Territory of the Hyksos, 1750(?)-1575 A.C.
(larger image)

Traditionally, only the six Fifteenth Dynasty rulers are called "Hyksos".

The Hyksos had names that bear strong similarities to Canaanite names, especially those which contain the names of Canaanite deities such as Anath or Ba'al. Archaeologists (see biblical archaeology) think of the Canaanites as being indistinguishable from the Phoenicians. The Hyksos introduced new tools of warfare into Egypt, most notably the composite bow and the horse-drawn chariot.

An image representing the Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose I defeating the Hyksos in battle.

The numerous Sixteenth Dynasty princes are believed to be a mixed collection of "Hyksos", Asiatic Semites, and local native Egyptian princes. The names of the Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos are known from Egyptian monuments, scarabs and other small objects, and Manetho's history of Egypt, written during the time of Ptolemy II.

Some scholars controversially associate the Hyksos to the ancient Hebrews, seeing their departure from Egypt as the story retold in the Exodus.

It is significant that the Hyksos departure as such is not currently known from any Levantine literature contemporary with the event, while the Exodus is told in the Bible as the formative event of Jewish culture.

The Hyksos kingdom was centered in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt and was limited in size, never extending south into Upper Egypt, which was under control by Theban-based rulers. Hyksos relations with the south seem to have been mainly of a commercial nature, although Theban princes appear to have recognized the Hyksos rulers and may possibly have provided them with tribute for a period. The Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty rulers established their capital and seat of government at Memphis and their summer residence at Avaris.

A group of Asiatic peoples (perhaps the future Hyksos) depicted entering Egypt c.1900 BC from the tomb of a 12th dynasty official Khnumhotep under Senusret II at Beni Hasan. The glyphs above are above the head of the first animal

The rule of these kings overlaps with that of the native Egyptian pharaohs of the 16th and 17th dynasties of Egypt, better known as the Second Intermediate Period. The first pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, Ahmose I, finally expelled the Hyksos from their last holdout at Sharuhen in Gaza by the 16th year of his reign.[1][2] Scholars have taken the increasing use of scarabs and the adoption of some Egyptian forms of art by the Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos kings and their wide distribution as an indication of their becoming progressively Egyptianized.[3] The Hyksos used Egyptian titles associated with traditional Egyptian kingship, and took the Egyptian god Seth to represent their own titulary deity.[4] It would appear as though Hyksos administration was accepted in most quarters, if not actually supported by many of their northern Egyptian subjects. In spite of the prosperity that the stable political situation brought to the land, the native Egyptians continued to view the Hyksos as non-Egyptian "invaders." When they eventually were driven out of Egypt, all traces of their occupation were erased. There is no surviving accounts that record the history of the period from the Hyksos perspective, only that of the native Egyptians who evicted the occupiers, in this case the rulers of Eighteenth Dynasty who were the direct successor of the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty.[5] It was the latter which started and led a sustained war against the Hyksos. Some think that the native kings from Thebes had an incentive to demonize the Asiatic rulers in the North, thus accounting for the destruction of their monuments. From this viewpoint the Hyksos dynasties represent superficially Egyptianized foreigners who were tolerated, but not truly accepted, by their Egyptian subjects. In contrast scholars such as John A. Wilson found that the description of the Hyksos as overpowering, irreligious foreign rulers had support from other sources.[6]

The independent native rulers in Thebes do seem, however, to have reached a practical modus vivendi with the later Hyksos rulers. This included transit rights through Hyksos-controlled Middle and Lower Egypt and pasturage rights in the fertile Delta. One text, the Carnarvon Tablet I, relates the misgivings of the Theban ruler’s council of advisors when Kamose proposed moving against the Hyksos, whom he claimed were a humiliating stain upon the holy land of Egypt. The councilors clearly did not wish to disturb the status quo:

“ … we are at ease in our (part of) Egypt. Elephantine (at the First Cataract) is strong, and the middle (of the land) is with us as far as Cusae [near modern Asyut]. The sleekest of their fields are plowed for us, and our cattle are pastured in the Delta. Emmer is sent for our pigs. Our cattle have not been taken away… He holds the land of the Asiatics; we hold Egypt…"[7]

Who Were the Hyksos?

