I tried the search function, and Google. Neither were of any help.
I've been learning about Biblical Exodus.
I'd like to know if there are any archaeological or historical records outside of the Bible that indicate if there was a mass infanticide in the land of Ancient Egypt.
Exodus 1:22: Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
Is there any evidence that this happened?
Did the Ancient Egyptians practice infanticide other than this?
A follow-up question: have archaeologist discovered remains of the Egyptian Army under the Red Sea?
For starters, the consensus among Egyptologists that there is no archaeological evidence for widespread ethnic slavery in Egypt or anything else in Exodus. I'd cite sources but there are so many examples of Egyptologists saying this that it should be easy to find on your own.
As for infanticide in general, on that I can provide more info. The Egyptians were very family oriented and loved children, boys and girls. They viewed the loss of a child as a tragedy and so I can't imagine that infanticide would ever have been an acceptable practice. The closest I can think of them coming to sanctioned infanticide was in military conquests where they would take the children of local leaders back to Egypt to raise them as Egyptians and threaten to kill them if the leaders rebelled, but I am not aware of an incident where that threat was carried out. In fact, these children often returned to their home as adults to oversee Egyptian interests. Furthermore, according to Diodorus, infanticide was seen as murder in the eyes of the law and Strabo says in his Geography that the Egyptians were "zealous" in their belief that every child should be raised. I have even heard that the Egyptians were horrified by the Greco-Roman practice of infant exposure and during the Greco-Roman period they would rescue children abandoned by Greeks and Romans and raise them as their own. However, I'll need to do a bit more digging to find a primary source for that.
So, in regards to the mass infanticide described in Exodus, if it did happen, it would have been very unnusual and not something the average Egyptian would approve of. More likely, if they did have a large, singular slave force, which they most likely did not, and were worried about rebellion, they would more likely take some of their children hostage and raise them as Egyptians with the understanding that they would pay for any insubordination from their parents.
As for the remnants of an Egyptian army being found in the Red Sea, no such discovery has ever been made. http://www.snopes.com/religion/redsea.asp