A large class of monuments was afterwards attributed to the Hyksos, probably in error.
A more definite stage is reached in the period of the Hyksos (c. 1700), the invaders of Egypt, whose Asiatic origin is suggested inter alia by the proper-names which include Jacob " and " Anath " as deities.
Also that between 2800 and 2600 B.C. a second wave from Arabia took the same course, covering not only Babylonia, but also Syria and Palestine and probably also Egypt (the Hyksos).
Avaris is generally assigned to the region towards Pelusium on the strength of its being located in the Sethroite nome by Josephus, but Petrie thinks it was at Tell el-Yahudiyeh (Yehudia), where Hyksos scarabs are common.
Flinders Petrie then pointed out a group of kings named on scarabs of peculiar type, which, including Khyan, he attributed to the period between the Old Kingdom and the New, while others were in favour of assigning them all to the Hyksos, whose appellation seemed to be recognizable in the title Hek-khos, "ruler of the barbarians," borne by Khyan.
From the remains of fortifications there he argues that the Hyksos were uncivilized desert people, skilled in the use of the bow, and must thus have destroyed by their archery the Egyptian armies trained to fight hand-tohand; further;, that their hordes were centered in Syria, but were driven thence by a superior force in the East to take refuge in the islands and became a sea-power--whence the strange description "Hellenic" in Manetho, which most editors have corrected to CtXAoi, "others."
He regained a certain prestige as god of the Hyksos rulers, and two Pharaohs of the XIXth Dynasty derived their name Sethos (Seti) from him.
In 1850 a record of the capture of this city from the Hyksos by Ahmosi, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, was discovered by the same scholar.
Indeed Asiatic influence made itself felt in Egypt before the Hyksos age, and later, and more strongly, during the XVIIIth and following Dynasties, and deities of Syro-Palestinian fame (Resheph, Baal, Anath, the Baalath of Byblos, Kadesh, Astarte) found a hospitable welcome.
It comprises some of the most notable figures in Egyptian history - Ahmosi (Amasis) I., who freed Egypt from the Hyksos, Tethmosis I.
Its first task was to crush the Hyksos power in the north-east of the Delta; this was fully accomplished by its founder Ahmosi (dialectically Ahmasi, AmOsis or Amasis I.) capturing their great stronghold of Avgris.
Khian, the powerful but obscure Hyksos king of Egypt, whose prenomen might be pronounced Sweserenre, is perhaps a possible prototype, for objects inscribed with his name have been found from Bagdad to Cnossus.
Large numbers of Hyksos scarabs are found in Upper and Lower Egypt, and they are not unknown in Palestine.
Manetho gives us the XIIIth (Diospolite) Dynasty, the XIVth (Xoite from Xois in Lower Egypt), the XVth and XVIth (Hyksos) and the XVIIth (Diospolite), but his names are lost except for the Hyksos kings.
Manetho says that the Hyksos (q.v.) gained Egypt without a blow.
Meanwhile a headless statue of a king named Khyan, found at Bubastis, was attributed on various grounds to the Hyksos, the soundest arguments being his foreign name and the boastful un-Egyptian epithet "beloved of his ka," where "beloved of Ptah" or some other god was to be expected.
Meyer in giving, for reasons which cannot be here explained, for the beginning of the 1st dynasty c. B c. 3400, for the 4th dynasty c. B.C. 2900-2750, and for the rule of the Hyksos c. B.C. 1680-1580; and in his Researches in Sinai, 1906, p. 175, Petrie proposes for Menes B.C. 5510, and for the 4th dynasty B.C. 473 1 -4454.
Of the Hyksos age there are the scanty remains of a great fortified camp at Tell el-Yehudia.
One of these bore the name of Apopi engraved lightly on the shoulder; this was evidently a usurper's mark, but from the whole circumstances it was concluded that these, and others of the same type of features found elsewhere, must have belonged to the Hyksos.
Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities, p. 67; Golenischeff in Recueil de travaux, xv.
Rings of metal, gold, silver and bronze played some part in exchange, and from the Hyksos period onwards formed the usual standards by which articles of all kinds might be valued.
Semitic features were pointed out in the supposed Hyksos names, and Petrie was convinced of their date by his excavations of1905-1906in the eastern Delta.
Several Theban kings of the later part of the Middle Kingdom adopted the same name; and when the Theban family of the XVIIth dynasty drove out the Hyksos, Ammon, as the god of the royal city, was again prominent.
She restored the worship in those temples of Upper and Lower Egypt which had not yet recovered from the religious oppression and neglect of the Hyksos.
Slings are first heard of in Egyptian warfare in the 8th century B.C. The chariot was dOubtless introduced with the horse in the Hyksos period; several examples have been discovered in the tombs of the New Kingdom.
Small native princes ruled as vassals of Egypt which, after expelling the Hyksos from its borders, had entered upon a series of conquests as far as the Euphrates.
The dates that have 400 come down to us are very few; the only 980 4945 ones known from the Hyksos period are of a 900 4731 12th and a 33rd year.
The horse seems to have been introduced with the chariot during the Hyksos period.
The Hyksos names can in some cases be recognized by their foreign aspect, the peculiar style of the scarabs on which they are engraved or by resemblances to those recorded in Manetho.
The Hyksos, in whom Josephus recognized the children of Israel, worshipped their own Syrian deity, identifying him with the Egyptian god Seth, and endeavoured to establish his cult throughout Egypt to the detriment of the native gods.
The latter has been supposed to be a Hyksos or Semitic deity and to have some connexion with Sheth; but Cheyne and Muller reject this view.
The military spirit awakened in the struggle with the Hyksos had again departed from the Egyptian nation; mercenaries from the Sudan, from Libya and from the northern.
The monuments and scarabs of the Hyksos kings are found throughout Upper and Lower Egypt; those of Khian somehow spread as far as Crete and Bagdad.
The mystery of the Hyksos has not yet been solved; but it is not impossible that they had relations with Mesopotamia.
The possibility of a connexion between the Hyksos and the Israelites is still admitted in some quarters.
The principal text is the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus in the British Museum, written under a Hyksos king c. 1600 B.C.; unfortunately it is full of gross errors.
The spirited overthrow of the Hyksos ushered in the glories in arms and arts which marked the New Empire.
The succeeding Late Minoan period, best illustrated by the later palace at Cnossus and that at Hagia Triada, corresponds in Egypt with the Hyksos period and the earlier part of the New Empire.
The supposed connexion with the Israelites has made the problem of the Hyksos attractive, but light is coming upon it very slowly.
Their whole race was named Hyksos, i.e.
These statues were later appropriated by the Hyksos, and so came to be called by their name, which is a misnomer.
Though Seth was an Egyptian god, as god of the Hyksos he represents some Asiatic deity.
Under this foreign dominion, which offers a striking analogy to the contemporary rule of the Hyksos in Egypt, Babylonia lost its empire over western Asia, Syria and Palestine became independent, and the high-priests of Assur made themselves kings of Assyria.