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A caption on the Kadesh carvings has the royal children fleeing to the west side of Ramses II's camp, which was the back of a camp facing east. Exodus 27 also faces the Tabernacle's courtyard east, with its entrance toward the sunrise.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Battle of Kadesh Inscriptions 3:4
Poem and Bulletin of Ramses II
Ancient Near East
(The camp, over an official in a chariot) Arrival of the ... of Pharaoh, L. P. H., at ... the mother of the royal children, together with the ... of the divine mother ... fleeing to the west [side] of the camp ... before the foe.
Exodus 27:13
Hebrew Bible
9 “You are to make the courtyard of the tabernacle. For the south side there are to be hangings for the courtyard of fine twisted linen, 150 feet long for one side, 10 with 20 posts and their 20 bronze bases, with the hooks of the posts and their bands of silver. 11 Likewise for its length on the north side, there are to be hangings for 150 feet, with 20 posts and their 20 bronze bases, with silver hooks and bands on the posts. 12 The width of the court on the west side is to be 75 feet with hangings, with their 10 posts and their 10 bases. 13 The width of the court on the east side, toward the sunrise, is to be 75 feet. 14 The hangings on one side of the gate are to be 22½ feet long, with their three posts and their three bases. 15 On the second side there are to be hangings 22½ feet long, with their three posts and their three bases. 16 For the gate of the courtyard there is to be a curtain of 30 feet, of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine twisted linen, the work of an embroiderer, with four posts and their four bases.
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Notes and References
“... All of this matches the description of the Tabernacle and its camp in Exodus 25-27 (Figure 5). Moreover, Rameses's tent is oriented eastward. [...] The eastern orientation is known from a short inscription in the upper right-hand corner of the Ramesseum relief, which clearly states that the pursued princes arrive on the west end of camp, the camp's backside. See James H. Breasted, The Battle of Kadesh, pp. 35, 43, and Alan H. Gardiner, The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramses II (Oxford, 1960): pp. 36-37. The frequent expression "waking in life in the tent of the pharaoh" signals the beginning of a new day, as Rameses, the son of the solar deity, wakes with the sunrise. [...] All of this disproves Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, p. 37, who, following Graf, argued that the Tabernacle's eastern orientation meant that it was a fixed building, not a tent. ...”
Homan, Michael M.
To Your Tents, O Israel! The Terminology, Function, Form, and Symbolism of Tents in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East
(p. 113) Brill, 2002
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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