Monday, March 6, 2023

Cyrus H. Gordon on "Caphtor"

  

Most scholars would pinpoint Caphtor as Crete, though it has been proposed to localize it elsewhere in the East Mediterranean ranging from Cythera (so E. Weidner) to the southern coast of Asia Minor (so G. A. Wainwright, of those valuable publications on the subject we may note “Early Tin in the Aegean,” Antiquity 18, 1944, pp. 57-65; N.B. on p. 61, n. 23). Sea people, like the Caphtorians, were on the move. Accordingly we should not try to localize their land too narrowly. Originally “Caphtor” may have designated some specific and limited region in the East Mediterranean . . . (Cyrus H. Gordon, The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations [2d ed.; New York: Norton Library, 1965], 117 n. 1)