The Hyksos Invasion in History and Tradition

The Hyksos Invasion in History and Tradition
Author(s): Donald B. Redford

Source: Orientalia , 1970, NOVA SERIES, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1970), pp. 1-51
Published by: GBPress- Gregorian Biblical Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43074367
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1
The Hyksos Invasion in History and Tradition
Donald B. Redford - Toronto
During what Manetho calls the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt the

Delta, and probably the valley of the Nile as well, were subjugated
by a group of alien adventurers whose origins are to be sought in
Asia. It is too much to hope that the basic or even the immediate
cause of this subversion will ever be illumined by finds of contem-
porary documents, but a shrewd guess might plausibly put the ap-
parently easy victory down to the political weakness of Egypt rather
than to the military superiority of the conquerors. In the total
absence of contemporary texts bearing upon the establishment of
these Hyksos potentates, scholars are thrown back upon the some-
what sketchy and coloured accounts contained in later traditions. %
The purpose of the present paper is to re-examine these traditions
in an effort to elicit evidence regarding the nature and date of the
Hyksos conquest, and the legend of their expulsion.
The Implications of the Term "Hyksos"
The tradition Manetho preserves regarding the Hyksos is rather

more explicit than is usually admitted (*). One can reduce his ma-
terial to the following skeleton (for which presumably Manetho had
(x) Josephus, Contra Apionem i, 14. The question is a moot one

as to whether Josephus, our source for Manetho here, had access to the
original wording of the Aegyptiaca or not. His citation of his source,
together with the emphatic claim that he is quoting, suggests that he
had, at least at this point, a text which he (rightly) believed to be verba-
tim Manetho. Nevertheless Weill may have been correct in asserting
that "Josèphe ne possédait pas le Manéthon intégral, mais seulement
les extraits en citation directe ou indirecte qu'il nous transmet d'après
ses sources" (JA 10« sér. 16 [1910] 315).
Orientalia - 1

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2 D. B. Redford
evidence of one sort or a

of the Hyksos was dated t
(probably Tutimaus) (1). S
and are described in no m
birth" (2). Third, their ent
midable in its nature that
Fourth, their initial occup
by barbarous atrocities per
cities. Fifth, only after th
did they choose for thems
established his headquarter
Avaris (3).
(*) On the equation with D

JNES 12 (1953) 34; idem, CAH II (1962), ch. 2, 13; Drioton-Vandier,
Égypte 4, 288. But as Gardiner notes (The Royal Canon of Turin [Oxford
1959] 16, note to vii, 13) the restoration [Ddw]-ws by Farina is a mere
guess. The name Dudu-mose is found in conjunction with two throne
names Dd-nfr^r* (Daressy, RT 14 [1893] 26, no. 31), and Dd-htp-r f
(A. Barsanti, ASAÉ 9 [1909], plate), and all occurrences come from the
distant south below Thebes (cf. J. von Beckerath, Untersuchungen zur
politischen Geschichte der zweiten Zwischenzeit in Ägypten [Glückstadt-
New York 1965] 64). This fact, together with the marked similarity
in the two praenomina, leads one to suspect that there was but one king
Dudu-mose who bore two throne names. Dare we identify him with
the Dd-[ ] of Turin 9/9?
(2) <5cv9pco7Toi TÒ yévoç ôcnrjfxoi. Manetho does not mean hereby that
Hyksos origins were obscure, but that the invaders came of stock with
an unsavory reputation. On this understanding the phrase becomes a
nice Hellenization of one of the many pejoratives the Egyptians were
fond of using of a foreign leader; cf. hsi, "vile", hr , "fallen", etc.
(3) This is the order implied in the quotation of Josephus ( Contra
Ap. i, 14, 77-78). With the priority given to the capture of Memphis
the epitomes agree (" . . . six foreign kings from Phoenicia who captured
Memphis" [Africanus], Waddell, Manetho [London 1940] 90; cf. Eusebius
[ibid. 94, 96], and the scholia to Plato [ibid. 98]). The epitomes go on
to name the first king (Salitis) and the length of his reign, and only then
do they refer to the founding of Avaris, adding the words "from which
as a base they subjugated Egypt", a curious after-thought if it is to be
taken seriously. What is probably reflected in the order and the content
of these two statements in the epitomes is (a) the seizure of Memphis
during the initial stages of the Hyksos incursion; (b) the subjugation
of the rest of Egypt, i.e. the Valley, during a subsequent stage of Hyksos
rule, when Avaris had been established as the chief seat of the Fifteenth
Dynasty. Eusebius records for the ninety-second year of Hyksos rule

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The Hyksos Invasion in History and Tradition 3
This account of Manetho's is the only one extant which describes

the establishment of the Hyksos in Egypt; and its insistence upon
a sudden, armed invasion of the Delta is so clear that generations
of scholars have, both consciously and unconsciously, allowed them-
selves to be influenced by it. But with the comparatively recent
revelation that already at the close of the Twelfth Dynasty, and
certainly in the Thirteenth, increasing numbers of Asiatics were
finding a home in Egypt (*), Manetho has come to be viewed with
more skepticism. The Hyksos "take-over" represented by the found-
ing of the Fifteenth Dynasty, was seen, not as a sudden, unheralded
invasion of a military nature, but as the culmination of a gradual
infiltration on the part of peoples from Western Asia which had
been going on for many generations (2) . Manetho's account could be
passed off as a rewriting of history on the analogy of invasions of
Egypt which had occurred closer in time to the Heliopolitan priesťs
birth: the Ethiopian invasion of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (3), the
Assyrian invasions of 671, 666, and 663, the Persian conquests of
525 and 343, and finally Alexander's invasion - all sudden, military
incursions (4). Now it is quite true that Egyptian historical tradition
in the second half of the first millennium b.c. was influenced by these
disastrous invasions of her territory. A consistent pattern begins
to emerge in the multifarious folk tales of historical import which
that "Memphis in Egypt was founded by Apis" (Hier on. Chron., ed.
Helm, p. 32; var. Epafus, ibid. p. 44), but this probably reflects (if it
is indeed an authentic tradition) some important construction work
which Apophis undertook in the city, and has nothing to do with the
Hyksos conquest.
(*) For the sources see W. Helck, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu
Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend vor Chr. (Wiesbaden 1962) 79ff.;
J. Van Seters, The Hyksos, a New Interpretation (New Haven & London
1966) 87ff.
(2) Cf. Säve-Söderbergh, JEA 37 (1951) 56, 60; 63 . . the Hyksos
did not arrive in Egypt as conquerors but as peaceful immigrants who
first established themselves as kinglets in the Eastern Delta, and then
from this hinterland succeeded in overpowering the very weak and ephe-
meral kinglets of Upper Egypt ..." (in context the protasis of a condition).
Cf. also the résumé of Drioton-Vandier, Égypte 4, 650f . ; Sir A. Gardiner, Pha-
raohs, 170; Hayes, CAH II (1962), ch. 2, 15; Van Seters, The Hyksos, 121ff.
(3) On the equivocal position of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty in Egyp-
tian tradition, see following page, n. 2.
(4) A. Alt, Die Herkunft der Hyksos in neuer Sicht (Berlin 1961) 7f.

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4 D. B. Redford
circulated in late times (1) ; h

themselves in the north of
elements in the country; k
seek asylum in Kush (2) ; li
advancing northward, and d
of the Lepers in some of th
Kingdom (4), the historical a
seventh century b.c., when
of contention between Kush
(!) The Osarsiph liegend (Jos

of Tisithen and Peteseph (Ch
Apology of the Potter (K. W
[1893] 3ff.; G. Maspero, RT 2
tanebo and Alexander (M. Brau
Literature [Oxford 1938] 19ff.)
JE A 21 [1935] 26ff.); cf. the
vered Egypt from the tyrant
of the Lamb is of the same g
J. Krall, Festgaben zu Ehren
(2) Kush occupies a curious
On the one hand, in the motif above, isolated Kush is an ally, and a
haven of refuge; but on the other, in traditions which have their origin
in the Saite sphere of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, they appear as some-
thing less than perfect (cf. Herodotus ii, 137ff.; Plutarch, De Iside et
Osiride, 13, where the Ethiopian queen Aso is made an accomplice of
Seth; for the increased interest taken in Osiris and his cycle by the
Kushites, see J. Leclant, Recherches sur les monuments thébains de la
XXVe dynastie dite éthiopienne [Bibl. d'études XXVI; Le Caire 1965]
262; on the reaction against Kush under Necho and Psammetichus II,
see Christophe, BIFAO 55 [1956] 76ff.; Leclant, Or 30 [1961] 100 and n. 7
for references). The Saites had to justify themselves to a certain extent,
and this inevitably meant vilifying the preceding royal house. But
since Psammetichus I had not been obliged to fight the Kushites, and
since he, Taharqa, and Tanwetaman had all been opponents of the
Assyrians, the Twenty-sixth Dynasty could masquerade more effectively
as heirs than supplanters of their southern predecessors.
(8) Notably the tale of Osarsiph, Tisithen and Peteseph, and the
Apology of the Potter, see below p. 50. The motif of the expelled Lepers
(without the Kushite episode) occurs again in Hecataeus of Abdera (Fragm.
hist, graec. II, 391), Lysimachus (Josephus, Contra Ap. i, 34), Poseido-
nius of Apamea (Th. Reinach, Textes . . . 57) and Tacitus (Hist, v, 3).
(4) P. Montet, RÉ A 42 (1940) 263ff.; idem, Le drame d'Avaris
(Paris 1940) 173ff.; on the other hand it owes something to the events
of 343 B.c.: cf. Braun, History and Romance 20f.

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Nevertheless Manetho's account of the Hyksos differs from these

late tales. For one thing Kush does not figure in Manetho's tradition,
either as sanctuary or home of the deliverer. For another there is
no loyal ' 'remnant' ' in the form of a native king and his court to
reappear as avengers; the whole land is subjugated. Again, the
invasion is dated by Manetho to the reign of a specific king who can
probably be identified in contemporary texts. What event did
Manetho's sources date to his floruit? It must have been an
occurrence of some importance to raise such an obscure figure as
Dudumose from obscurity to lasting fame (*). Does the collective
historical memory of a people, much less their written sources,
date slow, peaceful immigrations, extending over decades, by specific
reigns? Are they not more likely to remember and date sudden
and dramatic events in their history in this manner?
A second consideration which prompts us to be cautious in
rejecting the elements of Manetho's tradition is the fact that the
alleged destructiveness of the invasion, which could easily be set
down to late analogy, is attested already in the Seventeenth Dynasty,
less than a century after the Hyksos had taken power. In the
Carnarvon Tablet Kamose describes the motivation of his foreign
policy as a "desire to rescue Egypt which the Asiatics have des-
troyed (a)". In his Karnak stela the same king tells how he treated
that part of Egypt which the Hyksos had formerly occupied (3): "I left
it destroyed without people; I demolished their cities and burned
down their cult (?) places (4), turning them into reddened mounds
for ever, because of the destruction they had wrought in the midst
of Egypt" (6). Hatshepsut too is aware of the time "when Asiatics
were in Avaris in the Delta, nomads being among them, destroying (?)
(*) It is immaterial whether the source was genuine, and contem-

porary with Dudumose, or whether it was arrived at by "scholarly"
computation, which hit upon Dudumose as the king, who by calculation,
must have been reigning at the time. The important point is that the
tradition of the Hyksos entry was felt to be of a sort suitable for dating
by a single reign.
(a) H(w)t 'tmw, fem. sing, perfective relative form of hwi. The
source is Gardiner, JEA 3 (1916), pl. 12-13, 11. 4-5.
(8) M. Hammad, ChrÉ 30 (1955), fig. 15, 17-18.
(4) ' lUsn , a specialized form of Ut, "place, mound", Wb I, 26: 9-15?
(6) In the context "they" refers to Egyptians in Middle and Iyower
Egypt who had collaborated with the Asiatics.

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6 D. B. Redford
what had been made" ^).

the Hyksos are supposed t
inseparable concomitant o
the tradition a millennium
seventh and sixth centuries b.c.
Perhaps some of the reluctance felt by modern scholars toward
the postulate of a sudden invasion from without stems from the un-
fortunate, though by no means necessary, connection which some
have sought to affirm between the alleged invasion and a folk-
movement through hither Asia. Although Hebrews (2), Arabs (3),
Hittites (4), Indo- Aryans (5), or some other non-Semitic race (6) have
been suggested at various times, the current candidate for such a
movement seems to be the Hurrians (7). No evidence, however,
(*) Gardiner, "Speos Artemidos Inscription", JE A 32 (1946),

pl. 6,37-38.
(2) Josephus, Contra Ap. i, 14.
(3) Ibid, (probably a redactional comment on the pertinent passage
in the Aegyptiaca); H. Brugsch, Geschichte Ägyptens (Leipzig 1877) 214fï.
(4) J. G. Duncan, Digging up Biblical History (London 1931) I, 72.
(5) Z. Mayani, Les Hyksos et le monde de la Bible (Paris 1956) 232ff.
(6) A. Wiedemann, Ägyptische Geschichte (Gottha 1884) 289f.
(7) Cf. A. Scharfï, Ägypten und Vorderasien im Altertum (München
1950) 1 lOf . ; J. Pirenne, Histoire de la civilisation de VÉgypte ancienne
(Neuchâtel 1962) II, 138f.; Helck, Beziehungen . . . 102f. Helck's deriva-
tion of certain personal names occurring on monuments of the late
Hyksos age from Hurrian names is unconvincing, since West Semitic
originals can with an equal degree of likelihood be postulated for nearly
all of them. Hrt (cf. HeVah of 1 Chron. 4,5.7) can as easily be West
Semitic Halitu(m) (cf. H. B. Huffmon, Amorite Personal Names in the
Mari Texts [Baltimore 1965] 194f.; cf. p. 132) as Nuzi Haluti; ' Abina
could represent "our father" (cf. Albright, J AOS 74 [1954] 226; G.
Posener, Syria 18 [1937] 193), less likely some form from the root 'BN
(Huffmon, op. cit. 155); istr-iwm (Urk IV 11:11) does not necessarily
point to Mesopotamia rather than Canaan, since the form could be Aštar-
ummi (< Attar) as well as IŠtar-ummi (Huffmon, op. cit. 17 If.); Tni
(Simpson, ChrÉ 34 [1959] 233ff.) could be derived from some form of
the west Semitic V DYN (cf. Bibi. Dīnāh ; for Canaanite d transcribed
by Egyptian t, see the examples listed by Albright, art. cit. 229). S?pHr
is not to be derived from Hurrian Šapari , but is to be compared with the
contemporary name S?-t¡-iyt, lit. "son of her who comes" (L. Habachi,
Kush 7 [1959], pl. 16), and rendered as pure Egyptian, "son of him who
acts" (with a concession to the vernacular in the use of the article),
see the present writer in History and Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty

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either archaeological or epigraphic, suggests the presence of an im-

portant Hurrian element in the Levant until the sixteenth century;
and then it appears, not in the form of a Völkerwanderung, but as a
state ensconced beyond the Euphrates (*). For the century that wit-
nessed the establishment of the Hyksos in Egypt there is not a trace
of a horde-like movement of peoples upon the Nile valley, resembling
the Gothic or Mongol migrations. If one persists in clinging to the
notion of a sudden invasion, as opposed to a peaceful infiltration and
transfer of political power, it must be argued on some other basis (a) .
Now the meagre evidence we possess tends to suggest that the
Hyksos kings, at least toward the end of their occupation, tried
to ape the ways of the natives. They adopted Egyptian titulary,
wrote inscriptions in Egyptian, probably had statuary carved in
the native style, and erected temples probably also according to the
Egyptian norm. The Egyptians who found themselves in territory
under Hyksos rule generally acquiesced, and seem to have experienced
some prosperity (3) . And yet their rulers remained for the autochtho-
nous inhabitants a race apart, the vile *mw, the "Asiatics". When
they were finally ejected their monuments were ruthlessly destroyed
and their memory anathematized. In spite, then, of whatever at-
°f Egypt : Seven Studies (Toronto 1967) 68, n. 62. Cf. also S?t-irr-b?w,
a queen of the early Eighteenth Dynasty: Lepsius, Denkm. Ill, pl. 2
(Bottom row, no. 11). Nor is there any evidence that the name efppi
(Apophis) is of foreign origin. The fact that it enjoyed some popularity
before the Hyksos entry militates in favour of its being accepted as a
bona fide Egyptian name: cf. CGC 20045 d) 4 (a count); D. Dunham,
Second Car act Forts II: U sonarti, . . . (Boston 1967) 80 n. 444 (a retai-
ner), both probably Thirteenth Dynasty.
(*) Von Beckerath, Untersuchungen polit. Gesch. 114fï., 123.
(2) Those who wish to postulate a Hurrian invasion in the seven-
teenth century must take into account Van Seter's observation that
the term Htrw does not occur as a designation of Palestine until the
beginning of the fifteenth century: Van Seters, The Hyksos, 186; annals
of Thutmose III; H. Gauthier, Géogr. IV 151. Htrw as a hypocoristicon
may occur under Thutmose II: cf. G. Daressy, ASAÉ 1 (1900). 99f.,
and one wonders whether H try, the name of one of Ahmose's Asiatic
slaves (Urk IV 11:12) was an early attempt to transcribe Hurru, later
abandoned in favour of the one employing h. Under Ahmose the Levant
is termed Kedem (W. C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt [Cambridge, Mass.
1959] II, 44), the "northern lands" (Urk IV 34:7), or Djahy (ibid. 35:17),
under Thutmose I Retenu (ibid. 9:8).
(8) Cf. Säve-Söderbergh, JE A 37 (1951) 69f.

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8 D. B. Redford
tempts they had made to a

the Hyksos kings had not
were definitely foreigners
devotion to the Canaanite hero god, familiar to us under his Late
Bronze epithet "Baal", the "Lord", proves that their conciliatory
gestures toward the culture of the conquered were half-hearted.
The Hyksos dynasty wished to remain "Asiatic".
Such a rejection of each other by the Egyptians and the Hyksos
is of considerable significance. No ancient society of the Near East
in its later historical traditions willfully vilified or rejected the memory
of one of its kings who had come to the throne through normal chan-
nels and had shown respect for its institutions, but whose ancestors
had come from another country, or another race. It cannot be said,
for example, that the native population of Sumer and Akkad ever
took the Kassites to their hearts; but these barbarians from the
east, after an abortive attempt to break into the country by force (*),
gave the Babylonians no further cause to reject them out of hand.
They entered the Tigris-Euphrates valley peacefully with the blessing
of Hammurabi's successors, and settled in the countryside. A minor
Kassite state was even set up at Khana on the Euphrates (a). When
eventually the fall of the First Dynasty of Babylon created a political
vacuum, the Kassite leaders were able to take over political power
in the country. But they honoured Babylonian culture and insti-
tutions, and treated the inhabitants with consideration; and because
of their discretion they became Babylonian. In the official king-lists
they enjoyed a place along with the other dynasties. The same is true
of certain individual potentates of Babylon. Adad-apla-iddina of
the Isin II Dynasty {c. 1067-1046 b.c.) was an Aramean whose an-
cestors had presumably resided in the country for some time (3) ;
but his coming to power was not an armed usurpation, and since
he did not flout the monarchical norm, later tradition accepted him.
Sinmashshikhu, the founder of the Second Sea-land Dynasty was a
Kassite, and Mar-biti-apli-usur (986-981 b.c.) an Elamite (4), but their
(*) Samsu-iluna year 9, and Abi-eshukh year ?; A. Ungnad, RIA

II, 183, 185.
(2) A. Goetze, J CS 11 (1957) 63f.
(8) G. Roux, Ancient Iraq (Harmondsworth 1966) 254.
(4) A. Poebel, The Second Dynasty of Isin according to a New King-
list Tablet (Chicago 1955) 28.

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accession to power was attended by nothing untoward, and history

honoured their memory. In Egyptian history we may cite the
Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth Dynasties as exam-
ples of royal houses of foreign extraction which ruled over Egypt
without having tradition curse them for it. The Twenty-second and
Twenty-third Dynasties were descended from the Meshwesh tribe
which, after an unsuccessful attémpt at armed entry, had settled
peacefully in Egypt beginning about 1150 b.c.; and when Sheshonq I
took the throne two centuries later he still bore the title "chief of
the Me(shwesh)" (1). But his take-over was not irregular, and he
and his people had long since become acclimatized to Egyptian cul-
ture. The Egyptians accepted him, albeit reluctantly in some parts,
and in Manetho his foreign origin is not even mentioned. Nor does
Manetho term the Saite royal house "Libyan", even though its an-
cestor, Tefnakht the founder of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty, had
started his career as "chief of the Labu" (2). Moreover Egyptian king-
lists are dotted here and there with personal names which look suspi-
ciously like foreign names which have been transliterated (3) ; but their
bearers are never singled out as aliens, and we can only conclude
that they and their ancestors had resided long in Egypt and had had
time to gain acceptance as Egyptians by adoption, if not by birth.
If we can discern a consistent pattern in the way historical
tradition treats the memory of a naturalized alien who takes the
throne, we can also formulate a law as to the fate of the armed inter-
loper who breaks into a country by force, contemns the culture of the
land, and rules it by right of conquest. Such usurpers had not followed
the accepted procedure in becoming king. For this reason Tukulti-
ninurta of Assyria (1242-1206 b.c.) (4) and Kutirnakhunte of Elam
(c. 1160-1150 b.c.) (5) both of whom conquered Babylon, found no
Í1) G. Legrain, RT 22 (1900) 54, no. 4.

(2) Yoyotte, Mélanges M aspero IV (1962) 149.
(8) E. g. Neferkare Hniy and Neferkare Trrw (Abydos King List,
ii, 45 and 49 respectively) of the Eighth Dynasty; Userkare Hndr (Turin
vi, 20): Helck, Beziehungen... 82. The term 'tmw (if it is so to be
read, and not kmtw), as applied to the 13th(?) Dyn. king Ameny, may
be simply an indication of racial origin: Van Beckerath, Untersuchungen
polit. Gesch. 4 If.
(4) Cf. M. B. Rowton, JNES 19 (1960) 18f.; idem, JNES 25
(1966) 252f.
(6) G. Cameron, History of Early Iran (Chicago 1936) 11 Of.

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10 D. B. Redford
place in the Babylonian kin

to the reigns of the native
was the fate of Tiglath-pi
(705-681 B.c.) in Babylonian
usurpers from the lists was
writing, the Egyptians neve
of alien nationality. The Twenty-fifth Dynasty which had con-
quered Egypt by force of arms is called "Ethiopian" by Manetho (2);
the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-first which had effected a similar
conquest, "Persian" (3). They were foreigners who had unseated the
legitimate kings and thereafter had treated Egypt, not as the apple
of their eye and the country of their adoption, but as conquered
territory.
The procedure adopted by the collective historical memory of
the nation seems clear: an acclimatized foreigner who adopts the
culture of the natives and tries to become one of them, is accepted,
and his origin forgotten. A foreign war-lord who reduces the country
through war and rules it, not on the strength of traditional practice,
but on the strength of his army, is never accepted as a native, but
is forever after remembered as an alien.
Manetho's Fifteenth Dynasty is qualified in the Epitomes by
the gentilic "Phoenician"; in the quotation in Josephus it is given
the name "Hyksos" (4). The latter term, Egyptian hqt h;swt , "ru-
ler (s) of foreign lands" (5), was already the standard epithet of these
kings when the Turin Canon was written in the time of Ramses II.
(*) Redford, Seven Studies , 188ff., n. 14.

(a) Waddell, Manetho , 166f.
(3) Ibid. 174ff., 184f.
(4) In spite of the fact that the Phoenician coast ( Fnhw ) was of
sufficient importance in the sixteenth century to involve Ahmose in
punitive action (Urk IV 25:12), there is no reason to press the epitomes
to the letter. They simply reflect the translation into a term more
familiar to Hellenistic ears than some such word as Retenu or perhaps
even Palestine. Cf. the use of Fnhw (var. FnŠt) in Ptolemaic texts as
a broad designation of the coast of Palestine and Syria: E. Chassinat,
Le temple de Dendara (Cairo 1934-1965) II, 200; III, 120; IV, 46, 66;
VI, 54 (contrasted with Kmt "Egypt"); also C. de Wit, Les inscriptions
du temple d'Opet à Karnak (Bruxelles 1958) 232. In this respect the Epi-
tomes reflect a process of "Hellenization".
(5) For bibliography of this, now standard, interpretation of the
expression, see R. Weill, JA 10e série 16 (1910) 324, n. 2.

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It had come into use in the Old Kingdom, and could be applied to
any ruler outside the boundaries of Egypt, both Nubian and Asiatic (l).
The modern rendering, "tribal leaders or sheikhs" (a), is apt to be
misleading, as it conjures up the image of a beduin. The term is
too general to be confined to this translation. It can be applied to
bedu chiefs, but it can also denote, especially in the Middle Kingdom,
the ruler of a sedentary society (3). Syntactically the expression is
often translated as an objective genitive. In context, however, an
objective genitive is apt to create a tautology. That the chief in
question rules over a foreign land will be perfectly apparent when
his bailiwick is specified by name; if he is, in fact, a chief, what else
in the Egyptian sense could he be a chief of, but a land? As soon
as the term "chief" is applied to someone people want to know
(a) what his nationality is, and (6) what principality he rules over.
(a) will take the form of an attributive, and (b) will appear as a
specific toponym in the genitive. The phrase hqt htswt had become
(if it had not been from the start) an attributive genitive long before
the Fifteenth Dynasty was founded in Egypt. It was taken to mean
"foreign ruler", denoting origin, and thus satisfied desideratum (a).
(x) J. Černý, The Inscriptions of Sinai , II (Iyondon 1955), pl. 8,

no. 14, (hqt hist, temp. Isesi of the Fifth Dynasty); Urk I 109 (hqtw
htswt, temp. Pepy I); Urk I 134 (hqt'wy n htswt < iyptn , temp. Pepy II);
H. Goedicke, MDAIK 19 (1963) 4 (hqt htst, Giza Execration Texts);
Sinuhe 98 (hqtw htswt, temp. Senwosret I); ibid. 176 (hqt n htst nbt, temp.
Senwosret I); Urk VII 2:1 (hqtw [nw] (?) htswt; for the restoration,
see E. Edel, ZÄS 87 [1962] 99); P. E. Newberry, Beni Hasan I (ASE 1;
London 1891), pl. 30 (hqt htst, temp. Senwosret II).
(a) W. C. Hayes, "Egypt from the Death of Ammenemes III to
Seqenenre II", in CA H II, chapter 2, p. 15.
(8) Cf. Sinuhe 98: ''when the Beduins (Stiw) began to pick quarrels
and show hostility toward the rulers of foreign lands, I counselled their
manœuvres". This passage, it seems to me, stresses the contrast be-
tween semi-nomadic and sedentary society. If, as Säve-Söderbergh (JEA
37 [1951] 56, n. 4) and Wilson (apud J. B. Pritchard, ANET* 20, n. 16)
suggest, we are to render "rulers of (other) foreign countries", the omis-
sion of some word for "other" is strange. The other passage in Sinuhe
(176) militates in favour of a prestigious connotation for the term:
"thereupon His Majesty used to send me with royal gifts that he might
rejoice the heart of this humble servant as (is done) for the ruler of any
foreign land." Kings of Egypt did not normally send presents to
Beduins, whom they always despised. The application of the title to
a ruler of Byblos (see following page, n. 2) also supports this view.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
12 D. B. Redford
The specific country over w

either as an indirect (and
genitive to htst. Thus we en
Wtwtt Itm Mdt (*), "the fo
Medja", and hq t htst Kbn
htst in a genitive relation
wide variety of contexts. Th
nbt, as opposed to tribute
called tribute "of the interi
of foreign lands" means s
to be of foreign origin (al
disguise) might take the a
to designate his alien natu
pression had reference to
0) Urk I 109.
(a) P. Montet, Byblos et l'Egypte, atlas (Paris 1928), pl. 39; Goedicke,
MDAIK 19 (1963) iff.; idem, JARCE 5 (1966) 19ff.
(8) R. A. Caminos, The Chronicle of Prince Osorkon (AnOr 37;
Rome 1958) 31.
(4) G. Lefebvre, ASAE 22 (1922) 34.
(5) Cf. R* htswt (Goedicke, MDAIK 19,4; possibly also D. Kirkbride,
apud K. Kenyon, Jericho II [London 1965], p. 621, fig. 292, no. 14;
Vandier, apud Schaeffer, Ugaritica III, 85, fig. 106 [doubtful; read /A]),
for a West Semitic solar deity? With R* htswt one must compare, however,
the epithet R ' (n) htst nbt (P. E. Newberry, Scarab-shaped Seals [ CGC
(London 1907)], pl. VI, 37017, 37312; A. Rowe, A Catalogue of Egyptian
Scarabs . . . [Cairo 1936], pl. VI, no. 223) which closely resembles "Sun
of every land" (rc n U nb), or "Sun of the Nine Bows" {r* n pdt 9), an
epithet of the king; and it remains a possibility that in R* htswt as well
the monarch was intended. Pth htswt (H. Kees, RT 37 [1915] 74) per-
haps for Kothar. Shed is termed hqt ķtswt, "foreign chief" (Bruyère,
Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir el Medineh [FIFAO 20, fase. 3; Le Caire
1952] 165), not because he is thought of as lord of a foreign district,
but because, being at home on the border of the eastern Delta, an Asiatic
character attached itself to him (ibid. 169), as is shown in his epithet
"one who comes from the foreign lands" (H hr htswt): ibid. 142, fig. 18.
Similarly Min is called hqt htswt (A. Manette, Dendérah I, 23); but this
must be construed in conjunction with other titles of his, like "Man of
the East", "Medja of the Eastern Desert", "Lord of Pwenet", and
"Explorer (sr bit) of Pwenet" (cf. Yoyotte, RdÉ 9 [1952] 125fL), all of
which bespeak a quality of foreignness. But a native Egyptian deity
when abroad can only be qualified as "in the foreign lands", cf. Āmim
m htswt : Daressy, RT 32 (1910) 63.