Wolfgang Helck argued that the Hyksos were part of massive and widespread Hurrian and Indo-Aryan migrations into the Near East. According to Helck, the Hyksos were Hurrians and part of a Hurrian empire that, he claimed, extended over much of Western Asia at this period. This old theory is now discarded by modern scholars.

The names, the order, and even the total number of the Fifteenth Dynasty rulers are not known with any certainty. The names appear in hieroglyphs on monuments and small objects such as jar lids and scarabs. In those instances in which Prenomen and Nomen do not occur together on the same object, there is no certainty that the names belong together as the two names of a single person. This period of Egyptian history is a chronological nightmare that only additional datable archaeological material can resolve.

A group of Asiatic peoples (perhaps the future Hyksos) depicted entering Egypt c.1900 BC from the tomb of a 12th
dynasty official Khnumhotep
under Senusret II at Beni Hasan.
(larger image)

1. Sa-kha-en-ra Shalik (Each name is only found separately.)
2. Ma-ib-ra Sheshy (?) (Each name is only found separately.)
3. Mer-woser-ra Yaqob-her (Both names are found together on one scarab.)
4. Se-woser-en-ra Khayan (Both names are found together.)
5. Apopi (Three different Prenomens: Aawoserra, Aaqenenra, and Nebkhepeshra)
6. Aa-sech-ra Khamudy (Each name is only found separately.)

Although the Semitic name "Jacob" (Ya’iqob) appears in the form Yaqob-her as possibly that of the third Hyksos ruler, it is probably best to exercise more caution than Gardiner did when, in Egypt of the Pharaohs, he wrote that "it is difficult to reject the accepted view that the patriarch Jacob is commemorated" in this name. Popular names are known to recur again and again over long periods of time.

In the case of ruler 5 on the list above, the Prenomen and Nomen are normally found written together. It is not clear whether they represent a single king who changed his Prenomen or three separate rulers. In the Cambridge Ancient History (CAH), "Aweserra" Apophis is said to have been succeeded by a second "Apophis", who bore the Prenomen Aa-qenen-re. Ruler 1 on the list above is not recognized by CAH (Hayes suggests he may have been identical to Ruler 2 on the list), and Apophis II is added near the end instead. This maintains the total of six Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos rulers. CAH follows Josephus’ Greek text of Manetho in using the older distorted form "Apophis". Gardiner, on the other hand, writes that there were in fact three kings with the Nomen Apopi. The matter is still being discussed, and any final answer as to whether there were three, two, or only one Apopi, who modified his Prenomen at various times during his reign (a good Egyptian practice which is attested frequently) remains for future discoveries to resolve.

Association with the Hebrews

In his Antiquities of the Jews and Against Appion, Josephus recounts a tale supposedly from Manetho, identifying the expulsion of the Jews (the Exodus) both with the Hyksos, and with the expulsion of a group of Asiatic lepers, led by a renegade Egyptian priest called Osarseph. It appears this tale is a conflation of events of the Amarna period, of the earlier Hyksos expulsion, and events at the end of the 19th Dynasty. Flavius Josephus is also responsible for the false etymology that Hyksos in fact stood for Hekw Shasu - '"Wandering Shepherd Kings" - which has only been corrected by more modern scholarship.

Was There a Hyksos Invasion?

