Caphtor
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Caphtor is the land of the Biblical Caphtorim (Egyptian Keftiu, Mari Kaptara), said in Gen. 10 to descend from Ham's son Mizraim (Egypt). It has been etymologically linked to Cyprus while other suggestions identify it variously as Crete, and the nearby coasts of Anatolia. By some accounts, both Cyprus and Crete together were known as "the isles of the Caphtorim", and perhaps of significance is the fact that the earliest Minoan script used on Crete seems to have been hieroglyphics. The name is found written in hieroglyphics in the temple of Kom Ombo in Upper Egypt and possibly in the Egyptian tomb of Rekhmire.
The Caphtorim arrived in Palestine from Caphtor following a catastrophe that destroyed their homeland. Biblically, they are referred to as a remnant.
In the Biblical tradition, peoples with cultural roots in Egypt populated the land where they developed a new identity and had even branched into the Gaza Strip as the Philistim by the time of the Habiru incursions into the Levant under the biblical patriarch Abraham. They later came under the rule of the Ionians.
The name means chaplet or crown.
References
- Deuteronomy 2:23
- Book of Jeremiah 47:4
- Book of Amos 9:7
External links
- Locating the Biblical Caphtor (http://www.phoenixdatasystems.com/goliath/c3/c3b.htm)
- Who Were the Keftiu? (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/7551/keftiu.html)