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a potentate's hegemony, is further substantiated by the fact that

hq / his(w)t is never applied to an Egyptian king of the Old, Middle,
or New Kingdoms (x). When the context requires a reference to
Pharaoh's sway over foreign countries some such expression as hqt
pdt 9, "ruler of the Nine Bows" (a), will be used, or a circumlocution
like hiswt nbt hr st-hr-f, "all foreign countries are under his author-
ity" (3). When it is felt indispensable to include his(w)t (nbt) in a
genitival construction, the bound element will be nb, "lord", hq t
being assiduously avoided (4). Hq t hiswt could not be applied to kings
of Egypt since they were native Egyptians, not foreigners. Pharaoh
was hqt n Kmt (6) ; the kings of Asia were hqw htswt.
In their own small inscriptions the Hyksos kings call themselves
hqt htswt (6) and their spiritual and cultural, if not physical, heirs
in Palestine were similarly termed by the kings of the Eighteenth
Dynasty (7), and occasionally by those of the Nineteenth (8). The
(x) To say that the New Kingdom kings eschewed the title because
of its intimate connection with the Fifteenth Dynasty is simply to beg
the question. It was only applied to rulers of foreign extraction, and
therefore could not be meaningfully given to an Egyptian king.
(*) Urk IV 1359:6 (Amenhotpe II); ibid. 1657:6, 1670:9, 1706:7,
1858:7 (Amenhotpe III); ibid. 1963:18 (Akhenaten); ibid. 2033:5,
2049:13, 2051:12, 2055:7, 2056:1, 2059:5, 2069:15 (Tutankhamun) ;
2135:20 (Haremhab); H. Gauthier, Le temple de Ouadi-es-sebouâ (Le
Caire 1912) I, 60 (Ramses II).
(*) E.g. Urk IV 1348:8.
(4) Cf. Urk IV 1566:5, 1589:12, 1612:11, 1711:2, 1712:17,
1759:5, 11, 1760:12, 1959:5, 2032:14, 2034:9, 2054:8, 2056:8. In
1567:5 Helck restores [hqt] htst nb(t), but we should undoubtedly supp
nb on the analogy of the other examples.
(6) Onom. I, 34*; note the illuminating Ptolemaic expression denot-
ing universal political sovereignty, nb n Kmt hqt n dšrt, "lord of Egypt,
ruler of the desert", É. Chassinat, Le temple d'Edfou VII (Le Caire 1932)
168:8-9.
(#) H. Gauthier, Rois II, 137f . ; Von Beckerath, Untersuchungen

polit. Gesch. 272, 279f.
C) Belegstellen zu Wb III, 235:9; Urk IV 559, 593, 599, 1333; P.
Barguet, Le Temple d'Amon-Rê à Karnak (Cairo 1962) 161; Maspero,
ASAÉ 10 (1910) 9; Sir W. M. F. Petrie, Scarabs and Cylinder Seals (London
1917), pl. XXVI: 10; parallelled by wrw ttw [nbw] in Urk IV 1744:1.
See further Sethe, Z ÄS 47 (1910) 84ff.; Gardiner, JE A 5 (1918) 38.
(8) An example from the time of Sety I, Mariette, Aby dos I (Ap-
pendix B, table 24c) quoted by Sethe, Z ÄS 47 (1910) 86; another from
the time of Ramses II, G. Lefebvre, ASAÉ 7 (1907) 219.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
14 D. B. Redford
expression occurs but rarely

used sometimes to designa
as part of his empire in the
of the Ptolemies (2). Thus m
had seized Egypt by force
felt occasionally to warrant the same appellative as was given the
Asiatic kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty (3). Neither of the later con-
quests was effected over a long period of time by slow infiltration,
though there had probably been some visitors of Median stock in
Egypt prior to Cambyses, and Greeks had long before Alexander
filtered in as mercenaries and merchants. By using the term hqtw
htswt the Egyptians were simply commemorating the alien origin
of these rulers. If the advent of the Hyksos had in reality been
the coming to power by peaceful means of a group of Asiatics who
years before had been allowed to settle in Egypt, it is inconceivable
why the historical tradition of the Egyptians should have counted
them as foreign. The important distinction for the Egyptians lay
(x) G. Iêfebvre, Textes du tombeau de Petosiris (I<e Caire 1923) 81, 28

(hqt n htswt m ndty hr Kmt, "the foreign ruler who was 'protector' of
Egypt"); for Lefebvre's rebuttal of Von Bissing's contention (OLZ 26
[1923] 3) that this is a reference to Philip Arrhidaeus, see Lefebvre,
Tombeau de Petosiris , 11. The Persian king is also called hqt n Stt , "ruler
of Asia", which to the Egyptians would have constituted a reference to
his place of origin, rather than the extent of his rule: Urk II 3, 16.
(2) Chassinat, Dendara II, 81; III, 120; H. Junker, Der grosse Pylon
des Tempels der Isis in Philä (Vienna 1958) 72 abb. 37; Philip Arrhi-
daeus was assigned hqt htswt as a nbty- name: Gauthier, Rois IV, 206.
Sometimes, from the Twenty-fifth Dynasty on, hq? htswt appears in the
titulary of commoners: cf. L. Borchardt, Statuen und Statuetten II (CGC;
Berlin 1925), no. 646 (Montutem-het) ; 1 Christophe, BI F AO 55 (1956)
81f. (Padihornesu) ; Urk II 24 (Nechtenebef) ; cf. Bruyère, Rapport sur
les fouilles ... (FIFAO 20,3) 165, n. 1. This use, however, probably
has little to do with its occurrence apud royalty, since it seems to be es-
sentially a variant of imy-r htswt, and to denote the control exercised
by the entitled over foreigners, and often those within Egypt (cf. the
illuminating variant imy-r *t htswt, "superintendent of the door of foreign
lands", [Borchardt, loc. cit.; P. Tresson, Kêmi 4 (1935), pl. 9]) probably
denoting supervision of customs dues: Posener, Revue de Philologie 21
[1947] 1 18fï.) .
(3) The Pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty were not called
hqtw htswt, apparently because, claiming to be the exponents of Egyptian
culture in Egypt they were perforce more Egyptian than the Egyptians
themselves !

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between the incarnate Horus, duly crowned and sanctioned by the

gods - what his ethnic origin was mattered little, though in fact
he was usually an Egyptian - and a foreign usurper who took power
by violent means. That history treated the Hyksos as though they
belonged to the latter category, both consciously in propaganda
texts and unconsciously by constantly stressing their foreign origin,
is a point in favour of the traditional concept of an invasion (1).
J1) Von Beckerath has sensed the difficulty inherent in the ramifica-
tions of the theory of a peaceful infiltration; but his solution ( Unter-
suchungen polit. Gesch. 123ff.) is to postulate the establishment by these
Asiatic intruders of a principality in the Delta along essentially Asiatic,
rather than Egyptian, lines. In order to lend an air of probability to
this suggestion, he must find a part of the Delta which always had a
high percentage of Asiatics in its population, so that it becomes reason-
able to suppose that Egyptian cultural influence in that district would
have been weak; and he finds such a region, allegedly, in the north-
eastern Delta. Here, he supposes, an Asiatic usurper set up a dynasty
little different from the houses which other Asiatics, whose names are
now found in the Thirteenth Dynasty, believed they were establishing
at other Delta towns and at Itj-towy. From this seat, Avaris to be
exact, the dynasty later moved out to subvert forcibly the Delta and the
lower part of the Nile Valley. Besides being an entirely a priori recon-
struction devoid of concrete proof, this picture, it seems to me, is opposed
to the precious little evidence we have. In the first place, as we have shown,
historical tradition treated the memory of the Asiatic kings who occurred
in earlier dynasties in a different manner from that of the Fifteenth.
The former are classified as bona fide Egyptian kings by the Turin scribe
and receive the title n-sw-bit : the latter are singled out as hq;w htswt.
Secondly, Manethonian tradition knows of a coming to power by
force in the Delta, closely tied to the capture of Memphis. Avaris comes
to the fore only subsequently to the initial coup, and then only as a strong
point selected by the Hyksos leader because of its geographic location
(cf. H. Kees, Ancient Egypt, a Cultural Topography [London 1961] 197f.).
There is no suggestion that it was the seat of origin of the dynasty. (The
broad picture Manetho draws, it may be added, viz. of an Asiatic group
entering the Delta from Asia, then making a volte face and fortifying
the border whence it came, owes nothing to the historical situation of
the seventh-sixth centuries!)
Thirdly, there is no reason to believe that the eastern Delta was so
thickly settled with a permanent Asiatic population at the expense of
the Egyptians, that Egyptian culture had to defer to the barbarian
mores. The easternmost nomes of the Delta were still a part of the
Kingdom of the Two Lands in spite of itinerant bedu, and it is incon-
ceivable that had a resident foreigner set up a dynasty there, he should
not have been described as n-sw-bit by the Egyptians.

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16 D. B. Redford
It should be borne in mind

seventeenth and sixteenth ce
politics. The psychology of
wards the phenomenon of th
bent on battle and a kingd
adad's victorious return to A
monarch's seizure of power i
patrimony, and its subsequen
claim to the Sea land(3) or
bylon where he claimed an
It was a time when sabre-r
used under the thinnest cov
boundaries radically. Consid
the piracy of Ishhi-adad on
threats of Yarim-lim towar
Mursilis which upset the bala
the crusade of Hattusilis wh
the annihilation by Hammu
and Eshnunna (10). Not a few
dubious means like Babylon, Asshur, Khatte, and Aleppo, became
permanent fixtures of the political scene in the Near East; and many
of the ruling houses in Levantine states during the Late Bronze
traced their descent from a Middle Bronze founder (n). It is most
(!) I. J. Gelb JNES 13 (1954) 224; J. R. Küpper, Les Nomades en

Mésopotamie au temps des rois de Mari (Paris 1957) ¿07ff.; Roux, Ancient
Iraq , 173f.
(2) Ibid. 182.
(8) Ibid. 218.
(4) Goetze, JCS 11 (1957) 66.
(5) E. g. A. Parrot - G. Dossin (ed.), ARM I (Paris 1950) 69 rev. 12.
(•) Ibid. V, 16.
H Syria 33 (1956) 63f.
(8j O. R. Gurney, "Anatolia c. 1750-1600 B.c.", chapter 6 of CAH
II, ch. 6, 24.
(®) Ibid. 18.
(l0) Roux, Ancient Iraq, 181f.
(") Cf. A. F. Rainey, BibAr 28 (1965) 107 (Ugarit); Albright,
BASOR 127 (1952) 28, n. 4 (Tunip); D. Wiseman, The Alalakh Tablets
(London 1953) 2, 76 (Alalakh); C. Epstein, JNES 23 (1963) 243fï. (Qatna);
Mitanni is first heard of in the second half of the sixteenth century b.c.
(H. Brunner, MIO 4 [1956] 323ff.), and may well have been founded

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probable that, if and when new evidence comes to light, the Hyksos
arrival in Egypt will be seen to conform to the pattern of these esca-
pades, viz. a sudden dash by a Syro-Palestinian king at the head
of a compact army on the Egyptian Delta. This is by no means
to be construed as a resuscitation of the ' 'horde' ' theory: there is a
great deal of difference between the Anglo-Saxon invasion and the
accomplishment of Duke William! Nor am I ignoring the evidence
that numerous Asiatics were present in Egypt during the Thirteenth
Dynasty. It is a moot point whether they abetted or enticed the
entry of the Hyksos; but their presence in Egypt is irrelevant to the
character of the Hyksos coup, and they should not be included under
the term "Hyksos" (*).
The Nature of Hyksos Rule in Egypt
The phenomenon of knight-errantry to which we have alluded

and the concomitant feudalism which is so prominent among the
Amorites of Western Asia during the Middle Bronze Age, probably
arose out of the patriarchal, tribal society the Amorites enjoyed
prior to and during the initial stages of their occupation of the Fertile
Crescent. When the scions of tribal houses, each with his retainers,
were translated from the status of semi-nomadic sheikhs to landed
rulers in possession of cities and their environs, they did not discard
their tribal relationships and obligations. Sons were still subservient
to their fathers; brothers still felt obligated to help each other. And
when political consolidation of a more sophisticated order came to
Western Asia under the aegis of a Yarim-lim, a Shamshi-adad, or a
Hammurabi, it did so not by annihilating the tribal enclaves now
centered upon cities, but by welding them into a framework with
which they were familiar. Rulers now involved in such larger blocks
at the close of the Middle Bronze; Khanigalbat is already in existence

around 1600 B.c., cf. H. Otten, MDOG 91 (1958) 76ff. Despite its de-
struction at the hands of Hattusilis I (Goetze, MAOG 4, 59ff.; cf. Von
Beckerath, Untersuchungen polit . Gesch. 116), Aleppo also may have
enjoyed a continuity of rule into the Late Bronze.
(x) H. Stock, Studien zur Geschichte und Archäologie der 13. bis
17. Dynastie Ägyptens (Ägyptologische Forschungen 12; Glückstadt 1942)
10, n. 11; Helck, Beziehungen... 95.
Orientalia - 2

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18 D. B. Redford
retained their patrimonies, b

and he upon them as "sons
lord was the "brother" of
This system was certainly in vogue during the eighteenth-
seventeenth centuries in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, Mesopotamia,
and Syria. In the latter area, with the exclusion of the coast, we
can probably isolate three great states organized on the patriarchal-
feudal lines adumbrated above, viz. Aleppo (Yamkhad) in the north,
Qatanum on the middle Orontes, and Hazor in north Palestine (a) .
In other words, in the very reaches of Western Asia where the Hyksos
originated (3), a form of feudal society held sway which was politically
all embracing. In view of its unquestioned Asiatic origin, it is
highly probable that the founding of the Fifteenth Dynasty in the
Delta involved the establishment of a feudal system on the Amorite
pattern, on Egyptian soil (4). But such feudalism was decidedly
foreign to the Egyptians. Egyptian theology could accommodate but
one "Horus", one god-king ruling over his flock; all others, even
noblemen with hereditary rights, were mortal subjects of the "good
God". The spectacle of two or more occupants of the "Horus-throne
of the living" was a travesty of the dogma of divine kingship; and
when in the eighth century it became a political reality to be lived
with indefinitely, the doctrine of the Horus-king can be said to be
effectually defunct.
In translating the Amorite phenomenon into Egyptian termino-
logy not a little difficulty would have been experienced. How
would the very important distinction between "great" and "small"
kings, "fathers" and "sons", be expressed in Egyptian? One car-
touche and one stylized titulary would have had to suffice for both
suzerain and vassal, since the distinction was foreign to Egyptian
Í1) See J. M. Munn- Rankin, Iraq 18 (1956) 68ff.

