Mythologies of the Hyksos People

Hyksos (/ˈhɪksɒs/; Egyptian ḥqꜣ(w)-ḫꜣswt, Egyptological pronunciation: hekau khasut, "ruler(s) of foreign lands") is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC). The seat of power of these kings was the city of Avaris in the Nile Delta, from where they ruled over Lower Egypt and Middle Egypt up to Cusae. In the Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt written by the Greco-Egyptian priest and historian Manetho in the 3rd century BC, the term Hyksos is used ethnically to designate people of probable West Semitic, Levantine origin. While Manetho portrayed the Hyksos as invaders and oppressors, this interpretation is questioned in modern Egyptology. Instead, Hyksos rule might have been preceded by groups of Canaanite peoples who gradually settled in the Nile delta from the end of the Twelfth Dynasty onwards and who may have seceded from the crumbling and unstable Egyptian control at some point during the Thirteenth Dynasty. The Hyksos period marks the first in which Egypt was ruled by foreign rulers. Many details of their rule, such as the true extent of their kingdom and even the names and order of their kings, remain uncertain. The Hyksos practiced many Levantine or Canaanite customs as well as many Egyptian customs. They have been credited with introducing several technological innovations to Egypt, such as the horse and chariot, as well as the sickle sword and the composite bow, a theory which is disputed. The Hyksos did not control all of Egypt. Instead, they coexisted with the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties, which were based in Thebes. Warfare between the Hyksos and the pharaohs of the late Seventeenth Dynasty eventually culminated in the defeat of the Hyksos by Ahmose I, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. In the following centuries, the Egyptians would portray the Hyksos as bloodthirsty and oppressive foreign rulers. The term "Hyksos" is derived, via the Greek Ὑκσώς (Hyksôs), from the Egyptian expression 𓋾𓈎𓈉 (ḥḳꜣ-ḫꜣswt or ḥḳꜣw-ḫꜣswt, "hekau khasut"), meaning "rulers [of] foreign lands". The Greek form is likely a textual corruption of an earlier Ὑκουσσώς (Hykoussôs).

Hyksos, dynasty of Palestinian origin that ruled northern Egypt as the 15th dynasty (c. 1630–1523 BCE; see ancient Egypt: The Second Intermediate period). The name Hyksos was used by the Egyptian historian Manetho (flourished 300 BCE), who, according to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (flourished 1st century CE), translated the word as “king-shepherds” or “captive shepherds.” Josephus himself wished to demonstrate the great antiquity of the Jews and thus identified the Hyksos with the Hebrews of the Bible. Hyksos was in fact probably an Egyptian term for “rulers of foreign lands” (heqa-khase), and it almost certainly designated the foreign dynasts rather than an ethnic group. Modern scholarship has identified most of the Hyksos kings’ names as Semitic. The rise of the Hyksos kings in Egypt was made possible by an influx of immigrants from Palestine into Egypt beginning about the 18th century BCE. The immigrants brought with them new technologies, including the horse and chariot, the compound bow, and improved metal weapons. Most of them settled in the eastern portion of the Nile Delta, where they achieved a dominant role in trade with western Asia. Archaeological excavations in that area have revealed a Canaanite-style temple, Palestinian-type burials (including horse burials), Palestinian types of pottery, quantities of their superior weapons, and a series of Minoan frescoes that demonstrate stylistic parallels to those of Knossos and Thera. The most-prominent settlement was Avaris (modern Tall al-Dabʿa), a fortified camp over the remains of a Middle Kingdom town in the northeastern delta. Their chief deity was the Egyptian storm and desert god, Seth, whom they identified with a Syrian storm god, Hadad.

