Much of what we know about life in Egypt in the second millennium BCE provides a plausible context for the Egyptian sojourn.

A famous painting on a tomb wall at Beni Hasan in middle Egypt portrays Asiatic traders in a donkey caravan coming down to Egypt with their families and their wares in about 1890 BCE.

Beni Hasan, Carl R. Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, Vol. IV, Ab. II, BI. 133, Berlin: Nicolai, 1949.

Excerpted from Nahum Sarna, “Israel in Egypt- The Egyptian Sojourn and the Exodus,” in Shanks, Hershel, ed. Ancient Israel From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple. Washington DC- Biblical Archaeology Society, 1999.

See also:

• 10 Great Finds, Michael D. Coogan, BAR 21-03, May-Jun 1995.
• Pharaoh’s Workers- How the Israelites Lived in Egypt, Leonard and Barbara Lesko, BAR 25-01, Jan-Feb 1999.