In the last decades the idea of a simple migration, with little or no violence involved, has gained support.[10] Under this theory, the Egyptian rulers of 13th Dynasty were too weak to stop these new migrants from travelling to Egypt from Asia and were preoccupied by struggling to cope with domestic famine and plague. Even before that, Amenemhat III carried out extensive building works and mining and Gae Callender notes that "the large intake of Asiatics, which seems to have occurred partly in order to subsidize the extensive building work, may have encouraged the so-called Hyksos to settle in the Delta, thus leading eventually to the collapse of native Egyptian rule."[11] By around 1700 BC (just over a hundred years later), Egypt was fragmenting politically with local kingdoms springing up in the northeastern Delta area. One of these was that of King Nehesy, whose capital was at Avaris and he ruled over a population consisting largely of Syro-Palestinians who had settled in the area during the 12th Dynasty and who were probably mainly soldiers, sailors, shipbuilders and workmen. His dynasty was probably replaced by a West-Semitic speaking Syro-Palestinian dynasty which was the basis of the later Hyksos kingdom which was able to spread southwards because of the unstable political situation, aided by "an army, ships, and foreign connections".[12]

Supporters of this more peaceful theory claim there's little evidence of battles or war in general in the period. They also say that the chariot didn't play any relevant role, so there was no real technological superiority on the Hyksos side. The case for the invasion, on the other side, is based mostly on: (a) the traditional Manetho's explanation; (b) the fact that the chariot was a new technology spreading from the barbaric Central Asia and that there are other theories of invasions by nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes mounted on chariots in the 1700-1300 BC time period, most notably Hurrians in the Near East (according to Helck) and Aryans in India (retold in the Vedas), with the Hurrians in particular being active quite near where the Hyksos appeared; and (c) the fact that the chariot became the master weapon of that period, the weapon of nobles and kings, and one of the most important symbols of power in Eurasia, because in Mycenaean Greece, India, Mesopotamia, Eastern Europe and China, kings and gods started to be portrayed on chariots, buried in chariots and always went to war in chariots. With such an important new weapon, the advocates of the invasion theory say, it seems strange to consider that the Hyksos just entered peacefully in the north of Egypt from Asia, with no knowledge of the chariot, or knowing it but choosing not to use it.

Josephus, quoting from the work of the historian Manetho, described more of an Egyptian assimilation to the corrupt ways of the emporia, followed by rebellion of those who wished to continue to live the life in Ma'at, than any kind of military struggle.

“ By main force they easily seized it without striking a blow; and having overpowered the rulers of the land, they then burned our cities ruthlessly, razed to the ground the temples of gods… Finally, they appointed as king one of their number whose name was Salitis. He had his seat at Memphis, levying tribute from Upper and Lower Egypt and always leaving garrisons behind in the most advantageous positions ”

Not until the beginning of the Theban wars of liberation during the 17th Dynasty are Theban wares again found in the Fayum-Memphis region. Some texts indicate that while the Hyksos controlled the Delta region administratively the Thebans were too busy mining gold and making money off the Red Sea trade to care. Lower Egypt and Thebes functioned autonomously and shared limited contact with each other.[14]

Extent and Nature of Hyksos Rule

Many writers have taken the increasing use of scarabs by the Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos kings and their wide distribution as an indication of their expanding literacy as they became progressively Egyptianized. The Hyksos used Egyptian titles associated with traditional Egyptian kingship, and took Egyptian god Seth to represent their own titulary deity. Indeed, far from being the bearers of a distinctive Hyksos "culture", they seem to have borrowed freely and extensively from the Egyptian, as Hayes notes. In fact, it would appear as though Hyksos administration was accepted in most quarters, if not actually supported by many of their Egyptian subjects. The flip side is that in spite of the prosperity that the stable political situation brought to the land, the native Egyptians continued to view the Hyksos as hated "Asiatics". When they eventually were driven out of Egypt all traces of their occupation were erased. History is written by the victors, and in this case the victors were the rulers of the Eighteenth Dynasty, a native dynasty, the direct successor of the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty. It was the latter which started and led a sustained war against the Hyksos. These native kings from Thebes had an incentive to demonize the Asiatic rulers in the North, thus accounting for the ruthless destruction of their monuments. This note of warning tells us that the historical situation most probably lay somewhere between these two extreme positions: the Hyksos dynasties represented superficially Egyptianized foreigners who were tolerated, but not truly accepted, by their Egyptian subjects.