Popular lore suggests the Hyksos, a mysterious group of foreign invaders, conquered the Nile Delta around 1638 B.C. and remained in power until 1530 B.C. But written records of the dynasty are scarce, and modern archaeologists have found few material signs of the ancient military campaign. Now, new research lends weight to an alternative theory on the Hyksos’ origins. As Colin Barras reports for Science magazine, chemical analysis of skeletons found at the Hyksos capital of Avaris indicates that people from the Levant—an area encompassing the countries surrounding the eastern Mediterranean—immigrated to Egypt centuries before the takeover. The Hyksos dynasty, then, was likely the result of an immigrant uprising, not a hostile outside invasion. The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, center on variations in strontium isotopes present in 75 skeletons’ tooth enamel. Strontium, a harmless metal found in water, soil and rocks, enters the body primarily through food. Comparing isotope ratios found in enamel, which forms between ages 3 and 8, with those present in a specific region, can help scientists determine whether an individual grew up there, as levels “vary from place to place,” writes Ariel David for Haaretz. Around half of the skeletons were buried in the 350 years before the Hyksos’ takeover; the rest were interred during the dynasty’s reign. Per the paper, the researchers found that 24 of the pre-1638 skeletons were foreign-born, pointing toward significant immigration prior to the supposed invasion. “This was clearly an international city,” lead author Chris Stantis, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University in England, told Science News’ Bruce Bower last April, when she and co-author Holger Schutkowski presented the research at a conference.

The Hyksos were a Semitic people who gained a foothold in Egypt c. 1782 BCE at the city of Avaris in Lower Egypt, thus initiating the era known in Egyptian history as the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1782 - c. 1570 BCE). Their name, Heqau-khasut, translates as 'Rulers of Foreign Lands' (given by the Greeks as Hyksos), suggesting to some scholars that they were kings or nobility driven from their homes by invasion who found refuge in the port city of Avaris and managed to establish a strong power base during the decline of the 13th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE). Most likely, they were traders who were at first welcomed at Avaris, prospered, and sent word to their friends and neighbors to come join them, resulting in a large population which was able to finally exert political and then military power. Although the later Egyptian scribes of the New Kingdom (c. 1570-1069 BCE) would demonize the Hyksos as 'invaders' who conquered the land, destroyed temples, and slaughtered without mercy, there is no evidence for any of these claims. Even today, the Hyksos are referred to as invaders and their advent in Egypt as the 'Hyksos Invasion,' but actually, they assimilated neatly into Egyptian culture adopting Egyptian fashion and religious beliefs, with some modifications, as their own. Contrary to many claims throughout the years, there is no reason to identify the Hyksos with the Hurrians nor with the Hebrew slaves from the biblical Book of Exodus.

If you study “fake news” from ancient Egypt, you would consider the Hyksos a band of nasty, marauding outsiders who invaded and then brutally ruled the Nile Delta until heroic kings expelled them. In fact, the Hyksos had a more diplomatic impact, contributing to progress in culture, language, military affairs and even the introduction of the iconic horse and chariot. The story of these two competing explanations reveals much about ancient Egypt and this mysterious group. As a word, Hyksos is simply the Greek version of an Egyptian title, Heka Khasut, meaning “rulers of foreign lands/hill countries.” While much is misunderstood, we know the Hyksos comprised a small group of West Asian individuals who ruled Northern Egypt, especially the Delta, during the Second Intermediate Period. These rulers were recorded as Egypt’s 15th dynasty in the Turin Royal Canon, the only known king’s list that documents their existence. For decades, the writings of the Ptolemaic Egyptian historian, Manetho, influenced the popular and scholarly interpretations of the Hyksos. Preserved in Josephus’s Contra Apionem I, Manetho presented the Hyksos as a barbaric horde, “invaders of an obscure race” who conquered Egypt by force, causing destruction and murdering or enslaving Egyptians. This account continued in Egyptian texts from the Second Intermediate Period and New Kingdom. As Egyptology developed, years of debate over the extent of destruction and the ethnicity of the “Hyksos people” transpired. Only in more recent decades have the Hyksos been revealed as a small group of rulers (we know of six) and not a population or ethnic group.

