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Origins of the Hyksos


The Hyksos, a people that constituted the fifteenth dynasty of Egypt were of non-Egyptian origin.

Most archaeologists describe the Hyksos as a mixed, West Asian people. While the term "Asiatic", is often used of the Hyksos, in the context of Ancient Egypt, it refers to any people native to areas east of Egypt. West Asian origins are suggested, in particular, by the names of individuals such as Khyan and Sakir-Har, and pottery finds that resemble pottery found in archaeological excavations in the area of modern Israel. The name Hyksos was used by the Egyptian historian Manetho (ca. 300 BC), who, according to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (1st century AD), translated the word as "king-shepherds" or "captive shepherds". Josephus himself identified the Hyksos with the Hebrews of the Bible. However, the word Hyksos probably originated as an Egyptian term meaning "rulers of foreign lands" (heqa-khaset), and it almost certainly designated the foreign dynasts rather than a whole nation.

An area centered on the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt was the heartland of the Hyksos kingdom, which was limited in size. Except for Thebes's port city of Elim at modern Quasir, the Hyksos never controlled Upper Egypt, which was under the control of 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.

The rule of these Hyksos kings overlaps with those 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. 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. The Hyksos used Egyptian titles associated with traditional Egyptian kingship, and took Egyptian god Seth to represent their own titular deity.


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