Scripture: Exodus 1–15; 1 Kings 6:1
Israel leaves slavery in Egypt under Moses and travels through the Sinai wilderness toward Canaan.
No direct archaeological trace of the departure or the wilderness journey has been identified. Indirect evidence exists: Semitic-speaking populations lived in the eastern Nile Delta (for example at Tell el-Dab'a/Avaris), the store-city name Raamses matches the Egyptian royal city Pi-Ramesses, and the Merneptah (c. 1208 BCE) names 'Israel' as a people already in Canaan.
