The Taking of Joppa

(The beginning of the tale is lost.) Djehuty invites the prince of Joppa to a party in his camp outside the town. He knocks him out, hides two hundred of his soldiers in sacks which he has loaded onto pack animals, and sends a charioteer to announce to the town that the Egyptians have surrendered and are sending tribute. Introduced into the city the hidden Egyptian soldiers emerge and conquer it. ==Comparative literature==

The tactic of deception used in the Trojan Horse tale in the Odyssey and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" in One Thousand and One Nights are reminiscent of the tactic of deception used by Djehuty in the Taking of Joppa story. The ancient Egyptian Taking of Joppa predates the Odyssey's literary setting by more than 200 years and predates the Arabian story by multiple millennia. == History ==

Despite the literary tradition and the character of its telling, the excavators of Jaffa have recently argued that a Late Bronze Age destruction of the Egyptian garrison, dated to between 1456 and 1400 BC, may have formed the historical basis of this tale. This proposal is supported by the publication of an extensive site-wide destruction level containing Egyptian vessels dated to the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty, including vessels of types attested in the reign of Amenhotep II. Together these and Cypriot ceramics suggest a date in the late 15th century BC, connected perhaps with the insurgency at Aphek quelled in the seventh year of Amenhotep II, 1418 BC. The excavators would attribute the destruction to the Canaanite insurgency during which the Egyptians lost their fortress within a short time after Thutmose III established the garrison. The story therefore relates the events of the retaking of Jaffa probably immediately preceding the campaign against Aphek and not Thutmose III's conquest or taking of the site as some have argued. ==References and footnotes==