(2) For the inclusion of Hazor in this list, and the I<ate Bronze
vestiges of its erstwhile power, see A. Malamat, JBL 79 (1960) 12ff.;
S. Yeivin, JEA 26 (1950) 51ff.
(8) We may never know the precise town of origin of the Amorite
king who attacked and subdued Egypt; but if the continuum we have
noted in royal lines reflects a broader continuity in the distribution of
political power in Syria between the Middle and Late Bronze, we may
view the Middle Orontes and northern Palestine with some suspicion;
cf. the writer, Seven Studies , 86, n. 144.
(4) Van Seters, The Hyksos, 162ff.; Redford, op. cit., 45.

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protocol^). Herein lies the explanation of the plethora of royal

names on Hyksos scarabs. The majority of these shadowy Asiatics
must have been vassal rulers, "sons" of the great king, the Hyksos
potentate who sat in A varis. By relegating the greater part of the
scarab names to a subsidiary position, their bearers become contem-
porary with the main line of "Great Hyksos" at Avaris, and there
is no longer any need to create a separate category of "Lesser Hyksos"
rulers, consecutive to the Great Hyksos. The Fifteenth Dynasty
alone comprises the totality of Hyksos kings, of suzerain status,
numbering six (2).
In the king-lists and statue groupings (mostly of Nineteenth
Dynasty date) (3) monarchs are almost always cited by one of the
elements of their titulary, not by their birth names. While for the
first five dynasties the choice vacillates, from the Sixth Dynasty on,
it is usually confined to the n-sw-bit- name or prenomen. In other
words, the continuing king-list tradition, which without doubt was
written and not oral, consistently remembered kings by the name
(*) It is significant that the royal epithets "king of kings" (nsw

n nswyw) and "lord of lords" (hqt n hqiw) come into vogue in Egyptian
inscriptions only subsequent to the Hyksos expulsion: Wb II, 328:6-7,
III, 171:12-13. The writer once toyed with the possibility that an ad
hoc means of distinction was introduced by the Hyksos through the pre-
sence or absence of such epithets as ntr nfr, s? R' nb t;>wy, and the like.
The onomastic material for the Hyksos rulers, however, is not rich enough
to offer the prospect of valid results; and a cursory glance at the oc-
currences known at present suggests that the notion is incorrect; cf.
Von Beckerath's convenient list, Untersuchungen. . . 269-80.
(2) These alone are specifically named in Manetho, and the remark
(an aside of Josephus? Contra Ap. i, 14, 81) that they were the "first"
Hyksos rulers has occasioned unreasonable tamperings with the tradition.
The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties are also partly assigned to the
Hyksos by Manetho (or perhaps only in the schematization of his epito-
mizers) because of the artificial ordering of the tradition into dynasties.
The rigidity of the scheme demands that these houses be consecutive;
yet tradition remembered the Hyksos as having been contemporary with
two consecutive families ruling in Thebes, the second of which effected
their expulsion. In the dynastic framework of the Aegyptiaca, however,
this fact emerged through the enumeration of the Hyksos first (Dynasty
15), followed by the two Theban dynasties (16-17) who are specifically
said to be contemporary with the Hyksos. The latter in actual fact are
simply the members of the Fifteenth Dynasty in an unfortunate and
misleading disguise.
(8) See below, p. 31, n. 1.

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20 D. B. Redford
they chose on their accessio

Those few exceptions are to b
or as kings whose prenomi
available when the king-lis
encounters a succession of n
Canon (or perhaps even one
X, 11 at least, which are cle
garbled personal names (4)
scribe at this point lacked a
sources from ix, 13 to x, 11
the great majority of the
Sehtepibre (i. e., the Twelfth
duly entered in the list by their throne names. They were 'legi-
timate' 1 kings of Egypt. But the Hyksos had not been so entered,
and the sole surviving entry of the Canon (x, 20) shows that they
were remembered by their personal names. The historical memory
of the Egyptians did justice to the six great Hyksos kings who had
ruled from Avaris, but it remembered also, if more dimly, the great
array of feudal vassals who had flourished during the Hyksos period.
To judge by the fact that these too had taken the cartouche, they
were no less kings than Apophis or Khiyan, and should be treated
as such in the king-list. Since they were not, however, part of the
(*) Afni (Turin vi, 9); Ransonbe (Turin vi, 16).

(a) Nehsy (Turin viii, 1).
(8) Some of the fragmentary cartouches in ix, 25-30 seem to contam
prenomina (cf. the prevalence of ki). This is not certain, however, and
in at least three and possibly four, cases (ix, 27-30) the cartouches were
followed by second names clearly of alien formulation.
(4) Gardiner, The Royal Canon of Turin , 17. There is no reason to
dismiss these names as fictional (so Von Beckerath, Untersuchungen . . .
82) . Rather, it is a case of genuine names distorted, partly by the passage
of three centuries of oral transmission, partly by a mildly pejorative
intent. The historical names reflected here seem to be Amorite: cf. e.g.
the frequency of prosthetic aleph, ix, 14, 15, 16, 25; x, 1; cf. šmsw (ix, 20)
with Shamash (for the latter as an element in W. Sem. personal names
of the period, see Sethe, A PAW (1926) no. 5, E 20,21; G. Posener,
Princes et pays d'Asie et de Nubie [Bruxelles 1940] E43); the group ib in
x, 7 seems to point to W. Sem. 'ab, "father"; the religious implications
of x, 2 suggest a Hyksos context, while the society mirrored in x, 10-11
points to the semi-nomadic Amorites, rather than the Egyptians.
(5) Turin vi, 4 (and Gardiner's note thereto in The Royal Canon
of Turin).

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Fifteenth Dynasty per se, they were placed outside the "Six", and
in the Turin Canon comprise the section from ix, 13 to x, 11.
To a large extent the inclusion of this section of Hyksos vassals
has occasioned the distortions of Manetho's Aegyptiaca. On the one
hand the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty were correctly remembered
to have numbered only six, while on the other the tradition reflected
in the Turin Canon made room for more than a score of names which,
by definition, also fell into the category of hqrw htswt. The scribe
faced with the surprisingly large number of hqw htswt in the king-list
tradition, yet knowing full well that there had been no more than
six Hyksos kings, would have faced a dilemma from which there
was no escape by the simple expedient of excising names. The
vassal names had to be retained, but how could their presence be
made consonant with the tradition? The proclivity to harmonize
conflicting traditions led, some time during the one thousand years
between the Nineteenth Dynasty and Manetho's time to the under-
standing of the "vassal" names, not as having belonged to "rulers
of hiswt (foreign lands)", but as denoting rulers of H;sww (Xois) (x).
The harmonists' misconstruction has thus called into being, solely
on the basis of a confusion of homonyms, a new dynasty ruling from
a town which otherwise is never known to have been the seat of a
ruling house (2). Small wonder that Manetho's Fourteenth, "Xoite",
Dynasty has posed insurmountable problems both of a chronological
and of an historical nature to historians, not the least of which is
the total absence from the monuments of any of its reputed seventy-six
kings (3). We submit that a correct interpretation of colums vi-x of
(!) Gauthier, Gêogr. IV, 155; Onom. II, 181*ff.; P. Montēt,

Géographie de l'Égypte ancienne I (Paris 1957) 89f.
(2) In mythology Xois was supposed to have been "seat of Re"
and the place where he received kingship (Onom. II, 183*f.); but it is
unlikely that this reflects any situation in secular history.
(8) In the past historians have accepted the existence of a Xoite
dynasty more on faith than on evidence, but they have all confessed to
having been dismayed by the lack of monuments: cf. Hayes, "From the
Death of Ammenemes III to Seqenenre II", CAH II, ch. 2, p. 14f.;
Gardiner. Pharaohs, 150; A. Scharff, Aegypten und Vorderasien im
Altertum, 109; G. Steindorff, K. C. Seele, When Egypt Ruled the East
(Phoenix Books, 1963) 23; J. Wilson, The Burden of Egypt (Chicago
1951) 158; W. M. F. Petrie, History of Egypt I (London 1924) 247f.
Perhaps Breasted in his choice of wording unwittingly conveyed the truth
(A History of Egypt [New York 1964] 178f.): "Manetho, who knows

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
22 D. B. Redford
the Turin Canon reveals th

successors of the Twelfth Dynasty who also ruled from Itj-towy
(vi, 5 - ix, 10, Manetho's Thirteenth Dynasty); 2. The vassal rulers
during the Hyksos period (ix, 11 - x, 14, Manetho's Fourteenth Dy-
nasty); 3. The Hyksos kings (x, 15-20, Manetho's Fifteenth Dynasty);
4. The Theban kings contemporary with the Hyksos (x, 22 to the
end of the column, Manetho's Sixteenth Dynasty) . On what Manetho
based himself when he allotted sixty kings to the Thirteenth Dynasty
and seventy-six to the Fourteenth is by no means clear; but such
a division has no support in the Turin Canon (x), and it is most likely
an unhistorical tampering with the tradition.
The Traditions Regarding the Length of Hyksos Rule
The Turin Canon (x, 21) gives for the total regnal years of the
six Hyksos kings a figure beginning with the sign for 100, the units
of which, however, are now partly lost in a lacuna. What traces
remain seem to have been part of the ligature for "8" (a), and 108 is
now generally accepted as the original datum of the papyrus. It
is not clear, however, what point was taken as the terminus ad quem
for this span. Was it the accession of Ahmose, or the latest regnal
year attested for the last Hyksos king? Since the totals of the Turin
scribe were arrived at through dead reckoning, and since the numbering
of his regnal years by the last Hyksos king would not have stopped
nothing of this confused age, disposed of its host of kings in two lines,
as a Thirteenth Dynasty in Thebes, and a Fourteenth from Xois.
(*) Von Beckerath ( Untersuchungen polit. Gesch. 23 f.) wishes to bring
the Thirteenth Dynasty to an end in the Turin papyrus at the bottom
of column vii. This means that he must be content with no more than
fifty names for the dynasty, as opposed to Manetho's sixty; for column vi
is almost certainly complete (cf. the recto, Gardiner, The Royal Canon
of Turin, pl. 6 [frag. 79-80]) with twenty- three names and even if column
vii were originally the same length this would yield only twenty-seven
more, without taking into account the two lines for summation and
introduction, and the line naming Nehsy's father (Von Beckerath, op.
cit., 82f.). If we are to be impressed by the alleged proximity of Ma-
netho's figures to those implied in the Turin Canon, we shall have to
look for the break between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties around
viii, 10; but it is not there!
(2) Gardiner, The Royal Canon of Turin, 17.

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with Ahmose's accession, it seems to me that the latter of the alter-

natives is the more probable. If that is the case, since obviously
Ahmose did not expel the Hyksos in his first year, there would be
some overlap at the lower end of the one hundred and eight years,
equivalent to the number of Ahmose's regnal years that had gone
by when the expulsion took place. The latest Hyksos regnal year,
then, would be the one in which Ahmose's successful assault upon
Avaris occurred. Since, however, we still lack decisive evidence
regarding the point in Ahmose's reign when this momentous event
happened, the problem is at present incapable of final solution.
The writer has argued elsewhere (]) that the expulsion could not
have taken place earlier than Ahmose's seventh year, or later than
his seventeenth, i.e. in absolute dates no earlier than 1552 nor later
than 1541 b.c. (2). The beginning of Hyksos rule, then, would fall
somewhere in the decade between 1660 and 1649 b.c.
Another tradition which, if it has been correctly understood,
bears upon the inception of Hyksos rule is that reflected in the so-
called "Four hundred year" stela from Tanis (3). Beneath a scene
showing Ramses II and a much-titled vizier Sety offering to the
god Seth, a twelve-line inscription (4) records how Ramses - his full
(*) Seven Studies, 48.