The independent native rulers in Thebes do seem, however, to have reached a practical modus vivendi with the later Hyksos rulers. This included transit rights through Hyksos-controlled Middle and Lower Egypt and pasturage rights in the fertile Delta. One text, Carnarvon Tablet I, relates the misgivings of the Theban ruler’s council of advisors when Kamose proposed moving against the Hyksos, whom he claimed were a humiliating stain upon the Holy Land of Egypt.

The councillors clearly did not wish to disturb the status quo: "[..] we are at ease in our (part of) Egypt. Elephantine (at the First Cataract) is strong, and the middle (of the land) is with us as far as Cusae [near modern Asyut]. The sleekest of their fields are plowed for us, and our cattle are pastured in the Delta. Emmer is sent for our pigs. Our cattle have not been taken away.. He holds the land of the Asiatics; we hold Egypt.." (This and other texts in English translation may be found in Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET), pp. 232f.)

The Theban Offensive

Under Seqenenra Tao (II)

Mummified head of Tao II, bearing
axe-blade wounds. The common
theory is that he died in a battle
against the Hyksos
(larger image)

Seqenenra participated in active diplomatic posturing, which probably consisted of more than simply exchanging insults with the Asiatic ruler in the North. He seems to have led military skirmishes against the Hyksos, and judging by the vicious head wound on his mummy in the Cairo Museum, he may have died during one of them. His son and successor, Wadjkheperra Kamose, the last ruler of the Seventeenth Dynasty at Thebes, is credited with the opening campaigns of the Theban war against the Hyksos.

It should be noted that Seqenenra Tao has been proposed as the legendary Hiram Abif by the authors of the book The Hiram Key. Per the authors Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, Hiram Abif (the master mason of King Solomon's Temple in masonic lore) can be traced to the historical personage of Seqenenra.

Under Kamose

He surprised and overran the southernmost garrison of the Hyksos at Nefrusy, just north of Cusae [near modern Asyut], and Kamose then led his army as far north as the neighborhood of Avaris itself. Though the city was not taken, the fields around it were devastated by the Thebans. A stele discovered at Thebes continues the account of the war broken off on the Carnarvon Tablet I, telling of the interception and capturing of a courier bearing a message from the Hyksos king Aawoserra Apopi at Avaris to his ally the ruler of Kush (modern Sudan), requesting his urgent support. Kamose promptly ordered a detachment of his troops to occupy the Bahriya Oasis in the Western Desert, controlling and blocking the desert route to the south. Kamose, called "the Strong", then sailed back up the Nile to Thebes for a joyous victory celebration after what was probably not much more than a surprise spoiling raid in force which caught the Hyksos off guard. This Year 3 is the only one attested for Kamose.

By the end of the reign of Aawoserra Apopi, one of the last Hyksos kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty, Hyksos forces had been routed from Middle Egypt and had been pulled back northward and regrouped in the vicinity of the entrance of the Fayyum at Atfih. This great Hyksos king had outlived his first Egyptian contemporary, Seqenenra Tao II, and was still on the throne (albeit of a much reduced kingdom) at the end of Kamose's reign. The last Hyksos ruler(s) of the Fifteenth Dynasty undoubtedly had (a) relatively short reign(s) falling some time within the first half of the reign of Ahmose, Kamose's successor and the founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Under Ahmose

The details of his military campaigns are taken from the account on the walls of the tomb of another Ahmose, a soldier from El-Kab, a town in southern Upper Egypt, whose father had served under Seqenenra Tao II, and whose family had long been nomarchs of the district. It seems that several campaigns against the stronghold at Avaris were needed before the Hyksos were finally dislodged and driven from Lower Egypt. When this occurred is not known with certainty. Some authorities place the expulsion as early as Ahmose's fourth year, while Donald Redford, whose chronological structure has been adopted here, places it as late as the king's fifteenth year. The soldier Ahmose specifically states that he followed on foot as King Ahmose rode to war in his chariot. This is the first mention of the use of the horse and chariot by the Egyptians. In the repeated fighting around Avaris, the soldier captured prisoners and carried off several hands, which when reported to the royal herald resulted in his being awarded the "Gold of Valor" on three separate occasions. The actual fall of Avaris is only briefly mentioned: "Then Avaris was despoiled. Then I carried off spoil from there: one man, three women, a total of four persons. Then his majesty gave them to me to be slaves" [8](ANET, pp.233f).

