CAPHTOR-CAPPADOCIA by G. A. WAINWRIGHT Bournemouth Today the Standard Belief Is That Caphtor Was Crete, Though Biblical Scholars
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CAPHTOR-CAPPADOCIA BY G. A. WAINWRIGHT Bournemouth Today the standard belief is that Caphtor was Crete, though Biblical scholars have always noted the difficulties. In fact that island is only one of many places which have been proposed as the site. Thus, Cyprus, Phoenicia and the Phoenician colonies, and even the island of Karpathos have also been suggested, and quite recently though "with the utmost reserve" the island of Kythera 1), while of course Cappadocia, unreasonable as it has seemed hitherto, had to be in- cluded in the list. In this article much evidence is brought forward to show that Cappadocia, or more accurately a part of Greater Cappa- docia, was indeed Caphtor 2). Of all the various countries suggested Crete has received the main support, because it was accepted that Caphtor was described as an "island" in the O.T., and Crete is a large one. Since the early years of this century the belief in Crete has been further strengthened by Sir Arthur EVANS' discovery that it was also the home of a splendid civilization. There was a country known to the Egyptians as Keftiu, or as it may have been pronounced Kefto, and this is evidently the same name as the contemporary cuneiform Kaptara, and the much later Hebrew Caphtor, though the absence of the final r has never been explained. Hence, based on the above-mentioned firm belief, there has grown up a strongly held view that Keftiu was also Crete. This idea was 1) WEIDNERin J. H. S., LIX (1939), p. 138. 2) I approached this question in an article entitled "Caphtor, Keftiu and Cappa- docia" published in 1931, p. 203-216, but much new evidence has since come to light. I there pointed out that KCX7t7t'i'XOOXLCXincludes the letters k. p, d, and is thus like Keftiu and Kaptara. But this appears to be only a coinci- dence, for the Persian form of the name includes an extra t, thus Katpatuka (H. C. TOLMAN,Ancient Persian Lexicon (1908), p. 79) and is said to mean "Land of the Tucha" or "Land of Beautiful Horses" (PAULY-WISSOWA,l?eal Encyclopddie, S.V. Kappadokia, Col. 1911). 200 strengthened by the fact that certain embassies to Egypt in the Eigh- teenth Dynasty included among their presents some objects of Minoan type. In some of these paintings the people are called "People of the Isles in the midst of the Sea" and in others "People of Keftiu". They are really quite distinct peoples, but unfortunately on one occasion the two embassies are combined into a single, and much altered, scene. Thus, on this one occasion we get the two names "Isles" and "Keftiu" in conjunction, and this has been taken to mean that they were in apposition the one to the other, and hence that the two names were alternatives for the one country. This is an improbable situation and entirely contrary to all the other mentions of the coun- tries. It also leads to great difficulties and confusion as has been pointed out in the various studies of mine, and most recently and fully in "Asiatic Keftiu" published in The American Journal of Archaeology, LVI (1952), p. 196-212 1). They were in fact two quite distinct coun- tries : (a) the People of the Isles in the midst of the Sea coming from Crete and (b) the others coming from Keftiu, which, as my studies have produced much evidence to show, was on, or had an exit to, the sea on the southern coasts of Asia Minor 2). Some of the evidence comes from Egyptian and cuneiform infor-- - mation about Keftiu Kaptara and some more from Biblical state- ments about Caphtor. Therefore, before approaching the enquiry it should be noted that Keftiu and Kaptara are separated from Caphtor by the Great Invasions of the twelfth century which entirely changed the whole political face of the Near East. If the inclusion of Kaptara among the legendary conquests of Sargon of Akkad is not a later insertion, the name would have been known in Babylonia about 2200 B.C. 3). It is soon after this, about 2,000 B.C., that Keftiu first 1) My other studies of Keftiu are: "The Kcftiu-people of the Egyptian Monu- ments" in LAAA., VI (1913), p. 24-83 and 1'ls. ix-xviii; "Keftiu", in J.E.A. XVII (1931), p. 26-43 and Map Pl. V; "Keftiu: Crete or Cilicia" in,j.H.S., LI (1931), p. 1-38; "Keftiu and Karamania (Asia Minor)" in Anatolian Studies, IV (1954), pp. 33-48. 2) Until the present writer took up the enquiry Max MiJLLERhad been the only one to realize that Keftiu-Caphtor should lie somewhere on the southern coasts of Asia Minor, and he thought of Eastern Cilicia, W. Max MULLER,Asien und Europa, pp. 337 ff; Id., Studien zur vorderasiatischenGeschichte, p. 1-13, "Die Ur- heimat der Philister" (M.V.A.G., V, 1, 1900). 3) It is not improbable that Sargon did campaign into Asia Minor. Certainly his grandson Naram-Sin built a palace at Brak in the foothills on the northern frontier of Mesopotamia (MALLOWANin Iraq, IX (1947), p. 26-29). Yet again further on into the mountains to the north-west he set up his stela at Pir Hussein .