Rameses

"the land of" (Gen. 47:11), was probably "the land of Goshen" (q.v.) 45:10. After the Hebrews had built Rameses, one of the "treasure cities," it came to be known as the "land" in which that city was built. The city bearing this name (Ex. 12:37) was probably identical with Zoan, which Rameses II. ("son of the sun") rebuilt. It became his special residence, and ranked next in importance and magnificance to Thebes. Huge masses of bricks, made of Nile mud, sun-dried, some of them mixed with stubble, possibly moulded by Jewish hands, still mark the site of Rameses. This was the general rendezvous of the Israelites before they began their march out of Egypt. Called also Raamses (Ex. 1:11).

or RAAMSES, a city supposed to have been situated in the eastern part of Egypt, called the land of Goshen, which was also hence termed the land of Rameses. It was one of the cities built by the Israelites as a treasure city, as it is translated in our Bibles; probably a store city, or, as others interpret it, a fortress. Its position may be fixed about six or eight miles above the modern Cairo, a little to the south of the Babylon of the Persians, the ancient Letopolis; as Josephus says that the children of Israel, after quitting this place, in their first march to Succoth, passed by the latter city.