After the fall of Avaris, the fleeing Hyksos were pursued by the Egyptian army across northern Sinai and into southern Canaan. Here, in the Negev desert between Rafah and Gaza, the fortified town of Sharuhen was reduced after, according to the soldier from El-Kab, a long three-year siege operation. How soon after the sack of Avaris this Asiatic campaign took place is uncertain. One can reasonably conclude that the thrust into southern Canaan probably followed the Hyksos’ eviction from Avaris fairly closely, but, given a period of protracted struggle before Avaris fell and possibly more than one season of campaigning before the Hyksos were shut up in Sharuhen, the chronological sequence must remain uncertain.

Hyksos in Later Times

There seems to be fairly clear evidence that the Kings of the 19th Egyptian Dynasty may have had some Hyksos connections.

• Ramesses I had hereditary estates in the vicinity of Avaris.
• Seti I celebrated the 400th anniversary of the worship of Sutekh (Seth was identified by the Hyksos with Baal).
• Ramesses II adopted a Semitic name for one of his favourite daughters (Bint Anath meaning "the daughter of the goddess Anath").

He also dedicated several of his favourite chariot horses to Anath and named them accordingly.

• All the early Ramessides promoted Asiatics to positions of prominence in the civil administration.
• The anti-Hyksos invectives, found during the first part of the 18th Dynasty are almost wholly lacking.
• Pharaoh Ramesses II moved his capital city back to Avaris - and named it after himself (Pr Rameses).

With the chaos at the end of the 19th Dynasty, the first kings of the 20th Dynasty in the Elephantine Stele and the papyrus Harris re-invigorated an anti-Hyksos stance to strengthen their nativistic reaction towards the Asiatic settlers of the north, who may again have been expelled from the country.

The story of the Hyksos was known to the Greeks, whom attempted to identify it within their own mythology with the expulsion of Belus (Baal?) and the daughters of Danaos, associated with the origin of the Argive dynasty.

Summary

Notes

1. Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt. p.193. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988.
2. Redford, Donald B. History and Chronology of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt: Seven Studies, pp.46–49. University of Toronto Press, 1967.
3. Booth, Charlotte. The Hyksos Period in Egypt. p.15-18. Shire Egyptology. 2005. ISBN 0-7478-0638-1
4. Booth, Charlotte. The Hyksos Period in Egypt. p.29-31. Shire Egyptology. 2005. ISBN 0-7478-0638-1
5. cf. "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt", editor Ian Shaw, p. 186, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0192802933
6. "The culture of ancient Egypt", John Albert Wilson, p. 160, University of Chicago Press, org. pub 1956 -still in print 2009,ISBN 0226901521
7. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET), pp 232f.
8. "History of Egypt from the Earliest Time to the Persian Conquest", James Henry Breasted, p. 216, republished 2003, ISBN 0766177203
9. Winlock, Herbert E. The Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes.
10. Booth, Charlotte. The Hyksos Period in Egypt. p.10. Shire Egyptology, 2005. ISBN 0-7478-0638-1
11. Callender, Gae "The Middle Kingdom Renaissance" in Ian Shaw, ed. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt", Oxford University Press, 2003 ISBN 978-0-19-280458-7 p. 157
12. Bietak, Manfred "Second Intermediate Period, overview" in Kathryn Bard Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt Routledge 1999 ISBN 0-415-18589-0 p57
13. The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Eliezer Oren, University of Pennsylvania 1997. cf. Janine Bourriau's chapter of the archaeological evidence covers pages 159-182
14. James K. Hoffmeier, Book Review of 'The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Eliezer Oren, University of Pennsylvania 1997.' in JEA 90 (2004), p.27
15. "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt", editor Ian Shaw, p. 195, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0192802933
16. Booth, Charlotte. The Hyksos Period in Egypt. p.10. Shire Egyptology. 2005. ISBN 0-7478-0638-1
17. Bard, Kathryn (1999). Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge. pp. 225. ISBN 978-0415185899. Chariots. Retrieved 10/06/2009
18. "Of God and Gods", Jan Assmann, p47-48, University of Wisconsin Press, 2008, ISBN 029922550X

