The Philistines: Their History and Civilization

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If this old explanation 4 be not accepted, we should have to put the word 'Pelethites' aside as hopelessly unintelligible. Herodotus's Philitis, or Philition, a shepherd after whom the Egyptians were alleged to call the Pyramids, 5 has often been quoted in connexion with this name, coupled with baseless speculations as to whether the Philistines could have been the Hyksos.






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With regard to the syntax of these two names, it is to be noticed that as a rule they conform to the ordinary Hebrew usage, contrary perhaps to what we might have expected. But in the two prophetic passages we have quoted, the name of the Cherethites agrees in construction with that of the Philistines.

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In three passages—2 Samuel xx. 23, 2 Kings xi. 4, 19—the name of the royal body-guard of 'Cherethites' appears as ‏כָּרִי‎ 'Carians'. If this happened only once it might be purely accidental, due to the dropping of a ‏ת‎ by a copyist; but being confirmed by its threefold repetition, it is a fact that must be noted carefully 1 for future reference.

Here the Hebrew records leave us, and we must seek elsewhere for further light. Thanks to the discoveries of recent years, our search need not be prolonged. For in the Egyptian records we find mention of a region whose name, Keftiu, has an arresting similarity to the 'Caphtor' of Hebrew writers. It is not immediately obvious whence comes the final r of the latter, if the comparison be sound; but waiving this question for a moment, let us see what is to be made of the Egyptian name, and, above all, what indications as to its precise situation are to be gleaned from the Egyptian monuments.

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The name k-f-tïw ( sometimes written k-f-ty-w first meets us on Egyptian monuments of the Eighteenth Dynasty. It is apparently an Egyptian word: at least, it is capable of being rendered behind', and assuming this rendering Mr. H. R. Hall 2 aptly compares it with our colloquialism 'the Back of Beyond'. Unless this is to be put aside as a mere Volksetymologie, it clearly would be useless to search the maps of classical atlases for any name resembling Keftiu. It would simply indicate that the Egyptians had a sense of remoteness or uncertainty about the position of the country; and even from this we could derive no help, for as a rule they manifest a similar vagueness about other foreign places.

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It is specifically under Thutmose III that 'Keftiu' first appears as the name of a place or a people. On the great stele in the Cairo Museum in which the king's mighty deeds are summarized, in the form of a Hymn to Amon, we read 'I came and caused thee to smite the west-land, and the land of Keftiu and Asi ( )

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are terrified'. In the Annalistic Inscription on the walls of the Temple of Karnak the name appears in interesting connexion with maritime enterprise. 'The harbours of the king were supplied with all the good things which he received in Syria, namely ships of Keftiu, Byblos, and Sektu [the last-named place is not identified], cedar-ships laden with poles and masts.' 'A silver vessel of Keftiu work' was part of the tribute paid to Thutmose by a certain chieftain. 1 Keftiu itself does not send any tribute recorded in the annals; but tribute from the associated land of Asi is enumerated, in which copper is the most conspicuous item. This in itself proves nothing, for the copper might in the first instance have been brought to Asi from somewhere else, before it passed into the coffers of the all-devouring Pharaoh: but on the Tell el-Amarna tablets a copper-producing country, with the similar name Alašia, is prominent, and as Cyprus was the chief if not the only source of copper in the Eastern Mediterranean, the balance of probability seems to be in favour of equating Asi and Alašia alike to Cyprus. In this case Keftiu would denote some place, generally speaking, in the neighbourhood of Cyprus.

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The next important sources of information are the wall-paintings in the famous tombs of Sen-mut, architect to Queen Hatshepsut; of Rekhmara, vizier of Thutmose III; and of Menkheperuseneb, son of the last-named official, 2 high priest of Amon and royal treasurer. In these wall-paintings we see processions of persons, with non-Semitic European-looking faces; attired simply in highly embroidered loincloths folded round their singularly slender waists, and in high boots or gaiters; with hair dressed in a distinctly non-Semitic manner; bearing vessels and other objects of certain definite types. The tomb of Sen-mut is much injured, but the Cretan ornaments there drawn are unmistakable. In the tomb of Rekhmara we see the official standing, with five rows of foreigners carrying their gifts, a scribe recording the inventory at the head of each row, and an inscription explaining the scene as the 'Reception by the hereditary prince Rekhmara of the tribute of the south country, with the



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tribute of Punt, the tribute of Retenu, the tribute of Keftiu, besides the booty of all nations brought by the fame of Thutmose III'. In the tomb of Menkheperuseneb there are again two lines of tribute-bearers, described as 'the chief of Keftiu, the chief of Kheta, the chief of Tunip, the chief of Kadesh'; and an inscription asserts that these various chiefs are praising the ruler of the Two Lands, celebrating his victories, and bringing on their backs silver, gold, lapis lazuli, malachite, and all kinds of precious stones.

