Editing Caphtor (section)

==Modern identifications==
[[File:Four Foreign Chieftains, Tomb of Puyemre MET DT10871.jpg|thumb|"Four Foreign Chieftains" from [[TT39]] (Metropolitan Museum of Art, MET DT10871). The second from the right is a ''Keftiu''.]]
From the 18th century onwards commentators attempted several identifications of Caphtor which increasingly disregarded the traditional identification as an Egyptian coastal locality in the vicinity of Pelusium. These included identification with [[Qift|Coptus]], [[Colchis]], [[Cyprus]], [[Cappadocia]] in Asia Minor, [[Cilicia]], and [[Crete]].

The identification with Coptus is recorded in Osborne's ''A Universal History From The Earliest Account of Time'',<ref>''An Universal History From The Earliest Account of Time: Compiled from Original Authors And Illustrated with Maps, Cuts, Notes etc. With A General Index to the Whole'', Volume 1, Osborne, 1747</ref> where it is remarked that many suppose the name to have originated from Caphtor. While this interpretation agrees with tradition placing Caphtor in Egypt it disregards the tradition that it was a coastland (''iy'' rendered island in some Bible translations) and more precisely Caphutkia; and this contradiction is noted in Osborne. It is now known that the name Coptus is derived from Egyptian ''Gebtu'' <ref>Toby A. H. Wilkinson, ''The Egyptian world, Routledge worlds Edition 10, illustrated'', Routledge, 2007</ref> which is possibly not associated with the name Caphtor.

[[File:Name-Keftiu-at-Abydos-Ramses-Temple.jpg|right|thumb|100px| detail of a generic captive enemy with the hieroglyph for Keftiu under it at Ramses II's temple at Abydos]][[Egyptian language|Egyptian]] ''kftı͗w'' (conventionally vocalized as ''Keftiu'') is attested in numerous inscriptions.<ref>J. Strange, ''Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation'' (Leiden: Brill) 1980, has brought together all the attestations for ''Caphtor'' and ''Keftiu''.</ref> The 19th-century belief that Keftiu/Caphtor was to be identified with Cyprus or Syria<ref>Steindorf 1893; W. Max Müller 1893; the history of the locating of Keftiu is set out briefly in Wainwright 1952:206f.</ref> shifted to an association with Crete under the influence of [[Sir Arthur Evans]]. It was criticized in 1931 by [[G. A. Wainwright]], who located ''Keftiu'' in [[Cilicia]], on the Mediterranean shore of [[Asia Minor]],<ref>Wainwight, "Keftiu: Crete or Cilicia?" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''51''' (1931); in response to critics who shifted the locale to the mainland of Greece, Wainwright assembled his various interlocking published arguments and summarized them in "Asiatic Keftiu" ''American Journal of Archaeology'' '''56'''.4 (October 1952), pp. 196-212.</ref> and he drew together evidence from a wide variety of sources: in geographical lists and the inscription of [[Tutmose III]]'s "Hymn of Victory",<ref>Text in Breasted, ''Ancient Records of Egypt'' II, 659-60.</ref> where the place of ''Keftiu'' in lists appeared to exist among recognizable regions in the northeasternmost corner of the Mediterranean, in the text of the "Keftiuan spell" ''śntkppwymntrkkr''<!--śntkppwymntrkkr is correct-->, of ca 1200 BCE,<ref>The spell is a rosary of divine names according to Gordon (''JEA'' '''18''' (1932) pp 67f.)</ref> in which the Cilician and Syrian deities [[Tarku (god)|Tarku]] (the [[hittite mythology|Hittite]] sun god), Sandan (the Cilician and Lydian equivalent of Tarku),<ref>A deity that occurs in [[Luwian]] contexts, in [[theophoric]] names in [[Hittite language|Hittite]] texts and at [[Ugarit]] and [[Alalakh]], and later in Greek ''Sandos'', in [[Lycia]]n and [[Cilicia]]n contexts, according to Albrecht Goetze, "The Linguistic continuity of Anatolia as shown by its proper names" ''Journal of Cuneiform Studies'' '''8'''.2 (1954, pp. 74-81) p. 78.</ref> and [[Kubaba]] were claimed,<ref>Wainwright 1952:199.</ref> in personal names associated in texts with ''Keftiu'' and in Tutmose's "silver [[shawabty]] vessel of the work of Keftiu" and vessels of iron, which were received as gifts from Tinay in northern Syria. Wainwright's theory is not widely accepted, as his evidence shows at most a cultural exchange between Keftiu and Anatolia without pinpointing its location on the Mediterranean coast.

In 1980 J. Strange drew together a comprehensive collection of documents that mentioned ''Caphtor'' or ''Keftiu''. He writes that crucial texts dissociate ''Keftiu'' from "the islands in the middle of the sea", by which Egyptian scribes denoted Crete.<ref name="Strange1980b">{{cite book|last=Strange|first=John|title=Caphtor/Keftiu: a new investigation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c9QUAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Taken+as+a+whole+the+material+does+not+exclude+Crete+as+a+possible+identification+of+Caphtor/Keftiu.%22&pg=PA1255 |year=1980|publisher=Brill Archive|location=Leiden|isbn=978-90-04-06256-6|page=125}}</ref>

The stone base of a statue during the reign of [[Amenhotep III]] includes the name ''kftı͗w'' in a list of Mediterranean ship stops prior to several Cretan cities such as [[Kydonia]], [[Phaistos]], and [[Amnisos]], showing that the term clearly refers to the Aegean.<ref name="Ahlström1993">{{cite book|last=Ahlström|first=Gösta Werner|author2=Gary O. Rollefson |author3=Diana Edelman |title=The history of ancient Palestine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5cSAlLBZKaAC&q=%22This+interpretation+is+supported+by+a+topographical+list+on+the+base+of+a+statue+from+the+funerary+temple+of+Amenhotep+III+mentioning+some+Cretan+and+Peloponnesian+cities.%22&pg=PA315|year=1993|publisher=Fortress Press|location=Minneapolis|isbn=978-0-8006-2770-6|page=315}}</ref>