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HYKSOS

(Gk. Hyksṓs)

A Greek term, from Egyp. ḥq÷w ḫ÷swt, “rulers of foreign countries,” used by the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century b.c.) to describe the people(s) who dominated Egypt during the 15th-16th dynasties of the Second Intermediate Period (high chronology, 1674-1550; low chronology, 1637-1529). Manetho wrongly interpreted the Egyptian phrase as “shepherd kings.” In certain Egyptian writings they were also given the general designation ʿ÷mw, “Asiatics” (lit., “speakers of a West Semitic tongue”).

Ethnic Identification

Although the ethnic identification and place of origin of the Hyksos have been debated, a growing body of evidence (both textual and archaeological) indicates that the Hyksos were not Indo-european (or more specifically Hurrian), but were in the broadest sense West Semitic and perhaps, in a narrower sense, Southern Levantines.

Archaeological evidence from Tell el-Dabʿa, Tell el-Maskhuta, and elsewhere in the eastern Delta gives every indication of a West Semitic culture. The principal Hyksos site of Avaris (Tell el-Dabʿa) was an enormous city covering an area of ca. 2.5 sq. km. (1 sq. mi.). Its ceramic and artifactual content is virtually the same as the culture of the contemporary Middle Bronze IIB Levant. Its burial practices also evince Levantine origins. The tombs are of the vaulted mudbrick chamber type with donkey sacrifices appearing outside some of these tombs, normally in pairs. Similar tombs with donkey sacrifices are attested at Tell el-Maskhuta, Inshas, and Tell el-Farasha in Egypt and at Jericho, Lachish, and Tell el-ʿAjjul in the Levant. In addition, a large Canaanite temple complex has been discovered at Tell el-Dabʿa. Finally, items such as bronze daggers and axheads, jugs, and toggle pins confirm Canaanite derivation.

Textual evidence includes a slave list (Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446) and the Execration Texts (Berlin-Mirgissa group). The slave list (dating from the 13th dynasty) consists of 77 legible names of slaves, out of which 48 are clearly Asiatic. The Execration Texts (ca. 1850-1750) reflect the magical annihilation of persons and things inimical to Pharaoh and Egypt. While these texts reflect the full range of Egyptian enemies, in the Asiatic sections they combine the ḥq÷w of the cities of coastal Syria-Palestine with the ʿ÷mw of the area. They are therefore an indirect witness to Hyksos origins.

Rise to Power

Scholars have long debated the arrival of the Hyksos in Egypt. For years, many scholars argued for an infiltration model in which the Hyksos assumption of power was a peaceful takeover from within by a racial element already in the majority (at least in the eastern Delta).

More recently, Egyptologists seem to understand the Hyksos takeover in more complex terms. While for a number of centuries West Semitic immigrants had infiltrated into the Delta and settled there and had, in fact, served in Egyptian paramilitary units, it may be misleading to place too much emphasis on this process of immigration as an antecedent to Hyksos rule, for the foreignness of the Hyksos was evidently something which left a deep impression on the Egyptians. Although the contemporary Egyptian sources (e.g., the Kamose stelae) are highly ideological, they nevertheless form important witnesses to a more complex process in the Hyksos ascension to power. At the beginning of the Hyksos period, a combination of various Levantine groups/tribes immigrated into the eastern Delta, as well as more mobile fighting groups, perhaps centered on or in loose federation with a main military group that fanned out and took over various Delta cities (though also leaving others still in the charge of their Egyptian rulers). Destruction levels noted at some eastern Delta sites, including Tell el-Dabʿa, may record some of the more serious conflicts and indicate something more than just a peaceful infiltration.

It has sometimes been argued that the Hyksos conquered Egypt because they had superior weapons (esp. the horse and chariot). However, there is no archaeological or textual support that the Hyksos introduced the horse and chariot to Egypt or that these provided the Hyksos with the military superiority to overwhelm Syria and Egypt. This seems also to apply to the Hyksos “sloping glacis” fortifications.

End of Rule

The only potential rival to the Hyksos 15th Dynasty was in Upper Egypt, where a rump state centered at Thebes had survived the fall of the 13th Dynasty. Being hedged in by the kingdom of Kush to the south (a Hyksos ally) and the Hyksos themselves to the north, the early rulers of the 17th Dynasty that ruled this bantam state felt compelled to acknowledge Hyksos suzerainty. The political expedient of accommodation with the Hyksos promoted a political paralysis that the last rulers of the 17th Dynasty finally repudiated. Initially, Seqenenre Tʾaa II led a revolt against the Hyksos. But when he died in battle, his brother Kamose led a number of successful raids on Kushite territory and then on Avaris itself. Finally, Ahmose routed the Asiatics in a series of campaigns against their bases in the Delta and in Canaan itself (including the fortress at Sharuhen).

The extent of Egyptian involvement in the destructions of Middle Bronze IIC sites in Canaan after the expulsion of the Hyksos has been debated. The evidence seems to indicate a complex scenario involving a combination of factors: internal strife, conflicts between neighboring states, Egyptian campaigns, economic crisis.

Impact

The Hyksos occupation was a watershed in Egyptian history. Up to that point, the Egyptians, despite periods of internal political chaos, had been free from invasion. Generations of Egyptians would be haunted by the specter of foreign domination. The aggressive imperialism of the New Kingdom was, no doubt, a by-product of the Hyksos domination. This ideological stance may possibly serve as a backdrop to the political situation described in Exod. 1.

Bibliography. M. Bietak, Avaris, the Capital of the Hyksos (London, 1996): 225-90; W. G. Dever, “ ‘Hyksos,’ Egyptian Destructions, and the End of the Palestinian Middle Bronze Age,” Levant 22 (1990): 75-81; B. J. Kemp, “Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period c. 2686–1552 b.c.,” in B. G. Trigger, et al., Ancient Egypt: A Social History (Cambridge, 1983), 149-82; E. D. Oren, ed., The Hyksos: New Archaeological and Historical Perspectives (Philadelphia, 1997); D. B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton, 1992); H. S. Smith and A. Smith, “A Reconsideration of the Kamose Texts,” ZÄS 103 (1976): 48-76; J. Van Seters, The Hyksos (New Haven, 1966).

K. Lawson Younger, Jr.

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HYKSOS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)