Hyksos: Encyclopedia II - Hyksos - Who Were the Hyksos?

Hyksos - Who Were the Hyksos?

The term "Hyksos" derives from the expression heka khasewet (Rulers of Foreign Lands), used in Egyptian texts like the Turin King List to describe the rulers of neighboring lands. This expression begins to appear as early as the late Old Kingdom in Egypt, referring to various Nubian chieftains; and as early as the Middle Kingdom, referring to the bedouin chieftains of Syria and Canaan. It is generally accepted that only the six kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty are to properly be called "Hyksos", because not only do they bear Egyptian royal titles, but they are specifically called Hyksos by Manetho. It is generally agreed that these six Hyksos kings of Egypt ruled a total of about 108 years.

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.

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.

Manetho's history of Egypt is known only through the works of others, such as Flavius Josephus. These sources do not list the names of the six rulers in the same order. To complicate matters further, the spellings are so distorted that they are useless for chronological purposes; there is no close or obvious connection between the bulk of these names — Salitis, Beon/Bnon, Apachnan/Pachnan, annas/Staan, Apophis, Assis/Archles — and the Egyptian names that appear on scarabs and other objects. The hieroglyphic names of the Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos rulers as they are known from monuments, scarabs, and other objects are:

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" 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. On the other hand, the chronology does seem to fit, so it cannot be ruled out either, until future discoveries are made.

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.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Who Were the Hyksos?", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki