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.