Pyramid of Amenemhat III (Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty) at Hawara, near the Fayyum. The pharaoh and his wife and family were buried either inside it, or in the burial complex. And no grain was found.
The Exodus is generally suggested to be somewhere around 1300 BC, give or take a few centuries. The Great Pyramids of Giza were build around 1,500 years earlier, and even smaller pyramid building stopped around 1,000 years earlier.:') The Exodus was about 1450 BC; the Middle Kingdom pharaohs built pyramids, but of mud brick. Their deteriorated remains can still be seen, not sure how easy it is to actually get there, though, sometimes sites are off-limits. Anyway, the other Israelite/Hebrew/Jewish sources and traditions note that they built pyramids during their captivity in Egypt, and those are the ones they built. The land of Goshen is, therefore, west of the Nile (not in the eastern or NE delta), and was fed by the Canal of Goshen (still there, still called that today).
Pyramid of Amenemhat III (Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty) at Hawara, near the Fayyum. The pharaoh and his wife and family were buried either inside it, or in the burial complex. And no grain was found.
Joseph's Canal, 1985 [William Golding]
...realizing that the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt took place not during the New Kingdom but during the preceding Middle Kingdom, in order to find out whether the personality of Joseph or the patron of the early stage of his career, Potiphar, is referred to in the historical documents, we have to look into those of the Middle Kingdom. The task appears simple. According to the Book of Genesis Potiphar was "an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard." In the register of the private names to the Ancient Records of Egypt by James Breasted, we find the name Ptahwer.
Ptahwer was at the service of the Pharaoh Amenemhet III of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. According to an inscription of Ptahwer at Sarbut el-Khadem in Sinai dated in the forty-fifth year of Amenemhet III, his office was that of "master of the double cabinet, chief of the treasury." Ptahwer's text reads:I was one sent to bring plentiful ____ from the land of ____, ready in his reports to his lord, delivering Asia to him who is in the palace, bringing Sinai at his heels, traversing inaccessible valleys, bringing unknown extremities (of the world), the master of the double cabinet, chief of the treasury, Ptahwer, triumphant, born of Yata.The inscription records the successful accomplishment of some peaceful expedition. Since there is only one Ptahwer in the historical documents, and since he lived in the time when we expect to find him, we are probably not wrong in identifying the biblical Potiphar with the historical Ptahwer.
This being the conclusion concerning Potiphar, we are curious to find whether any mention of Joseph is found in historical documents, too. the fact that from the great and glorious age of the Middle Kingdom only a very few historical inscriptions are extant. Since a great famine took place in the days of Joseph, it is, of course, important to trace such a famine in the age of which we speak. In the days of Amenemhet III there occurred in Egypt a famine enduring nine long years. Of this period we have a revealing document, which reads:
With these expressions the words of the Scriptures can be compared (Genesis 41:54):And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said; and the dearth was in all lands; but in the land of Egypt there was bread.Thus it seems that the Pharaoh in whose days was the seven years' famine was the successor of the Pharaoh in whose days began the rise of Joseph's career (if Yatu is Joseph). Potiphar, who lived under Amenemhet III, probably lived also under his successor.
The inscription which deals with Ptahwer mentions a man whose name is transliterated by Breasted as Y-t-w. Among the monuments of Amenemhet III's reign is one of the Storekeeper who was honored together with two other persons, and , with a royal If we remember that according to the Scriptural narrative Joseph was appointed storekeeper of the State (Gen. 41:40-41) in anticipation of the seven lean years, with the powers of a chief Minister of State or Vice-King, we may suspect in Yatu the Biblical Joseph. In the Scriptures it is said that his name was changed by Pharaoh to Zaphnath-paaneah, but still his original name may have been in use until he became next to the Pharaoh in importance.
The inscription that mentions Ptahwer refers to his activity in the mines of the Sinai peninsula. In this respect it is of interest to find that the Jewish traditions connect Joseph with the area of the Sinai Peninsula saying that he kept a large quantity of treasuries near Baal Zaphon, the scene of the Passage of the Sea.