(2) J NES 25 (1966) 124; on Hornung's chronology ( Untersuchungen
zur Chronologie und Geschichte des neuen Reiches [Wiesbaden 1964] 108)
the limits would have to be reduced by six years. It may be significant
that the earliest dated text from Ahmose's reign is the curious block
from Karnak found in the foundations of the Third Pylon at Karnak,
which records year 17 (followed by the king's cartouches); M. Abdul-
Kader Mohammed, ASAÉ 59 (1966), pl. iv, 4b (after p. 155). If, as is
probable, the date marks some construction work in the Armin Temple,
it is likely to be later than the Hyksos expulsion; since until that feat
was accomplished Theban energies most likely were entirely devoted
to war. The other new text of Ahmose from the Third pylon (ibid,
pl. 5) in part commemorates a trip south from (?) ' Iwn Šm * (i.e. Thebes),
and therefore perhaps an excursion to Nubia. Again, such an expedition
would most likely have taken place after the king's hands were free in
the north. See now C. Vandersleyen, Rdi i 20 (1968), 127 ff.
(®) Montet, Kêmi 4 (1935) 19 Iff.; for bibliography see R. Stadelmann,
ChrÉ 40 (1965) 46, n. 1-2; Goedicke, ChrÉ 41 (1966) 23, n. 2-4, to which
add Helck, ChrÉ 41 (1966) 235ff., and Van Seters, The Hyksos 97ff. Cf.
also the recent remarks of Albright, BASOR 184 (1966) 29f., n. 18.
(4) There may have been one more line originally, but scarcely more
(cf. Montet, Kêmi 4, 195). The hymn placed in the mouth of Sety is

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
24 D. B. Redford
titulary occupies the first f

of a great stela of granite (
fathers in order to set up t
clearly drawing to a close in

in line 11, and, whereas In g
invocation might have comp
text it has concluded before
contains the request, and m
happy Ufe, following thy ku,
or the like. I doubt whether the text contained a subsequent phrase
like n ki n, or in, followed by a repetition of Sety's name, although it
does in the scene above. Certainly this genre of hymn has no place for
an answer by the god addressed ( pace Stadelmann, ChrÉ 40 [1965] 56).
(x) i. e. the royal titulary. The use of the singular, although the
nomen rectum is plural, is quite permissible in Semitic languages when
the natural order finds but one of the entities named in the possession
of each individual member of the group: cf. E. Kautzsch, Gesenius'
Hebrew Grammar (Oxford 1910), § 124 q (c); for Egyptian cf. r n hryw-š,
" the mouth(s) of the nomads" (Gebel Barkal, 15); ' n rmt "the arm(s)
of men" (ibid. 25); m n qnbtyw-f, "the name(s) of his councillors" (Khnum-
hotpe [in Newberry, Beni Hasan I pl. XXV-XXVI] 7-8); m n tpyw-,
"the name(s) of the ancestors" (ibid. 167-8).
(2) i. e. Sety I, who is then mentioned in the next line, not the
god Seth! ' It * itw-f (Ut. "father of his fathers") is a technical expression,
denoting the patriarch of the house and the founder of its power. It
is with this meaning that Haremhab uses the term of Thutmose III in
his restoration inscription at Deir el-Bahri: Urk IV, 2135. That the
expression has not of necessity to be taken literally as referring to an-
cestors farther removed than the grandfather, is proven by cases in which
it is used of a father; cf. Bruyère, Rapport, FIFAO 21 (1952) pl. 10:6
(Nebnefer is not a remote ancestor, but the father of Neferhotpe: cf.
Bruyère, Rapport FIFAO 20, fase. 2 [1952], 137 and pl. 15 [middle right]).
Similarly when Ptah is called "it itw of all the gods" (Ptah hymn, W.
Wolf, ZÄS 64 [1929] 20, c. 4) the writer means simply that Ptah was
the father and progenitor of all the gods, the pater familias of the divine
clan, not that he was a remote ancestor, (cf. the same title apud Amun:
C. de Wit, Temple d'Opet, 23). In applying the title to his own father
Ramses is assigning a position of importance to Sety, and is clearly aware
of the new beginning which the accession to power of his house means
for Egypt. Succession by appointment and adoption, such as was in
vogue at the end of the Amarna Period, has now given way once again
to dynastic rule. Alternatively it itw-f could bè taken in co-ordination
with Sety's name, rather than in opposition to it. The "progenitor"
would then be Ramses I, who is elsewhere called it it -f by Ramses II: cf.
• Iyepsius, Denkm. Ill 152g; Gauthier, ASAÉ 23 (1923), pl. II, fig. 4, line 4.

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(6) king Menmare (x) the son of Re, Sety-Merneptah (*), abiding,
lasting for ever, like Re every day!" Thus far lines 1 through 6.
Then comes the "pith" of the text: "(7) regnal year four hundred,
fourth month of šmw , day 4, (of) the king of Upper and Lower
Egypt. Seth-'opehty Í1), the son of Re, his beloved, Nubty (*), be-
loved of Re-harakhte - he shall exist for ever and ever! (8) There
came the heir apparent (a), mayor and vizier. . . (10) . . . Paramses,
deceased, and he said (11) 'Hail to thee, O Seth, son of Nut, great
of might in the barque-of-millions, who feilest the enemies at the prow
of Re's barque, loud thunderer (12) [in the ... barque(?)! May est
thou] [give] me a happy life, following thy ku , while I remain in
[thy favours, in thy house(?) . . .]' ".
A number of questions may be posed about the format and
content of this rather unusual text. In the matter of format one
is at a loss to categorize the inscription. The beginning of line 1
suggests to the reader that he is plunging into a long encomium of
the vivat type, in which the individual verses consist of the name
of the king accompanied by a series of extravagant epithets (3) . Line 4,
however, suggests a commemorative text, the purpose of which was
to perpetuate Sety's name (4). Witt the setting on record of Sety's
cartouches in line 6 one might have expected the text to come to an
end, for the purpose had been fulfilled. Yet the inscription continues
for six more lines at least, and the content is not at all what one might
l1) In cartouche.
(2) Iry-pH', Onom I, 14*.
(3) Such inscriptions are common under Ramses II; cf. Naville,
Bubastis (London 1891), pl. 36E, 38b; Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities
(London 1906), pl. 28, 32; idem, Tanis I (London 1889), pl. 14:5 (J.
Yoyotte, Kêmi 10 [1949], pl. 6-7); Petrie, Tanis II (London 1888), pl. 2:73
(Yoyotte, Kêmi 11 [1950], pl. 6); Yoyotte, ibid. pl. 7; Petrie, Tanis II,
pl. 3:82 (Yoyotte, Kêmi 12 [1952], pl. 5); Petrie, Tanis II, pl. 2:69 (Yo-
yotte, Kêmi 12, pl. 6); Petrie, Tanis II pl. 2:76, 77; Maspero, Les temples
immergés de la Nubie I, 159f., 161fï. (followed by an address to the people).
One wonders whether they reflect a highly formalized tradition of poetic
composition, perhaps oral, which had its Sitz im Leben in court etiquette.
(4) The use of the verb s'h* is a little strange, since elsewhere it
is usually employed in a more literal sense,* "to erect": Wb IV, 53f. It
is probable that the choice of this verb was made simply under the in-
fluence of the neighbouring word for "standing stela", viz. Ramses
means merely that by setting up an inscribed monument he is ipso facto
setting up his father's name for all to see.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
26 D. B. Redford
have anticipated. First com

a "king" who, to judge at lea
god Seth. This is followed by
"Hail to thee. . ."! (*) placed
later to become Sety I. Now
scene of adoration, is one of the most common on stelae from the
mid-Eighteenth Dynasty to the end of the New Kindgom. In
form and intent a later variant of the htp-di-nsw prayer, the hymn of
adoration and request usually contains a plea for intangibles, such
as long life, alertness, love, praise, etc.; while the htp-di-nsw formula
more often requests concrete offerings of food-stuffs and the like.
The famous texts requesting healing from sickness, popularized by
Gunn's important article on " The Religion of the Poor" (a) are simply
a variant of the hymn of adoration. The fact that this type of hymn
is usually the sole text on the stela on which it is found, together
with Ramses' avowed purpose in setting up the monument, might
suggest that he was recopying on more permanent stone a flimsy
stela which his father had erected much earlier before he became
king (3). In this case, as much as the initial two-thirds of the in-
scription might be ascribed to Ramses' renewal text. Against such
a hypothesis is the clear statement of Ramses that he is "setting up"
(s'Ac) the names of his fathers; he says nothing about "renewal"
( smrwy , m mrwť). This choice of words militates in favour of an
original text, not a refurbished inscription. Moreover the anomalous
juxtaposition of three different genres of inscription is highly suspect.
One cannot help feeling that Ramses had no stela of his father to
recopy, but imagined the whole situation, and fabricated a hymn
in honour of an event which happened in his own time.
Whether the Vorlage was real or imagined, Ramses modified it
almost beyond recognition. It is he now, and not his father, that
stands before Seth; and the latter is now qualified as "Seth of Ramses-
maiamun" (4). Besides taking the lion's share of the inscription for
(x) 'Ind-hr- k, or (rdit) Uw n-k, "giving praise to thee", followed

by the god's name.
(2) B. Gunn, JEA 3 (1916) 81ff.
(8) Cf. Helck, ChrĒ 41 (1966) 236.
(4) The individual Ramses, and not the city; cf. Redford, Vêtus
Testamentům 13 (1963) 409, n. 5. Before the figure of Ramses is a column
of text describing the offering, in which Seth is called "his (Ramses')
father (it-f)", (not it itw-f, as Stadelmann supposes, ChrÉ 40 (1965)

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himself, Ramses also drastically reduced the hymn placed in his

father's mouth. If Sety had, in fact, erected such an inscription,
he as vizier would have delivered his hymn of adoration at much
greater length than he now does. Moreover in the great majority
of hymns of this genre the name and titles of the speaker follow,
not precede, the words he utters (1). In the Four Hundred Year
stela, however, Sety 's name, titles, and filiation precede the hymn,
and are introduced by an anomalous iwt pw ir- n. . . , "then came.
Finally, and this is most important for the understanding of
the date in line 7, in no example that I am aware of is a hymn of
adoration of the ind-hr type introduced by a date. By its very
content such a text was inappropriate to receive a date. The reader
is not justified therefore in construing the four-hundredth year of
Seth with what follows, viz. as an introduction to the hymn, and it
is most unlikely that Ramses wished to be so understood (2). If
he had had a real Vorlage, it undoubtedly lacked all mention of date;
and if he were fabricating the whole scene it is puzzling why he should
back-date it to a time over half a century earlier. Why not simply
give the year of Seth's reign in which the present stela was erected?
One is left with the alternative that the four hundredth year of the
god is to be construed with what precedes, i.e. the date was the
occasion of the erection of the present stela. In recopying his father's
49, n. 1). The trace of the snake beneath the t in Montet's plate 12 (in
Kêmi 4) is quite clear, as is also the snake above the di *nh. This is
sufficient to support Montet's restoration it-[f ir]>f di fnh ; Kêmi 4, pl. 13.
Otherwise "given life" would curiously qualify the god! In any case
the formula is a standard one: cf. B.M. 1630, rdit irp n it-f'Imn-r * ir-f
di *nh ; cf. also A. M. Calverley, The Temple of King Sethos I at Aby dos
III (London 1938), pl. 14, 20, 26, 46, and passim.
i1) As in fact it does in the abbreviated supplication written in
three columns before Sety's figure in the scene above: Montet, Kêmi
4, pl. 12.
(a) If Ramses had wished to make plain that Sety's "coming" in
line 8 was to be construed with the date in line 7, he could have used the
simple phrase which occurs in many analogous cases, viz. ( m ) hrw pn,
"on this day". For this common phrase, resuming a regnal year date
in Nineteenth Dynasty texts, cf. C. E. Sander-Hansen, Historische In-
schriften der 19. Dynastie (Brussels 1933) 2:14, 25:6-7; Gardiner, Rames-
side Administrative Documents (Oxford 1948) 52:14, 58:14; W. M. Müller,
MVÀG 7, no. 5, pl. 1:2; W. Pleyte, Les papyrus Rollin de la Biblio-
thèque Impériale de Paris (I<eiden 1868), pl. 14:3, 17:3, 19:2.

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28 D. B. Redford
real or imagined text on th

attempting to emphasize, n
of the Seth cult in the north
which this god had bestow
The precise date in Ramses
is unfortunately not given
have pointed out, the epith
which Ramses bears in line 1
year, and probably (in view
fourth year, when the secon
date would yield 1257 b.c. as
regnal year of Seth. The fan
been computed from some
which falls within the decad
Hyksos rule.
But what does "regnal year
of mundane, political phenom
strue as constituting the beg
the foundation of the city
reign", and therefore the e
reckoned (4). A slight mod
interpretation of the four h
the foundation of a shrine and a cult of Seth in the north-eastern
Delta (6). Both theories amount to virtually the same thing, but one
wonders whether they have really done justice to an Egyptian con-
cept. Ancient Egyptian records frequently speak, and in some detail,
of the founding of cities and temples; but when is such an event
ever spoken of in contemporary texts as the accession of the god
of the place? It is not uncommon to find a god credited with a
reign. According to the view of primaeval history reflected in the
Turin Canon, at least nine great gods (6) had succeeded each other
as king upon the throne of Egypt, each with reigns as fantastic as
ř1) ChrÉ 40 (1965) 48, n. 1.

(■) ChrÉ 41 (1966) 29f.
(8) Gauthier, Rois III, 42f.
(*) Z ÄS 65 Í1930Í 85fï.
(5) a. Helck, ChrÉ 41 (1966) 239.
(8) Assuming that in column i Geb was preceded by Re and Shu;
but it is possible that Ptah also was mentioned here; cf. Gardiner, The
Royal Canon of Turin , 15, s. v. notes on I, 11, 12.

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the four hundred years here ascribed to Seth. The same tradition
is found in the Epitomes of Manetho's Aegyptiaca (*). In both the
Aegyptiaca and the Turin Canon Seth finds a place as a primaeval
king (a), but there is little possibility in identifying his reign there with
the reign he is credited with in the present stela, as the latter is still
continuing. Aten was also treated as a king under Akhenaten, in
that his name was written in a cartouche and jubilees were celebrated
for him. If his first sd were celebrated during the first half of his
patron's reign, i.e. in or before Akhenaten's year 9 (3), the beginning
of the reign of "The Disc" would be pushed back thirty years before
to a point squarely in the middle of Amenhotpe Ill's reign. But no
monument from about year 20 of Amenhotpe III gives any indication
whatsoever that the Aten's reign had officially begun, and the first
trace of the doctrine of Aten's kingship comes under Akhenaten.
Clearly the concept of the accession and reign of the god was formed
long after the supposed event. And the same is true of most histori-
cal eras used for dating purposes: the realization that dating from
an event may be convenient does not dawn upon men until many
years have passed. Egyptians too could conceive of eras in their
history, but they were arrived at by mechanical computation at a
point in time far removed from the beginning of the span involved (4) .
Now several considerations suggest that the four hundred year
datum of the Tanis stela is just such an era conceived post eventum.
First, the chronological proximity of the computed beginnings of
both the period of four hundred years and the one hundred and eight
years of the Fifteenth Dynasty makes it highly likely that they
commence with the same point in time; i.e. the inception of the
ř1) Waddell, Manetho, 2ff.

