Page 346 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

the exodus

1300-1230 B.C.

TV scalon was a pleasant town to grow up in. It was not,

of course, one of the larger cities of Canaan. Ugarit in the far
north, in the Hittite-ruled lands, was much bigger, and Byblos,
too, was larger. Even Gaza, ten miles farther south, was a busier
city; and there must have been a score of towns along the Ca­

naanite coast which counted themselves the equals or superiors
of Ascalon.
But the burghers and their children regarded their town as
second to none. Well situated, with ten or fifteen miles of fertile
plain behind, before one reached the foothills of the mountains,

and with the Mediterranean in front, it was far from being a
backwater. The great coast road passed through the town, and
along it moved in either direction the world and his wife. The
children never tired of lying by the town gate, to the annoyance

of the sentries, to watch the traffic, and they prided themselves
on being able to identify the nationalities and religions of the
passers-by at a glance.
The long-distance pack caravans were the most difficult, for

among the drivers and merchants and passengers accompanying
the long donkey trains were representatives of practically every
nation of the world. Egyptians, of course, in their white linen
kilts, and Hurrians in woolen tunics, were well known, for

there were many Egyptians and Hurrians resident in the town,
and most of the children could beg in Egyptian and Hurrian
just as fluently as in their native Semitic. But it was not so easy
to distinguish the Hittites from the upper-class Hurrians, who
didnt speak Hurrian at all but a language closer to Hittite, while