45 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
45 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2016-12-30T19:28:00.000Z'
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title: How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs (2010)
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url: http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=2&ArticleID=6
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author: Mz
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points: 70
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 13
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1483126080
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_Mz
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- story_13286657
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objectID: '13286657'
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---
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036
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038
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To the Asiatics, as they were called, the lush Nile Delta, with its open
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marshlands rich with fish and fowl, was a veritable Garden of Eden. From
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earliest times, Canaanites and other Asiatics would come and settle
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here. Indeed, this is the background of the Biblical story of the famine
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in Canaan that led to Jacob’s descent into Egypt (Genesis 46:1–7).
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By the beginning of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (a few years after 2000
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B.C.E.), the pressure of immigrants on the eastern Delta was so strong
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that the Egyptian authorities built a series of forts at strategic
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points to “repel the Asiatics,” as the story of Sinuhe tells
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us.[1](/biblical-archaeology-review/36/2/6/en/1?width=600)
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More than a century later, however, Egyptian policy toward the Asiatics
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changed. Instead of trying to prevent them from coming in, the Egyptians
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cultivated close relations with strong Canaanite city-states on the
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Mediterranean coast and allowed select Asiatic populations to settle in
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the eastern Delta. The last of the great pharaohs of the XIIth Dynasty,
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Amenemhet III (c. 1853–1808 B.C.E.) and Amenemhet IV (c. 1808–1799
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B.C.E.), even established a new town for them.
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