(a) Turin I, 16 (Gardiner, Royal Canon, pl. I); Waddell, op. cit. 4,
16, 18. In Manetho's epitomizers Seth is given a reign of twenty-nine
(var. forty-five) years; but since the fashion among Christian apologists
was to treat Manetho's figures as "lunar years", Manetho's original
number will have been something over 350 (var. 560).
(3) C. Aldred, TEA 45 (1959) 30.
(4) The summations of the Turin scribe constitute rudimentary
historical eras: cf. the period "beginning [with] Menes down to [Wenis]",
iii, 26; cf. iv, 16f.; and the "dynastic" eras, v, 10, 18; vi, 3; x, 21, 30.
The fifty-nine year reign of Haremhab (J NES 25 [1966] 122f.) is an era,
back-dated to the death of Amenhotpe III. None of these periods, how-
ever, was of anything but antiquarian interest having no contemporary
utilitarian function in dating events.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
30 D. B. Redford
Hyksos Dynasty. If the era

pendently transmitted tra
we should have to conclude t
Hyksos king a temple and cu
on the correct view that the
invasion of the Delta, with a
the idea that the conquerin
built a temple (and that the
at once to number years f
might on the face of it be p
founding of a shrine by post
era; but then one encounters
that in Egypt temple eras ar
of gods' reigns. Second, the
later tradition were always r
ever Semitic deity he imper
Dynasty was Seth's heyday
"reign". A date in the four h
then simply be interpreted
the Hyksos came to power.
Tanis stela: "regnal year fou
four" . The artificial nature
It is most likely that Rams
reasons, and not because it w
To sum up: it is mistaken
to the four hundred year s
should not be understood as
Hyksos, and there is no pr
temple era. The "Reign" of
to Hyksos rule, extended in
nasty scribes who compute
same chronological data that
H Helck, OA 5 (1966) 14; S

53, n. 1.
(2) The date of Merneptah's attack on the Libyans also exhibits
a remarkable concordance of the numerals for day, month, and season,
viz. the third day of the third month of the third season (Great Karnak
Inscr. line 31; AncRec III, § 583). But since the initiative was Egyptian,
it may well be that Merneptah intentionally selected this day for fighting
for auspicious reasons.

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Canon. The relatively large number of king-lists which date to

Ramesside times (*) shows not only the interest taken in chronology,
but also the reliable material available to scribes during the Nine-
teenth Dynasty; and there can be no doubt but that the data on
which the four hundred years of Seth's reign and the Turin figure
of 108 were computed was accurate.
The Vilification of the Hyksos in Later Tradition
In Egyptian texts emanating from the close of the Hyksos oc-

cupation and shortly thereafter no conscious effort is evident to pro-
pagandize by vilifying the invaders. They were vile Asiatics who
had wrongfully seized Egypt; that was enough to justify any resis-
tance or liberation movement. What upset Kamose most about the
situation was the partitioning of the land among three potentates,
two of whom were not Egyptian: "(One) chief is in Avaris, another
is in Kush, and I sit (here) associated with an Asiatic and a Souther-
ner ! Each man has his slice of Egypt, and (so) I share in the
partitioning (2) of the land!" (3) An almost equal source of chagrin
to Kamose was the contemptuous attitude Apophis seemed to have
adopted towards him: "May your heart fail, o vile Asiatic, (you)
who used to say 'I am lord without rival as far as Hermopolis and
Pi-hathor, as well as Avaris. .. ' " (4). Even in Ahmose si-Abina's
account of the war of liberation there is little of a pejorative nature.
(x) Perhaps we should speak of only one exemplar of a true king-

list (a list of kings' names and lengths of reign), namely the Turin Canon.
The others are either names without lengths of reign (the Abydos list,
the Saqqara list, the Abydos list of Ramses II; also Cairo ostracon no.
25.646: Sauneron, ChrÉ 26 [1951] 46ff.; Chester Beatty IX, Gardiner,
The Chester Beatty Gift [London 1935], pl. 55), or depictions of rows of
statues (for bibliography see Seven Studies 34, n. 27, to which add Lep-
sius, Denkm. Ill, 163; Champollion, Monuments II, 184; Rosellini, Mon.
I, 45).
(2) Lit., "the land is divided with me".
(8) Carnarvon Tablet: Gardiner, JEA 3 (1916), pl. 12-13, 1. 3.
(4) Karnak, line 16 The reference to Pi-hathor, south of Gebelein
(see Onom II, 17*ff.; Montet, Géographie de VÉgypte ancienne II [Paris
1961] 51), and the alleged boast about unrivalled power, make sense
only if Apophis at one time in his reign could plausibly have laid claim
to the entire Nile valley. There are no valid gounds for not considering
the Hyksos blocks from Gebelein in situ (Redford, Seven Studies 41,

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
32 D. B. Redford
He does not mention the hqt

of Asia", a rather archaic ph
were personal, and were com
but the lack of rancour or
ficant. There was no need t
agreed that he was evil.
When however, during th
Asiatics began peacefully to
ing their mores with them, the Egyptians began to realize that
Asiatics were not villains per se. Could these Arvadites and By-
blians, Ugaritians and Takhsians, Nukhashsheans and Canaanites
really be the descendants of the hated Hyksos? In the face of to-
lerance and rapprochement the Hyksos continued to be remembered
as a vile group of people, but not simply because they had belon-
ged to a broader category which had traditionally been viewed as
detestable. Now a set of traditions began to emerge which singled
out the Hyksos, and attempted to define more closely why they,
and they alone, had been bad for Egypt.
The earliest attested trace of such rationalization comes from
the reign of Hatshepsut. The queen, in the Speos Artemidos in-
n. 66), and this probably marked the southern frontier under Khian
and Apophis. Kamose himself lends support to this thesis when he refers
to his own appointment by Apophis and the subsequent diminution of
Hyksos authority: "Your authority is restricted now that you have
made me a prince (sr) . . (Karnak, line 1). The courtiers' observation
that "Elephantine is strong" (i.e firmly held, Carnarvon Tablet 6-7) can
be taken to imply that it was but recently recovered. The over-all
picture that emerges regarding the ebb and flow of Hyksos power in
the southland is substantially the same as that given classic treatment
by Winlock over twenty years ago (The Rise and Fall of the Middle
Kingdom at Thebes [New York 1947]): the initial stage of Hyksos conquest
resulted in Asiatic control southward to a point in Middle Egypt below
Hermopolis, this area being then organized along the feudal lines familiar
to the invaders. Under Khian the territory was extended by force to
Gebelein; the independence of Thebes was terminated, and a feudal vassal
was established in the "Head of the South". Elephantine probably went
to Kush. Under Seqenenre and Kamose the territory from the first
cataract to Kush was retaken by Thebes, and this is substantially the
situation that the Kamose inscriptions reflect.
(*) Line 16; Urk IV 5:4. Most likely this is to be construed with
the preceding sack of Sharuhen.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
cription (1), lays stress, not only on the destructiveness of Hyksos

rule, which, as we have argued above, probably needed no demon-
stration (2), but on the theological aspect of their rule: "they ruled
hq?) without Re, nor did he act by divine decree right down to (the
reign of) My Majesty" (8). The preposition m-hmt, "without", im-
plies absence, but it is an absence willed and effected by the god,
not the Hyksos, as the second sentence indicates. Hatshepsut is
saying that Re had refused to sanction Hyksos rule, not that the
Hyksos had wilfully eschewed Re and his cult; and consonant with
this thesis the king-list tradition reflected in the Turin Canon ignores
the Hyksos prenomens, consistently formed with the element "Re" (4),
and records only their personal names (5).
Under the warlike Thutmosids we have less direct evidence of
the vilification of the Hyksos (6), but the general tendency toward
painting them in black colours continues. Despite the unreliability
of Sethe's restoration (7), it seems clear that the introduction to the
annals of Thutmose III attempted to link the end of the Hyksos
period (viz. the time when Sharuhen was under siege) (8) with the
political situation at the close of Thutmose's twenty-second year.
"Revisionism" this may well be, but the king adhered to this line
i1) Gardiner, JEA 32 (1946), pl. 6.

(2) Above, p. 3ff.
(8) Gardiner, "Speos Artemidos Inscription", lines 37f.
(4) Cf. the list in Von Beckerath, Untersuchungen polit . Gesch.
269 ff.
(6) Above, p. 19ff.
(8) Stadelmann (MDAIK 20 [1965] 65ff.) singles out the reign of
Hatshepsut as something of an exception as far as the anathematization
of the Hyksos is concerned. He contrasts the foreign policy of the
Thutmosids and the Ramessides, who in their imperialism followed in
the wake of the Hyksos. There is, however, a fallacy in assuming that
similarity in policy and mutual hatred cannot exist together. Some
states today, who have damned outright the memory of the National
Socialist party of Germany, use methods and are motivated by policies
identical with those of the Nazis. Moreover, Stadelmann's belief that
the cause lies in Hatshepsut's spiritual affinity to the classical Middle
Kingdom is a half truth; for what he would like to see as characteristic
of the queen's reign alone is in fact a hallmark of the Eighteenth Dynasty:
see below, p. 34 n. 6.
(7) Utk IV 647, f.
(8) Unless iw't in line 11 refers to an Egyptian garrison, which
is possible.
Orientalin - 3

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
34 D. B. Redford
by constantly referring to t
Like so many belligerents in
Thutmose III masked his a
counter-attack! Hatshepsuťs
been shunned by Re finds a
the chiefs he faced, whom
Re" (2). Unlike his aunt, T
to the period of the Fifte
period was; he was too much
But he does vilify the enem
fies them by title unequivo
A more effective way of d
of foreign rule was simply
the authorities did during t
which recapitulated the hist
Sesöosis (Sesostris) came to t
(Amenemhet III). If one ex
generation from Amenemh
who cannot have been one o
figure of Sesostris. Diodor us must somehow have fallen heir to a
tradition of different origin from that reflected in the Canon. Now
the hieroglyphic "king-lists" of the New Kingdom, the Abydos and
Memphite exemplars to be specific (5), omit all the kings from the
end of the Twelfth Dynasty to the end of the Seventeenth, and make
the Thutmosids appear to be the heirs of the house of Amenemhet
I (6). In those lists the seven names which follow Amenemhet III
are: Amenemhet IV, (Sebek-neferu-re) (7), Ahmose, Amenhotpe I,
(*) Barguet, Le temple d'Amon-Rê ... 161; Maspero, ASAÉ 10

(1909) 9; cf. Gebel Bar kal, 3 (in e.g. Urk IV 1229,5): "reaching the
limits of the foreign lands which had attacked him".
(a) Urk IV 651:10.
(8) Diodorus i, 53, 1.
(4) Turin vi, 9.
(5) Abydos: Mariette, Abydos I, pl. 43; Memphis: E. Meyer, Aegypti-
sche Chronologie , pl. 1.
(®) On the tendency of the Eighteenth Dynasty to exaggerate their
spiritual and literal kinship with the Twelfth, see Redford, Seven Studies,
78; cf. also the similarity in tone and vocabulary between the inscriptions
of Senwosret I and Thutmose III: A. De Buck, AnOr 17 (1938) 54; on
the name ih " mnw of Thutmose III, cf. Snwsrt th mnw at Heliopolis:
G. Daressy, " AS AÉ 9 (1909) 139.
(7) Only in the Memphite list.

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Thutmose I, Thutmose II, Thutmose III. According to this "re-

visionist" tradition, the product of the late Eighteenth or early
Nineteenth Dynasty, seven generations from Amenemhet III (Moeris)
brings us to Thutmose III, and this in all probability is the tradition
Diodorus unwittingly follows, at least at this point (x). His Sesöosis,
then, is fairly certainly Thutmose III (2), though no one would deny
that the legendary figure is of composite origin (3). The unpleasant
Hyksos interlude was simply blotted out in the "official' 1 texts pub-
lished on pylons, stelae, and temple walls.
But it did survive in the popular, unwritten traditions of the
illiterate masses. In a vein similar to Hatshepsuťs propaganda,
the oral folk tradition which had grown up during the New Kingdom
averred that the Hyksos had in fact ignored Re and all other mem-
bers of the Pantheon except Seth, and charged the Hyksos implicitly
with heterodoxy. In a story circulating in the time of Merneptah
it is recounted that "King Apophis, 1. p. h., made Seth his personal
lord, and served no other god in this entire land except Seth. He
built a temple of fine and eternal work beside the 'House of [King
Apjophis, 1. p. h. (4) and [there] he (6) appeared [every] day to make
the daily sacrifice] to Seth, while the courtiers [of the Palace],
i1) But later (i, 59) Diodorus does treat the Second Intermediate
Period, albeit cavalierly, and thus presents us with a conflated account.
He introduces a Sesöosis II, and goes on to state that "after this king a
long line of successors on the throne accomplished no deed worth record-
ing", after which he deals with Amasis (Ahmose).
(2) Confirmation that it was Thutmose III whose exploits initially
inspired the Sesostris legend is to be found also in the number of years
credited to him by Diodorus, viz. thirty-three (i, 58, 3). This is the
exact sum of Thutmose Ill's years after the twenty-one of Hatshepsut
are subtracted.
(8) On the Sesostris legend, see K. Sethe, Sesostris (Leipzig 1900);
G. Maspero, J S (1900) 593ff.; 665ff.; H. Kees apud Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll,
Real Encyclopädie (2nd ser.) II, 1861fï.; K. Lange, Sesostris, ein Ägypti-
schen König in Mythos, Geschichte und Kunst (Mimich 1954); M. Malaise,
ChrÉ 41 (1966) 244ff.
(4) The phrase sounds like the formal name of a place; otherwise,
if it were merely a reference to the king's palace, one would expect "his
house", since the subject of the sentence is in fact Apophis. One wonders
whether the "House of Apophis, l.p.h." was coined as a back-formation
on the basis of that type of toponym common in the New Kingdom,
which unites pr with the nomen or prenomen of a king, and of which
the best-known example is Pr-R'mssw.
(6) The king.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
36 D. B. Redford
1. p. h., carried garlands (l

Re-harakhty" (2). The autho
lous use of solar ritual, pecu
worship. One wonders whe
an undercurrent of pious sh
an Egyptian rite. This, the
outrages in a crescendo of c
tion, he purposes in maniac f
but one god, he borrows his
drawn up for Re, and fina
to taking up arms by sendin
ibly be taken seriously.
The figure of Apophis in
motif of the arrogant ruler w
by the gods, and is overco
pattern appears basically to
occurs as early as the end
in the story of Enmerkar
the madman who forfeits th
the Kassite king, conforms
(x) For a "bouquet Çnh) of

of the Vizier Ramose (London
Ramose to Akhenaten; cf. also idem, JEA 9 (1923) 140 and pl. 24:2;
for a bouquet offered to Horus upon the serekh, see T. Säve-Söderbergh,
Private Tombs at Thebes , I. Four Eighteenth Dynasty Tombs (Oxford
1957), pl. 19; for bouquets in the Amun ritual see G. Hughes, MDAIK
16 (1957) 159. Presumably such garlands were made up in the temples
where they were used in the ritual, and some, by special favour would
have been bestowed upon dignitaries; cf. the text accompanying the
proffering of such a bouquet (ibid. pl. 8): "[ ] the lotuses, sweet-
smelling, which proceed from [the presence] of Arnim, Lord of Karnak".
Cf. also Davies, The Tomb of Menkheperraseneb, Amenmose , and Another
(London 1933), pl. 3 ("Coming in peace to the place where the king is,
bearing the bouquet of Amun"), ibid. pl. 17 (three depictions of "bou-
quets of Amun" in various mortuary temples); ibid. pl. 24; N(ina) de
G. Davies, Private Tombs at Thebes , IV. Scenes from some Theban Tombs
(Oxford 1963), pl. 1-3 ("bringing various beautiful plants 'rnpwï'")' see
also J. Vandier, Manuel d'archéologie égyptienne IV, 1 (Paris 1964) 636ff.
For a bouquet presented by the king himself see M. Abdul-Kader Mu-
hammed, ASAÉ 59 (1966), pl. 13.
(2) Sallier i, 1:2-4; Gardiner, Late Egyptian Stories (BiblAeg 1932) 85f.
(8) S. N. Kramer, From the Tablets of Sumer (Indian Hills 1956) 14ff.