The Hyksos are well known from ancient texts, and their expulsion was recorded in later ancient Egyptian historical narratives. The third-century B.C.E. Egyptian historian Manetho–whose semi-accurate histories stand out as valuable resources for cataloging Egyptian kingship–wrote of the Hyksos’ violent entry into Egypt from the north, and the founding of their monumental capital at Avaris, a city associated with the famous excavations at Tell ed-Dab’a. After the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt, Manetho reports that they wandered the desert before establishing the city of Jerusalem. While Josephus cites Manetho’s history associating the Israelites with the Hyksos, many modern scholars see problems with Manetho’s conflation of the expulsion of the Hyksos and the Biblical narrative. Manetho lived many centuries after these events took place, and he may have combined two different narratives, wittingly or unwittingly, when associating the Hyksos and Israelites. Ahmose’s defeat of the Hyksos occurred centuries before the traditional date of the Exodus. In addition, the basic premise of the Hyksos and Exodus histories differ: the Hyksos were expelled rulers of Egypt, not slaves, and they were forced out, not pursued.

HYKSOS, the founders of the Egyptian 15^th dynasty; Asiatics who exercised political control over Egypt between approximately 1655 and 1570 B.C.E. The Hyksos established their capital at Avaris in the Eastern Delta, controlled the Nile Valley as far south as Hermopolis, and claimed overlordship over the rest of Upper Egypt. Avaris (Egyptian ḥwt- wʿrt) has been identified as Tell el-Dabʿa in the Northeast Delta. Most of the Hyksos personal names are west-Semitic, in the same language group as Amorite and the Canaanite and Aramaic dialects. There seem to be no Hurrian names as was once thought. "Hyksos" reflects hekau khoswe, "the rulers of foreign lands," the name given them by their Egyptian contemporaries. They were also referred to as ʿmw, "Asiatics," the standard name for the inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean littoral, Canaan and Syria. After having infiltrated into the Nile Valley over a period of several centuries, they managed to seize the kingship during the chaotic period which ended the Egyptian Middle Kingdom. At the beginning of the 18^th Dynasty (c. 1580 B.C.E.) Pharaoh Ahmes expelled the Hyksos from Egypt and pursued them to southern Palestine. After besieging Sharuhen (Tell el-Farʿah) in the south, for three years, he defeated them. His successors, Amenophis I, Tuthmosis I, and Tuthmosis III, completed their expulsion from Egypt. Most of the archaeological data on the Hyksos come from sites in the Eastern Delta. Among these are Tell el-Dabaʿ, the largest, Tell el-Maskhuta, and Tell el-Yahudiyah. Other information comes from scarabs and monuments from various sites in Nubia and Palestine as well as Egypt. The material available at present shows Hyksos culture to be that of Middle Bronze Age Palestine and Phoenicia (Redford 1992, 100). In the course of time Hyksos material culture shows increasing Egyptianizing features. Scholars debate the extent of evidence of Hyksos fortifications, with some comparing embankments found at Tell el-Yahudiyeh at Heliopolis with similar structures in Western Asia, and others dissenting. The horse and chariot made their appearance in Egypt during the rule of the Hyksos, but there is no evidence that they were introduced specifically by the Hyksos. Distinctively Hyksos is a new type of ceramic, called "Tell al-Yahudiyeh ceramics," named after a center of Hyksos population, now called Tell al-Yahudiyyeh, where this type was first discovered. The vessels which characterize this group of ceramics are small juglets and bowls, brown-gray in color, decorated with geometric designs, and made of punctures filled with white chalk. As might be expected, the Hyksos initially retained their Levantine religious traditions including the royal ancestor cult. Gradually, Egyptian elements were borrowed and synthesized, so that Baal types were identified with the Egyptian god Seth, brother and enemy of Horus, but in addition to him they also worshiped Canaanite gods, such as Resheph, Ashtoreth, and Anath. In Contra Apionem, Josephus, attempting to establish the great antiquity of the Jews, quotes the history of the Ptolemaic Egyptian writer Manetho, who describes a brutal, savage invasion of Egypt by a people from the east, their period of domination in Egypt, and their subsequent expulsion by the rulers of the 18^th dynasty. Manetho called these Asiatic invaders "Hyksos" and interpreted their name as meaning "king-shepherds" (1:82), although Josephus claims Manetho also had an alternative interpretation, "captive shepherds" (1:83, 91). Josephus identified the Hyksos as the patriarchal Jews, equating their appearance in Egypt with the *Joseph story in Genesis and their subsequent expulsion with the biblical tale of *Exodus. He made this identification partially following Manetho who made the expelled Hyksos, together with a host of lepers, the founders of Jerusalem, and partially because the Hyksos were "shepherds" and "captives" and, indeed, "sheep-breeding was a hereditary custom of our remotest ancestors" (1:91) and "Joseph told the king of Egypt that he was a captive" (1:92). Following assumptions of Manetho and Josephus some scholars have attempted to set the Exodus within the chronological framework of the 18^th Dynasty, but with little success. There is no warrant either in the Bible or outside it for simply equating the Hyksos with the later Hebrews, although it is not impossible that some of the latter may have been ultimately decended from some of the Hyksos. Of special significance is the fact that some of the Hyksos rulers bore names echoed in the Bible, e.g., Yaʿqb-hr; and that one of the kings of the period is named Shesha which is similar to the name Sheshai, one of the ruling families in Kiriath-Arba.