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(left) Fig. 1. A. A Keftian from the Tomb of Rekhmara. (right) B. A Cretan from Knossos.

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Some minor examples, confirming the conclusions to which these three outstanding tomb-frescoes point, will be found in W. Max Müller's important paper, Neue Darstellungen 'mykenischer' Gesandter . . . in altägyptischen Wandgemälden (Mitt. vorderas.-Gesell., 1904, No. 2).

Recent investigations in the island of Crete have enabled us to identify with certainty the sources of the civilization which these messengers and their gifts represent. Wall-paintings have there been found representing people with the same facial type, the same costume, the same methods of dressing the hair; and as it were the originals of the costly vases they bear have been found in such profusion as to leave no doubt that they are there on their native soil. The messengers, who are depicted in the Egyptian frescoes, are introducing into Egypt

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some of the chefs-d’œuvre of Cretan art; specifically, art of the periods known as Late Minoan I and II, 1 the time of the greatest glory of the palace of Knossos; and as they are definitely described in the accompanying hieroglyphs as messengers of Keftiu, it follows that Keftiu was at least a centre of distribution of the products of Cretan civilization, and therefore a place under the influence of Crete, if it was not actually the island of Crete itself. And the clear evidence, that excavation in Crete has revealed, of a back-wash of Egyptian influence on Cretan civilization at the time of the coming to Egypt of the Keftian envoys, turns the probability into as near a certainty as it is at present possible to attain.

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The next document to be noticed is a hieratic school exercise-tablet, apparently (to judge from the forms of the script) dating from the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty. It is now preserved in the British Museum, numbered 5647. 2 On the one side are some random scribbles, like the meaningless words and phrases with which one tries a doubtful pen:


'The goddess Ubast—they are small, numerous—of precious things, when—his majesty was seen, as he turned his face there was—for the feast day, one jar of wine [this line repeated]—Ru-unti—Ru-dadama—Smdt-ty’ [three names].

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On the other side is


'To make names of Keftiu:

    Ašaḫurau
    Nasuy
    Akašou
    Adinai
    Pinaruta
    Rusa
    Sen-Nofer [an Egyptian name, twice repeated]
    Akašou

"a hundred of copper, aknu-axes" [reading uncertain]

    Beneṣasira

[two illegible names]

    Sen-nofer
    Sumrssu [Egyptian]'

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 Though the reading of some of the items of this list is not quite certain, it seems clear that the heading ’irt rn n keftw, 'to make names of Keftiu', indicates that this tablet is a note of names to be used



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in some exercise or essay. The presence of the familiar Philistine name Achish, in the form Akašou, twice over, is suggestive, but otherwise the tablet does not help forward our present inquiry into the position of Keftiu and the origin of the Philistine people.

These various discoveries of recent years make it unnecessary to discuss at any length other theories which have been presented in ancient and modern times as to the identification of the name of Keftiu or of Caphtor. The Ptolemaic Jonathan Oldbuck who translated for his master the Decree of Canopus into Hieroglyphics, revived this ancient geographical name to translate Φοινίκης: a piece of irresponsible pedantry which has caused nothing but confusion. Even before the discoveries of the last fifteen or twenty years it was obvious that the Keftiu of Rekhmara's tomb were as unlike Phoenicians as they could possibly be; and their gifts were also incompatible with what was known of Phoenician civilization. Endless trouble was thus given to would-be harmonists. Another antiquary of the same kind and of the same period, who drew up the inscription to be cut on the temple at Kom Ombo, has likewise made illegitimate use of the name in question. A catalogue of the places conquered by the founder of the temple, after the manner of the records of achievements of the great kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, was de rigueur: so the obsequious scribe set down, apparently at random, a list of any geographical names that happened to come into his head. Among these is kptar, the final r of which seems to denote a Hebrew source; perhaps he learnt the name from some brother antiquary in the neighbouring Jewish colony at Aswân.

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The Greek translators of the scriptures, the Peshitta, and the Targums, in Deuteronomy ii. 23, Amos ix. 7, render the name Cappadocia. This seems to be merely a guess, founded on similarity of sound.

In modern times, even before the days of scientific archaeology, the equation of Caphtor to Crete has always been the theory most in favour. Apart from Jeremiah's description of the place as an 'island'—which as we have already mentioned is not quite conclusive—the obvious equation Cherethites = Cretans would strike any student. Calmet 1 gives a good statement of the arguments for the identification which were available before the age of excavation.

For completeness’ sake we may refer here to various other theories of Philistine origin which have been put forward by modern scholars: it is, however, not necessary to give full references


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