References

• Aharoni, Yohanan and Michael Avi-Yonah, The MacMillan Bible Atlas, Revised Edition, pp. 30-31 (1968 & 1977 by Carta Ltd.).
• Bimson, John J. Redating the Exodus. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1981. ISBN 0-907459-04-8
• von Beckerath, Jürgen. Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten (1965) [Ägyptologische Forschungen, Heft 23]. Basic to any study of this period.
• Ellis, Ralph. (2001) Tempest & Exodus: the biblical exodus inscribed on an ancient Egyptian stele. Edfu: Cheshire ISBN 0953191389
• Ellis, Ralph. Jesus, Last of the Pharaohs
• Gardiner, Sir Alan. Egypt of the Pharaohs (1964, 1961). Still the classic work in English. See pp. 61–71 for his examination of chronology.
• Gibson, David J., Whence Came the Hyksos, Kings of Egypt, 1962
• Hayes, William C. "Chronology: Egypt—To End of Twentieth Dynasty." Chapter 6, Volume 1 of The Cambridge Ancient History, Revised Edition. Cambridge, 1964. With excellent bibliography up to 1964. This is CAH’s chronology volume: A basic work.
• Hayes, William C. "Egypt: From the Death of Ammenemes III to Seqenenre II", in Chapter 2, Volume 2 of The Cambridge Ancient History, Revised Edition (1965) (Fascicle 6).
• Helck, Wolfgang. Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (1962) [Ägyptologische Abhandlungen, Band 5]. An important review article that should be consulted is by William A. Ward, in Orientalia 33 (1964), pp. 135–140.
• Hornung, Erik. Untersuchungen zur Chronologie und Geschichte des Neuen Reiches (1964) [Ägyptologische Abhandlungen, Band 11]. With an excellent fold-out comparative chronological table at the back with 18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasty dates.
• James, T.G.H. "Egypt: From the Expulsion of the Hyksos to Amenophis I", in Chapter 2, Volume 2 of The Cambridge Ancient History, Revised Edition (1965) (Fascicle 34).
• Montet, Pierre. Eternal Egypt (1964). Translated by Doreen Weightman.
• Pritchard, James B. (Editor). Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament(ANET), 3rd edition. (1969). This edition has an extensive Supplement at the back containing additional translations. The standard collection of excellent English translations of ancient Near Eastern texts.
• Redford, Donald B. History and Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt: Seven Studies. (1967).
• Redford, Donald B. "The Hyksos Invasion in History and Tradition" Orientalia 39 (1970).
• Ryholt, Kim SB. The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c.1800-1550 B.C. (1997) by Museum Tuscalanum Press.
• Van Seters, John. The Hyksos: A New Investigation (1967). Two reviews of this volume should be consulted: Kitchen, Kenneth A. "Further Notes on New Kingdom Chronology and History", in Chronique d’Égypte XLIII, No. 86, 1968, pp. 313–324; and Simpson, William J. Review, in Journal of the American Oriental Society 90 (1970), pp. 314–315.
• Säve-Söderbergh, T. "The Hyksos Rule in Egypt", Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 37 (1951), pp. 53–71.
• Winlock, H. E. The Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes (1947). Still a classic with much important information.