (G. Goyon «Les travaux de Chou et las tribulations de Geb d'après le Naos 2248 d'Ismailia», Kêmi, «revue de philologie et d'archéologie egyptiennes et Coptes» VI, 1936, 1-42).

In this monolith it is mentioned that "...his majesty of Shou went to battle against Apopi's companions" (see HICSOS, d). The king and his army did not return: "When the majesty of Ra-Harmachis fought against the evildoers at this pool, the evildoers did not prevail against his majesty.

His majesty leapt to the so-called “Place of the Whirlwind” (Griffith: “The Antiquities of Tell el-Yahudiyeh”, London, 1890, p. 73). Pharaoh's departure took place in the midst of a great telluric disturbance and a storm that blackened the earth.

The text continues: "His majesty... (words missing here) finds himself in this place called Pi-Kharoti." A few lines later it is stated that he was thrown by a great force, and thrown into the air by the high whirlwind of water.

He went to heaven. This mention, the parallelism of the events, the mention of "Apopi" as an enemy of the Egyptian sovereign (see HYCSOS, d), the identification of the Hyksos with the Amalekites (see EGYPT, a, c; EXODUS, b; HYKSOS), leads to the conclusion that in this monolith we have a story parallel to that of the Bible about the flight of the Hebrews from Egypt, of the death of Pharaoh in Pi-hahirot ("ha" is the definite article in Hebrew, thus equivalent the Egyptian Pi-kharoti with the Heb Pi-[ha]hirot.

It must be taken into account that the vowels in the translation from Egyptian. are a guess). Thus, although the situation of Pi-hahirot is not known, an independent mention of the place and circumstances mentioned in the Bible appears.