Manetho’s obscure reference to a race of invaders has been a constant source of debate and controversy. But who are these invaders? They are named the ‘Hyksos’ – a Greek modification of the Egyptian expression HqA xAs.wt ‘ruler of foreign lands’. The Hyksos are correlated with the Fifteenth Dynasty of the Second Intermediate Period, a time characterised by the destabilisation and regionalisation of the Egyptian state. Several scholars have pondered over their victory and rule in Egypt, from the manner in which they entered Egypt and the means with which they claimed the throne to their final expulsion from the land. This book assesses their rise to power, exploring the preliminary stages that enabled the Hyksos to gain control over a portion of Egyptian territory and thus to merit a small mention in Manetho’s history.

Table of Contents

Section I: Studying the Hyksos
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Previous Scholarship
Chapter 3: Ethnicity and its Representation
Section II: Evidence for Contact
Chapter 4: Tracing Asiatics in Egypt
Chapter 5: Between Egypt and the Levant: The Eastern Desert Chapter
6: Contact with the Egyptian in the Levant
Section III: Observations and Findings
Chapter 7: Representing Asiatics and the Levant
Chapter 8: Rulers of Foreign Lands
Selected Bibliography
Appendix A : Translations
Appendix B : Ambiguous Data from the Levant