Caphtor
Caphtor -land of the Biblical
Caphtorim (Egyptian
Keftiu Mari
Kaptara). It has been etymologically linked to
Cyprus while other suggestions identify it variously as
Crete, and the nearby coasts of Anatolia. In the Biblical tradition peoples with cultural routes in Egypt populated the land where they developed a new identity and had even branched into the Gaza strip as the
Philistim by the time of the
Habiru incursions into the
Levant under the biblical patriarch
Abraham. They later came under the rule of the Ionians.