Rise and Fall of Pi-Rameses
According to the biblical Exodus narrative the Hebrews were forced to build the city of Pi-Rameses (Exodus 1:11) and it was from here they were said to have begun their exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12:37). This would date the Exodus to the reign of Rameses II (d. 1213 BCE), but the fortress city of Pi-Rameses (or pr-rꜥmssw the 'House of Rameses') functioned as an Egyptian royal centre until about 1000 BCE when it was dismantled and removed to Tanis.
Israelites and Judeans in the century before the establishment of the Omride and Davidic monarchies in Samaria and Jerusalem who had trade and cultural connections with Egypt would have known and remembered Pi-Rameses as a 'great city.' So while its mention in Exodus hints at a more ancient 'memory,' it is just as plausible that Pi-Rameses - as the closest Egyptian city - served as a symbol of Egyptian wealth and power in the minds of people in the southern Levant in the Israelite monarchic period.