PHITHOM. - A city of northern Egypt (Heb. Pitōm; Egypt. pr-jtm; Coptic πεθομί or πειθομί; Septuagint Πειθώ). According to Ex. 1, 11, an Egyptian king, presumably Ramesses II, had this city built as a store city, along with another, by the Israelites settled in Egypt; Herodotus (II, 158) mentions it under the name Πάγνωρος Ἀραβίας, because the canal of Necho (v.) between the Nile and the Red Sea passed near II. The Peregrinatio of Egeria calls it Patumos or Phitona civitas.
Its precise location has been long debated: following the excavations carried out by E. Naville (1883), most scholars today lean toward the site of Tell el-Mashútah, near the railway station of Abú Suejr; others identify P. with the Thou of the Piacenza Pilgrim, now Tell Abú Sulajmán; others with Tell ar-Ratábah.
BIBL.: E. Naville, The store city of P., 4th ed., London 1903; J. Lieblein, The Exodus of the Hebrews, in Proc. Soc. bibl. arch., 29 (1907), p. 214 ff.; C. Sourdille, La durée et l'étendue du voyage d'Hérodote en Egypte, Paris 1910, p. 3 ff.; C. Lagier, s. V. in DB. V (1912), col. 322 ff.; V. L. Trumper, The route of the Exodus, in Pal. expl. fund. Quartier. stat., 47 (1915), pp. 22 ff., 152 ff.; J. Cledat, Notes sur l'isthme de Suez, in Bull. Inst. franc. arch. orient., 18 (1921), p. 175 ff.; 23 (1924), p. 46 ff.; P. Mallon, Les Hébreux en Egypte, Rome 1922, p. 131 ff.; A. H. Gardiner, The geographie of the Exodus, in Rec. Champoll., Paris 1922, p. 203 ff.; id., The geographie of the Exodus: an answer to prof. Naville and others, in Journ. egypt. arch., 10 (1924), p. 87 ff.; H. M. Wiener, P. and Ruames, in Anc. Egypt., 8 (1923), p. 75 ff.; A. Ermann-H. Grapow, Wörterbuch der aegypt. Sprache, I, Leipzig 1925, p. 144; Cl. Bourdon, Anciens canaux, anciens sites et ports de Suez, Cairo 1925, p. 19 ff.; A. Mallon, La géographie de l'Exode, in Compt. rend. du Congr. intern. géogr. du Caire, 5 (1925), p. 84 ff.; H. Gauthier, Dictionn. des normes géographiques contenues dans les textes hiéroglyphiques, I, Cairo 1925, p. 59 ff. Aristide Calderini
