1:11 Pithom and Raamses. These cities for storing agricultural provisions and military supplies were located in the strategic Nile Delta region. Pithom was probably located at modern Tell er-Ratabah or Tell el Maskhutah, and Raamses is identified as modern Qantir. This item comes too early in the oppression cycle to be identified as the work of Rameses II (1304–1236 b.c.) who is often identified as the Pharaoh of the Exodus (Introduction: Interpretive Difficulties; Gen. 47:11 note). The only other Pharaoh with the necessary forty years’ reign was Thutmose III (1504–1450 b.c.). By the nineteenth dynasty the term “Pharaoh” (Egyptian for “great house”) became a royal title. Earlier it was a synonym for governmental authority.