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feat at the hands of the Assyrians is commemorated (x). It reappears

also in the figures of Nebuchadrezzar and Belshazzar of Biblical
tradition (*), in Amasis the Tyrant apud Diodorus (3), and, in the classic
form, in the Herodotan image of Cambyses (4).
But what sort of fate was it that in the lost ending of the story
of Apophis and Seqenenre overtook the Hyksos potentate? Could
it have been something as prosaic as mere military defeat? Does
not the story, having begun with such a "tongue-in-cheek" motif
as the ludicrous request incapable of fulfilment, promise yet further
freewheeling and witty development? Can we not with some like-
lihood surmise that Seqenenre's triumph will be the result of a battle
of wits? In this regard a clear parallel to the fantastic request to
destroy the hippopotamus pool is to be found in the Greek tale of
Aesop and Nectanebo (6). In what may be an unconcious allusion
to the currency of the "battle of wits" motif in a bygone age, the
author prefaces his tale with the words: "In those days the kings
were at peace with one another, and used to amuse themselves by
sending one another sophistical questions to answer; and those who
could resolve them used to get for their answers tribute from those
who proposed them; if however, they failed, they paid in turn the
like amount." (#) The account then tells how Aesop at one point
in his career served King Lykeros of Babylon, propounding and solv-
ing such riddles. But, like Ahikar, Aesop ran afoul of the king,
. í1) W. G. Lambert, AfO 18 (1957) 38ff.

(») Dan. 4,5.
(») Diod. i, 60.
(4) Herod. Hi, 28ff.
(*) Tr. R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Oxford
1913) II, 780ff. Maspero long ago pointed out the parallel ( Contes popu-
laires de VÉgypte ancienne [Paris, s.a. xxvf.), but of late he seems to have
been ignored. Modern studies have tended to concentrate on mytho-
logical details of the story, rather than on the folkloristic aspects of the
plot (cf. Säve-söderbergh, On Egyptian Representations of Hippopotamus
Hunting as a Religious Motive [Uppsala 1953], 44f.). But any attempt
to remove the essential absurdity of Apophis' s demand by locating
"the hippopotamus pool" (// hnt dbw) in the eastern Delta close to Avaris
(so Goedicke, ZÄS 88 [1963] 94f.) destroys the whole point of what
is really a droll yarn, a "shaggy dog story". (Note that the admittedly
fragmentary line 2, 8 of the papyrus seems clearly to place the hippo-
potamus pool to 'Tthe west! of the southern city", i. e. Thebes.)
(•) Charles, op. cit. II, 780.

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38 D. B. Redford
and was put in prison. Wh

champion was gone, Nectan
lenged the Babylonians to build a tower suspended in air. At this
juncture Aesop was restored to favour, and set about training four
eagles to fly carrying young boys. Arrived in Egypt with eagles
and boys, Aesop sent them aloft, but the Egyptians to their dismay
found themselves unable to get the building materials up to the boys
hovering overhead. Nectanebo, however, countered this defeat by
complaining to Aesop that the neighing of the Assyrian stallions
in Nineveh was causing the Egyptian mares to miscarry. Aesop
responded by ordering his boys to catch a cat and whip it. Angrily
Nectanebo demanded to know why one of the sacred species was
being maltreated; to which Aesop at once rejoined that on the pre-
vious night the cat had killed a cock belonging to Lykeros in Ba-
bylon. Nectanebo accused Aesop of lying: a cat could not go to Ba-
bylon and return in so short a time. Thereupon Aesop quickly
pointed out the fantasy of Nectanebo' s own charge.
Nectanebo's complaint about the neighing of the stallions in-
corporates the motif of the fantastic charge which cannot be met.
Aesop's way of dealing with it, viz. by fabricating an equally un-
believable statement and thereby confronting his adversary with
the preposterous nature of his own, is precisely how Truth's son
dompts Falsehood (1), or how Geradas confounded the skeptical vi-
sitor to Sparta (*). The chances are reasonably good that in the
lost portion of the Tale of Apophis and Seqenenre the latter won
the day through the instrumentality of a preposterous countercharge (3) .
(*) Gardiner, Late Egyptian Stories , 30ff.

(2) Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus , 15, 10; cf. P. C. Smither, JE A 27
(1941) 158f.
(8) In the Aesop tale the Mesopotamian king is a weak character
who has not the wherewithal to help himself; a brilliant administrator
must needs save the kingdom for him. This feature of the plot links
the story to a motif common during the second half of the first millen-
nium b.c. in Egyptian and Levantine literature, viz. that of the wise
councillor who delivers a kingdom; cf. Daniel and Nebuchadrezzar (Dan. 2),
Daniel and Belshazzar (Dan. 5); Osarsiph and Phritiphantes (Josephus,
Contra Ap. i, 32), Imhotpe and Djoser (Siheil Famine Inscription,
Barguet, La stèle de la famine à Séhel [Cairo 1953]), Si-osir and the Nubian
magician (II Khamois, F. LI. Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Mem-
phis [Oxford 1900] 161ff.), the Joseph Story (Gen. 41; Ps. 105,17),
Ahikar and its host of derivatives (Charles, Apocrypha. . . II, 715ÍL;

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In the oral tradition which grew up in the first millennium b.c.

there was a tendency to drag the Hyksos back into Egyptian history
at a point subsequent to their actual expulsion (*). The classic
source for this distorted tradition (which he himself rebuts, albeit
for other reasons) is to be found in Josephus, Contra Apionem i,
14 and 26. As it appears here the tradition comprises a number
of component parts of diverse origin. 1. Josephus begins with a
purported quotation from Manetho which, we have already argued
above (a), conveys a substantially reliable impression. After (xerà
to uto v Sé quotation gives way to epitome which continues down
to Tivèç 8i Tiiyovaw ocutoÙç "Apaßa<; eïvat, (3). 2. This in turn is
followed by an alternate interpretation of the term "Hyksos", which
appears to be a clear interpolation into the text of Josephus (4).
3. There follows someone's unabashed epitome (5) of what is alleged
to be Manetho's account of the expulsion. This involves the length
of rule, the start of the rebellion under Misphragmouthosis, the forti-
A. H. Krappe, J AOS 61 [1941] 281f.). The motif does not seem to occur,
however, in Egyptian literature of the second millennium b.c. Wise
men and councillors endowed with magical skills do indeed figure in such
texts as the Westcar Papyrus (A. Erman, The Ancient Egyptians [New
York 1966] 36fL), Leningrad 1116b (Wilson, apud Pritchard, ANET2,
444ÎÏ.), or the bucolic texts published by Caminos (R. A. Caminos, Li-
terary Fragments in the Hieratic Script [Oxford 1956] 22ff.). But their
sole purpose in these tales is to relieve the boredom of court life and
entertain the king by their magic tricks or fine speech. They are not
cast in the role of "saviours", and it would be preposterous if they were;
for the god-king of traditional Egypt needed no help in solving problems
of state. It therefore seems to me unlikely that the story of Seqenenre
and Apophis concluded with the successful tricks of a clever courtier.
Seqenenre, perhaps with divine help, probably extricated himself from
the predicament.
(*) It is doubtful whether this erroneous "revisionism" is to be
ascribed to the Eyptians themselves. They certainly would have ap-
preciated the political rather than ethnic reference of the expression
hq? hiswt. Rather it would have been the alien elements resident in
Egypt, especially the Greeks, who misconstrued the allusions to the
Hyksos, and who conjured up the image of a race of people hovering in
Palestine, ready to pounce once again on Egypt.
(2) See above, p. 3ff.
(8) H. St. J. Thackeray, Flavius Josephus (Loeb Classical Library),
I (London-New York 1926), 194.
(4) Ibid. 196, n. a.
(5) Cf. «pYjalv ó Mavé&coç ibid. 196 (87).

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
40 D. B. Redford
fication by the Hyksos of

Thummosis, the treaty, and
4. An editorial comment by
ter 26 of Book I resumes t
ophis all the lepers in Egypt
in rebellion they fled to Ava
Osarsiph, to be their leade
Upon the lepers' invitation
and in concert with the imp
If section 1 were a fairly a
3 and 5 are an equally inaccu
subsequent history. Among
may list the following: that
III (*); that the founding of A
that the expulsion was effe
city was thus simply deserte
represents all the Hyksos w
in Avaris); and that the ex
Josephus refers back to cha
which, he maintains, are fai
he says, Manetho interpolate
and this clearly is how Jose
"Manetho's" account of wh
clear that Josephus was usin
of the expulsion of the Hyks
by the equally spurious Osar
and implies that "Manetho"
distorted oral tradition (8),
departing from reliable m
taken, then, by Josephus w
upon the readers' expected
believe that, had the sourc
of doubt would have been
It is probable that Josephu
(x) Misphragmouthosis; see

den ägyptischen Königslisten
(a) "Up to that point he foll
TjxoXo&bjae TOCÏÇ àvocYpaqxxïç) .
(8) xá jAO$euójieva . . . 7uepl tû

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nor even an alleged citation from that work (at least in sections 3
and 5), but only an anonymous writing which went under Manetho's
name. We shall not miss the mark by much if we venture the
hypothesis that 3 and 5 come from an anti- Jewish polemic which
drew largely on oral tradition and had purloined the illustrious
name of the Egyptian historian (1).
The errors of the oral sources used by our ' ' Pseudo-Manetho' '
were occasioned by the confusion of the "Expulsion" theme with
two distinct periods of Egyptian history, viz. the reign of Thutmose
III, and the Amarna Age.
The proclivity of the third Thutmose to take over the themes of
the inscriptions, nay even the inscriptions themselves, of his pre-
decessors is a sobering fact which historians must reckon with. The
well-known story of how the young acolyte during a festival in the
temple was singled out by the god to be king, is best known in
Thutmose Ill's version (*) ; but the same motif had also been em-
ployed by his aunt Hatshepsut, and had apparently been used to
embellish the account of his grandfather's accession (3) . In his fiftieth
year Thutmose III carved an equally famous text at the first cataract,
telling how, on the return voyage from a Nubian campaign, he had
reçut the old canal (4). But in fact the entire text, save for a post-
script, is a plagiarism from an identical test of his grandfather,
Thutmose I (6). The self-same tendency to plagiarize manifests itself
again in the Nubian boundary inscription of Thutmose III, which is
simply a duplicate of a nearby inscription of his grandfather (6).
And even though Sethe's restoration of the inscription of Thutmose I
at Deir el-Bahari (7) has been rightly rejected (8), it is fairly certain
from the words " elephant [s]" and "[the land] of Niya" that Thutmose I
is here credited with a big-game hunt like the one his grandson
(*) It is doubtful whether no. 1 came from this work as well, for it
seems to be a genuine quotation and epitome. Here Josephus was
probably only one remove from the work of the Egyptian historian whose
name he quotes so freely.
(a) Urk IV 156ff.
(8) Redford, Seven Studies , 74ff.
(«) Urk IV 814.
(*) Ibid. 89f.
(•) A. J. Arkell, JEA 36 (1950) 36f., fig. 4.
(7) Urk IV 103f.
(*) Onom I, 158*.

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42 D. B. Redford
enjoyed on his eighth cam

as a sportsman is best know
III (a) and Amenhotpe II (
the image was already in v
III probably had little desir
his chief aim being to iden
and grandfather. But the e
to be a period of innovati
And the resultant feeling
the history of the Eightee
of Haremhab (*).
It is easy to see, therefor
translate renown into tem
head of the dynasty in poin
ment. Like Ahmose Thutm
hiswt "who had attacked
of these "Hyksos" wars he had laid siege to an important enemy
stronghold. But whereas Ahmose had carried Avaris and had razed it,
(*) W. M. Müller, Egyptological Researches I (Washington 1906),

pl. 33f., Une 22f.; Gebel Barkal, 16f.; Armant, 7.
(a) Besides the texts mentioned in the preceding note, cf. the feats
of strength the king apparently performed at Qatna on his eighth cam-
paign: Urk IV 189; also (if rightly ascribed to Thutmose III) the text
and relief on the Armant pylon: Urk IV 1248.
(8) Urk IV 1279f., 1304f., 1318, 1321f.
(4) For Ahmose see W. C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt II (Cambridge,
Mass. 1958) 44; for Thutmose I see above, p. 41, n. 7. The inscription
from Giza which describes how Amenmose, Thutmose Ts son, enjoyed
an outing, presumably near the Sphinx (E. Grébaut, RT 7 [1886] 142;
Urk IV 91) sounds much like the similar account of Amenhotpe II's
sporting activity in the same place: Urk IV 128 If.; cf. also Thutmose
IV's "Sphinx-stela": Urk IV 1541. For the sporting tradition in general,
see Bruyère, ChrÊ 19 (1944) 194ff.; Hayes, "Egypt: internal affairs from
Tuthmosis I to the death of Amenophis III", CAH II, ch. 9, pt. 1,
23ff. and the literature there cited.
(6) In an inscription of Haremhab Thutmose III is called "father
of his fathers" (Urk IV 2135), and in the decree Haremhab has occasion
to allude to Thutmose' s administration as an example of how well things
used to be done (Urk IV 2150). For the survival of Thutmose III in
cult and legend see C. R. Wilhams, JE A 5 (1920), pl. 31 (dyn. 22); H.
Kees, RT 36 (1914) 51ff. (Ptolemaie); Chassinat, Fr. Daumas, Le Temple
de Dendara , VI, pl. DlyXXXIII, DXCI (Ptolemaic-Roman) .
v (6) See above, p. 13, n. 7.