'Hyksos' was the collective name given to the Asiatics who invaded Egypt. They took advantage of a time when Egypt was politically weak and their military could not stand up to the Hyksos’ more advanced weaponry. Although at first this invasion must have been seen as unfortunate to Egyptians, by the time their rule ended, the Hyksos had introduced many technologies that would greatly benefit Egypt into the future. The word "hyksos" comes from heka khasewet, which means "foreign rulers", and was used by the Egyptians to describe the kings of nearby areas. Due to instability and famine in areas surrounding Egypt, the Hyksos invaded Egypt during the second intermediate period, around 1700 B.C. They formed the 15th Dynasty and ruled Lower Egypt for just over one hundred years.

The Hyksos, a group of mixed Asiatic peoples, emerged as a significant force in the landscape of ancient Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, around 1650 to 1550 BCE. Their arrival and subsequent rule over parts of Egypt marked a period of profound change in Egyptian history. The Hyksos are credited with introducing the horse and chariot, as well as advanced weaponry and fortification techniques, which had a lasting impact on Egyptian military and societal structures. Recent archaeological discoveries have shed new light on the Hyksos period and their influence in ancient Egypt. One of the most significant findings is the ongoing excavation at Tell el-Dab'a, the site of the ancient city of Avaris, the Hyksos capital. Here, archaeologists have unearthed a wealth of artifacts and architectural remains that offer insights into the life, culture, and administration of the Hyksos in Egypt. These include large palatial structures, fortifications, and a variety of artifacts that demonstrate a blend of Egyptian and Asiatic styles, reinforcing the idea of cultural integration during their rule.

During ancient Egypt’s long and illustrious history, many foreign groups attempted to invade the Nile Valley, but few were successful and most of those only happened in the Late Period. An enigmatic group known as the Hyksos, though, was the first foreign group to successfully invade and conquer part of Egypt, taking the Delta region around the year 1648 BC and then ruling it for about 100 years. In later centuries, this foreign dynasty became known as the Fifteenth Dynasty. Very little is known about the Hyksos from the historical or archaeological records. The Fifteenth Dynasty is mentioned in the ancient Egyptian king-list known as the “Turin King-List,” which is dated to the Nineteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. It is believed that the Turin King-List was the source of Manetho’s inclusion of the Fifteenth Dynasty in his third century BC chronology of ancient Egypt. The first century AD Roman-Jewish historian, Josephus, offered more commentary of the Hyksos in his transmission of Manetho’s work, but little else is mentioned of them in the historical record. Also, due to the fact that the Egyptian Delta is so densely populated and has a high water table, much of their archaeological have been destroyed or are underwater or fields. Because of these reasons, the process by which the Hyksos were able to conquer the Delta remains a source of debate. Two primary theories have been advanced to explain the Hyksos conquest. The “gradual” theory posits that the Hyksos assumed control after a period of gradual but intense immigration from the Levant. Once the foreigners’ numbers were high enough, they simply proclaimed their own dynasty in the Delta. The other major theory is that the Hyksos conquered the Delta in one fell swoop. An examination of both theories reveals that there is evidence to support both and that they do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. Ultimately, though, the Hyksos conquest of the Egyptian Delta would not have been possible without the collapse of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (c. 2055-1650 BC). Once the Middle Kingdom collapsed and central authority vanished, the door was open for any powerful group, even foreigners, to install competing dynasties.