The Mysterious Collapse of Pharaoh's City: Unraveling the Story of Raamses

"And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses." Throughout the Bible, the term "and he built" describes an individual builder (like Solomon or Jeroboam), but here, the entire nation of Israel is referenced as one entity. They were not seen as a community of individuals but as a singular group of chained slaves, forced to work as one—like a great machine.

Sages interpreted this further: Israelites were used as building material. Children were thrown into concrete, placed between the stones. Such cruelty is known worldwide; when a slave died at work, they were buried in the cement. Some cultures believed spirits of the dead would protect the structure, seeing this as a magical charm.

Since Napoleon’s time, ancient Egyptian cities like Giza, Luxor, and Karnak have been known, but Raamses, mentioned in the Torah as built by the Israelites, was unknown. English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner suggested identifying Raamses with Pelusium (near modern-day Port Said), but it wasn't widely accepted. German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius, in the late 19th century, identified Raamses with Tanis, a site with abundant ancient remains east of the Nile Delta. This theory held for decades. In 1966, Pierre Montet’s excavation at Tanis was thought to uncover Raamses.

Recently, Egyptologist Manfred Bietak discovered the real Raamses location, north of Egypt, 80 km west of Ismailia, at Tell el-Dab'a. Although it looked barren and unimpressive compared to Tanis, its hidden mysteries were profound.

Tell el-Dab'a, now known as "Pi-Raamses," was a vast royal city built for King Ramses II, who according to many, was Pharaoh during the Exodus. He ruled for sixty years, leaving ample time to enslave the Israelites in building this massive city.

Pi-Raamses was a fortress city. It had military camps, training grounds, hangars for chariots and horses, plus seven huge bronze foundries, each 15 meters long. The bronze workshop covered 30,000 square meters. "But the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron furnace of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 4:20). Here, they manufactured large quantities of statues, city decorations, war tools, chariots, and armor.

Why did Raamses vanish without a trace, even from Egyptian culture? Ramses's son, Merneptah, moved the capital to distant Memphis. Why did the grand Ramses II, employ millions in building such a unique city?

Surprisingly, Pi-Raamses was built in the Nile Delta. The Nile is a mighty river, beginning in a huge waterfall from Victoria Falls (their modern name), crossing the desert with immense water flow. Upon reaching the sea, it splits into many large and small channels forming the Delta. Ramses planned his city on these water channels. Egyptologists restored its look, dubbing it "Egypt’s Venice." But over time, the Nile’s branches redirected themselves elsewhere. There are no deep Egyptian valleys to "compel" these branches to stay. Water carved new paths through desert sands, and Pi-Raamses, built on sins and slave exploitation, dried up. The city’s underground water reserves emptied, akin to the Dead Sea's declining levels. Sinkholes formed, swallowing the city’s facilities. That’s why there are no surface remains; the cursed city sunk into the sands.

Astonishingly, this information is in ancient Jewish texts, which describe Israelites building a city that sank into deserts. Egyptian history knew nothing of this; only Jewish tradition preserved this knowledge.

After the city sank, it became a quarry for rebuilding Zoan. All its former glory was unearthed and taken away. Ramses II’s city, once Egypt’s grand capital, turned into a barren mound, invisible unless deeply excavated.

In 2017, a moving discovery confirmed slave existence at building sites. Children's footprints were found in concrete foundations of a structure. Almost surely, these children were slaves, running around construction sites as part of a nation forced into labor, perhaps subjected to the cruelties that sages described, like being cast into the buildings themselves.