Origins of the Hyksos (1) 0 - 5m 27s

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Isotope data on the Hyksos.

From the article at journal.plos.org,

"Who were the Hyksos?

"Challenging traditional narratives

"using strontium isotope analysis

of human remains from ancient Egypt."

Introduction.

A foreign dynasty, known as the "Hyksos,"

ruled parts of Egypt between circa 1638 to 1530 BCE.

Their origins are thought to be rooted in the Near East,

which is supported by architectural features

and grave accouterments of Tell el-Dab'a.

In this former Hyksos capital in the eastern Nile Delta,

burial culture is characterized by a blend of Egyptian

and Near Eastern elements.

However, investigations are still ongoing

as to where the Hyksos came from

and how they rose to power.

The narrative of how the Hyksos,

15th Dynasty of ancient Egypt,

rose to rule, is apocryphal.

The Ptolemaic priest, Manetho, was for centuries the only account

of their rise, rule, and fall.

Living approximately 12 centuries after the Hyksos dynasty,

Manetho described the Hyksos rulers as

leading an invading force, sweeping in from the northeast

and conquering the northeastern Nile Delta,

during the Second Intermediate Period,

in a time when Egypt as a country was vulnerable.

Manetho's account only survived in the works

of later historians such as Flavius Josephus,

and however biased and unreliable, was the solitary known source

of the Hyksos for centuries.

Even after the decipherment of hieroglyphs,

sources for the Hyksos rulers remained scarce and unreliable,

due to the ancient Egyptian stately customs

of censorship and propaganda.

Hyksos became a part of the topoi,

depicting disorder and chaos,

whose ritual killing was the Pharaoh's way to maintain order

and legitimize power.

Western scholars further entangled the origins of the Hyksos

with race-based science mired in imperialism

and Orientalism, conflating the Hyksos rulers

to represent an entire ethnic group that further

confused pursuits to investigate the origins

of the 15th-Dynasty rulers.

During this paper, we only

refer to the dynastic rulers as the "Hyksos,"

not the elite attendant to the rulers,

nor that ethnic group with which they are associated.

With the discovery of the ancient Hyksos capital

at the archeological site of Tell el-Dab'a

and five decades of excavation,

including several cemetery sites,

an opportunity arises to investigate the circumstances

in which the Hyksos rose to rule.

The last decades of research have produced evidence

clearly pointing toward a Near Eastern origin of the ruling class

known as the "Hyksos," notably borne out

by shared non-Egyptian features of ceramic types,

burial customs, adornment, weapons, as well as

domestic and cultic architecture,

though not the foreign elite arriving directly

from foreign lands, as Minetha recounted,

but people of non-Egyptian ethnicity who

were born and raised in the Delta.

To date, no tomb known to belong to a Hyksos ruler

has been excavated, but this wealth

of new material and insights allows direct comparison

with the Levant and the wider Near East,

in a significant step forward,

toward explaining cultural trends and geographic provenance

of people associated with the Hyksos and the background

of their migration into the northeastern Nile Delta.

The archeological evidence also

does not support Manetho's narrative of the Hyksos

as leading an invading force sweeping in from the northeast

to rule as Egypt's first foreign dynasty.

Instead, it is suggested that those who

became Hyksos rulers were descended

from Asiatics who had been living

in Egypt for generations.

The site of Tell el-Dab'a.

The examination of individuals buried in the cemeteries

of Tell el-Dab'a offers the opportunity to directly

assess the origins of these residents

and assess questions relating to timing

and mechanisms of the Hyksos's rise to rule.

The site, located in the northeastern Nile Delta,

has revealed a stratigraphy extending over a 500-year period.

This settlement was founded in the 12th dynasty,

and was known from the 13th dynasty onwards as "Hutwaret."

During the Middle Kingdom, this city

was an administrative center and a harbor city

that grew in power to finally become the capital

of the regional Hyksos kingdom, then known as "Avaris."