.
Ashmun is described by Abulfeda as a large city. We read in a Geniza fragment that David ben Daniel, a descendant of the Exilarch, passed through this place on the way to Fostat, J.Q.R., XV, 87. The fourth channel is the Tanitic branch. See p. 78, n. 2.
See Koran xii. 55. Sambari, who being a native of Egypt knew Cairo well, explains very fully, p. 119, that Masr-el-Atika is not here referred to, but ancient Memphis, the seat of royalty in Joseph's time. He explains that it was situated on the left side of the Nile, two parasangs distant from Cairo. See Reinaud's Abulfeda, vol. II, p. 140.
See Makrizi, vol. II, 464, and J.Q.R., XV, p. 75; also XIX, 502.
E. Naville in his Essay on the Land of Goshen, being the fifth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1887, comes to the conclusion that the land of Goshen comprised the triangle formed by Bilbais, Zakazig, and Tel-el-Kebir. He is of opinion that the land of Ramses included the land of Goshen, and is that part of the Delta which lies to the eastward of the Tanitic branch of the Nile. The capital of the province—the Egyptian nome of Arabia—was the Phakusa of the Greeks. A small railway station is now on the spot, which bears the name Ramses. Cf. Gen. xlvii. 11.