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Thutmose had to starve his enemy out. Unlike his ancestor who
had destroyed the foe, Thutmose bound them to himself as vassals
by means of a unilateral treaty (x), thereafter allowing them to depart
to their own cities (2). It was entirely natural under the circum-
(x) Thutmose uses the expression sdfi tryt , "to administer the oath":
R. O. Faulkner, Diet. 259; J. Wilson, JNES 7 (1948) 130; Helck, MDOG
92 (1960) 5, n. 25. Since the Egyptians were not in the habit, as many
Asiatic peoples were, of drawing up formal treaties, they had no word
for such a document; (in a dubious passage in Merikare [line 74, cf. A.
Volten, Zwei altägyptische politische Schriften (Copenhague 1945) 37]
htmw, "agreement", seems to be used with reference to an understanding
between Herakleopolis and Thebes). In the Kgypto-Hittite treaty be-
tween Ramses II and Khattusilis the Akkadian y iksu or rikiltu , "bond,
treaty" (cf. B. Meissner, SPAW [1917] 289) is rendered by the Egyptian
nt - ( Wb I, 156: 14; Gardiner, JE A 16 [1920] 186, n. 5; Faulkner, Diet.
142), a compound which perhaps originally meant something like "relat-
ing to the document"; (for f, cf. M. Alliot, RdÉ 5 [1946] 64, n. 4; H.
Goedicke, JNES 15 [1956] 30; PT Kom II, 296 [PT 275e]; J. Vandier,
RdÉ 2 [1936] 46; idem, ASAÉ 36 [1936 ]37). Inherent in this expression
was the notion of obligation arising out of a title, ordinance, or law.
Gradually the term would have come to refer to an act recurring or a
state continuing over an extended period of time, but one which had
its origin in a specific directive. This is the meaning when the expression
is used to denote "observance, duties" in temple ritual: Sethe, Ägyptische
Lesestücke (Leipzig 1924) 71:7; Gardiner, JEA 38 (1952), pl. 6:67. It
is but a step from "observance" to "custom, customary condition", or
even "state of normalcy", and this semantic shift probably underlies
the ad hoc use of nt- to designate a treaty document. But for the Egyp-
tians the pith of such a text was the oath; and in his correspondence with
the Hittite king Ramses II, when speaking of the treaty deposited before
the gods, uses the word mâmitu, doubtless a rendering of Egyptian 'nh,
"oath": E. Edel, ZA NF 15 (1949) 198. In referring to his Asiatic
campaigning Thutmose III once uses the expression nt-* (if Sethe's prob-
able restoration be accepted: Urk IV 184:4-8); but it seems to warrant
some such translation as "title": "[His Majesty journeyed to] Retenu to
crush the northern countries . . . according as Amunre, lord of Karnak,
had ordained his effective leadership for him, granting him title as master
of all foreign lands".
(2) This is recorded briefly in the Annals ( Urk IV 662f.), more
fully in the Gebel Barkal stela ( Urk IV 1234ff.). The order of events is
as follows: the enemy emerge to do obeissance and supplicate Thutmose
( Urk IV 662 :9f.; 1234:19, 1235:14-15), they present their tribute ( Urk IV
662:14ff., 1235:3ff.), they take an oath not to rebel (Urk IV 1235:16-
1236:1), the king reinstates them in their cities as his vassals ( Urk IV
663:2), and then dismisses them to their towns ( Urk IV 1236:4f.).

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
44 D. B. Redford
stances for one strand of ora

with the siege of Megiddo
who attacked the Hyksos, M
of Levantine princes was tr
Dynasty. On this revision
liberator, but under the pro
to retire to his homeland unmolested.
The account of how the Hyksos were invited back to Egypt to
assist the Iêpers in their altercation with the Egyptians stems from a
confusion of events during the Amarna Age with the Hyksos expul-
sion. I/ike the Fifteenth Dynasty, the Amarna Age was something
of an embarrassment to later Egyptians; but its principal ideas
and figures were anathematized to a far greater degree than the
Hyksos ever were. The four kings who had been tainted with the
Aten heresy, viz. Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Ay,
were dropped from the official king-list (1), and their collective
floruit of over thirty years was added on to the reign of Haremhab (a).
While the expression pi *Itnt "the sun disc", was not in any way
suppressed, religious literature written after the period is at pains
to subordinate the physical disc to the solar deity (3). There is in
fact a clear attempt to re-instate myth in Egyptian religion, the
rejection of which had been a cardinal feature of Akhenaten's cult.
A coincidence of history greatly abetted the vilification of the
period together with its principal characters: the plague ravaged
the Near East (4). Exactly where the pestilence broke out is not
(*) For sporadic allusions to Akhenaten of a pejorative nature see Gar-

diner, The Inscription of Mes (Hildesheim 1964) 54; idem, JEA 24 (1938) 124.
(a) Redford, Seven Studies , 210.
(8) Cf. Urk IV 2177f. (Tomb of Neferhotpe), "...that god, the
king of the gods, one who takes cognizance of him who is cognizant of
him, who praises him who serves him, protects him who follows him.
He is Re, his body is Aten. . . Davies, The Tomb of Neferhotpe at Thebes
(New York 1933), pl. 34: Arnim is "the one who made the sky and lighted
it with stars, who made his seat in it as Aten . . . Urk IV 2095:8,
Reharakhty is "beautiful, rejuvenated in the disc (itn) within thy mother
Hathor"; A. Moret, Le Rituel du culte divin journalier en Égypte (Paris
. 1902) 134, A. Piankoff, BIFAO 62 (1964) 215, "The two lands are il-
luminated by his (Re's) two eyes; it is not the disc that appears to those
which are in heaven, it is the head that has reached to the sky in your
form as 'I/>fty-of-Plumes-Emerged-from-Nun''
(4) Cf. Helck, Beziehungen , 187f.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
clear. In a letter which must date at least three years (x) after
Akhenaten's accession, and probably closer to five, the king of
Alashiya (2) excused his dilatoriness in despatching copper by in-
voking the effects of an epidemic: "In my land the hand of Nergal
has smitten all the men of my land, so that there is no one to work
copper." (3) At roughly the same time an epidemic was raging on
the Phoenician coast. Aziru of Amurru in an effort to gain control
of this important administrative centre, had blockaded the city with
the help of Arvad (4). The siege had dragged on for months, even
years perhaps, and the conditions to which the beleaguered were
reduced may have had something to do with the outbreak. Rib-
addi of Byblos, nominally charged with the protection of Sumur,
would have nothing to do with the people of the town who, perhaps
as refugees, wished to come to Byblos: "The people of Sumur cannot
come into my city; there is a plague in Sumur." (6) Later, however,
when Sumer had fallen, and presumably fugitives from there had
finally managed to reach Byblos, the plague broke out there also.
Rib-addi tried to discredit the reports, but his words are unconvinc-
ing: "They are trying to make trouble when they say before the king
'Death is in the country! ' L,et not the king my lord listen to those
men. There is no plague in the countries; things are better than
ever!" (#) It was now the turn of Byblos to suffer investment. Al-
though this had the effect of cutting off the plague-ridden coastal
town from the hinterland, those cities with which the Byblians could
communicate by sea lay unprotected, and soon we hear of sickness
in the royal family at Ugarit, which may be a reflection of the epi-
demic (7). When Byblos finally fell to Aziru the plague must have
spread inland. Hittite attacks on Egyptian holdings in the Lebanons
resulted in the seizure of plague-carrying prisoners who spread the
disease to the Hittite homeland. There the epidemic raged for
twenty years into the reign of Mursilis (8).
(x) EA (== The El- Amarna Tablets [numbered according to Knudt-

zon]) 35:36.
(2) Cyprus.
(8) EA 35:13ff.
(4) Ibid. 105:17ff.
(6) Ibid. 96:7ff.
(6) Ibid. 129a:45ff.
(7) Ibid. 49.
(8) Cf. the "Plague Prayer": tr. A. Goetze in ANET1, 394f.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
46 D. B. Redford
Egypt undoubtedly felt the

by the time of Mursilis, mu
terranean for over a genera
to find. The awful condition
Restoration Stela prevailed b
in a stereotyped way; but
plague. "Now His Majesty appeared as king at a time when the
temples of the gods and goddesses from Elephantine as far as the Delta
Marshes [ ] Thad fallen! into ruin, and their shrines had be-
come delapidated. They had turned into mounds overgrown with
Tweeds"! and it seemed that their sanctuaries had never existed;
their enceintes were (criss-crossed) with footpaths. This land had
been struck by catastrophe ; this land had been shunned by the
gods. . . " (*). The italicised word, sni-mnt, is a vague compound
often rendered "calamity, distress" (2). It is composed of a feminine
noun mnt which denotes a physical sickness, and a verb of motion
sni which means to "pass by" ; and in origin it may well have de-
signated a spreading sickness, i.e. the plague. Certainly the major-
ity of passages in which it occurs are suited to such a meaning. One
wonders whether the premature deaths of four of Akhenaten's daugh-
ters, and the sudden demise of Smenkhkare and Meretaten are the
result of this epidemic; but this is pure speculation.
It is a fact, however, that the common genre of penitential
hymn, craving forgiveness and healing from disease, takes its rise
about this time. The earliest example known to the writer is the
graffito of Pawah in the tomb of Pre at Thebes (3). The opening
lines of Pawah's supplication are somewhat anomalous in the present
context, as he describes the god in a vein familiar from Anastasi
II (4), viz. as the helper and sustainer of men, especially the poor.
But when he launches into his plea for forgiveness his phrases are
the stock locutions found at Deir el-Medineh or on the Turin stelae:
"19) relent thou toward us, thou lord of eternity (6). ...20) thou
(!) Utk IV 2027.

(a) Cf. Gardiner, The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage (I#eipzig 1909)
103.
(3) Porter-Moss, Ia (Oxford 1960) 253; text in Gardiner, JE A 14
(1928), pl. 5-6.
(*) 6, 5f.; 8, 5ff.; Gardiner, LEM 16ff.
(°) n tn n*n p? no nhh' tor tne expression ci. ±vrman, biJAW 3U
(1911), pl. 16:21, swht xnn*ti n»n m htpw, "the breeze relents towards

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
hast made me see a darknes. . . 21) that thou hast caused (*). Make
it bright for me that (I) may see thee! (a) As thy ku endures,
22) and as thy beautiful, beloved face endures! Thou shalt come
from afar! (3) 23) Mayest thou grant that this humble servant, the
scribe Pawah, see thee! Grant (it) 24) him!./' A second example from
the reign of Tutankhamun, scarcely a decade later, was written for
no less a personage than the viceroy of Kush, Huy, who had appar-
ently suffered blindness like Pawah (4): "Come in forgiveness, o (my)
(?) lord Nebkheprure, (for) I see a darkness in the daytime of thy
making (6). Make it bright for me, that I may see thee! (6) Then
will I relate thy might to the fish in the river [and to the birds which
are in heaven]." (7) In this example of the penitential psalm the
form was well launched on the course it was to follow for several
centuries. During the same period we encounter the earliest exam-
ples of a type of name formed from the verb *nn (rendered "relent" in
us in forgiveness"; ibid. 22 (obscure), bw whm-n 'nn "we shall(?) not

again backslide(P)" (perhaps a pun on *nn meaning "turn around" -
relent in one instance, and relapse in the other); Turin 102 (MIFAO 69
[1935] pl. 27:1), lines 13-14, iw-s %nw (sic) n*i m htpyw, "she relented
towards me in forgiveness"; Erman, SB AW 30, 1 102f. ; Or 2 (1933) 180,
lines 8-9 Vh pi htpy rh *nw, "the moon, the forgiving, able to relent";
Erman, op. cit. 1104, R. Moss, JE A 27 (1941), pl. 3:1, Bruyère Mert
Seger, 11, lines 5-6, hnwt 'n st r htp , "mistress who relents and forgives";
Bruyère, MIFAO 58 (1930) 123, fig. 63:2, *n sw r htp , "who relents and
forgives" (cf. FIFAO 21, 45, fig. 30:2); Bruyère, FIFAO 20 fase. 2, pl. 16,
dit Uw n k;-t Knn-ti n-[i], "giving praise to thy ku, thou who relentest
to [me]".
Í1) di-k ptr • i kkw n dd-k] most parallel passages employ ir in place
of rdi : MIFAO 69 (1935), pl. 26:3, di* f ptr • i kkw m hrw; panzone, Dizio-
nario di mitologia egiziana (Torino 1881-6) III, pl. 340, di*k mi- i kkw n
irr'k ; Bruyère, Mert Seger , 6-7, di*k mi- i kkw m hrw ; Gunn, JE A 3
(1916) xii, lines 3-4, di-k m;-i kkw n irr*k ; ibid, xiii, lines 2-3 (same).
Undoubtedly the malady was partial or total blindness.
, (a) Shd n-i ma tn ; cf. Gunn, JEA 3 (1916) 92 § xii, lines 4-5, shd
n'i mu tw' ibid, xiii, line 4, htp n-i m n tw; also Urk IV 2076 (below)
shd n»i mi» i tw.
(3) The later variant is wfh k?*k iw-k r htp, "as thy ku endures!
Thou shalt forgive!" Bruyère, FIFAO 20, fase. 1, 148; fase. 2, pl. 16.
(4) A. Rowe, ASAÉ 40 (1940) 47f.; Urk IV 2075f.
(5) See above, n. 1.
(6) See above, n. 2.
(7) a. Erman, SBAW 30 (1911) 1102f.; lines 4-5, pl. 16, line 13;
probably FIFAO 21, 40, fig. 27:6.

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48 D. B. Redford
its occurrence in the Pawah

bulary of these hymns, viz.
People, it seems during thi
were obsessed by the neces
punishment for sin. Withou
to the effects of an epidemi
the plague might sharpen t
period provided amply fer
not the country been plung
had ever seen? Had not the
While the contemporary ev
tradition is more explicit. Eg
alias Orus (*) had been affl
recalled a connection betwe
king Kenchres (3), and we ar
in all probability that Akh
from Thebes to Amarna (4
(*) Iêgrain, ASAÉ 10 (191

*n-sw-Imn, "Amun relents", ibid. I, 62.
(a) i.e. Amenhotpe III? In Contra Apionem i, 26, 232 Josephus
makes an ad hoc distinction without realising that the two names simply
reflect different sources. Orus is elsewhere credited with a reign approxi-
mately the length of Amenhotpe Ill's (Helck, Untersuchungen zu Ma -
netho 40), but the name has been thought to resemble the hypocoristicon
Huria of Akhenaten; Sethe Z ÄS 41 (1904) 50. If indeed the Amenophis-
Orus of this oral tradition is Akhenaten himself, it is strange that no
stigma attaches itself to him, and that he is painted in no unfavorable
light. Moreover the connection between this king and Amenhotpe son
of Hapu points to Amenhotpe III; and the fact that Ramses is made
out to be his son reflects the same sort of suppression of the royal names
of the Amarna period as is attested by the Mes inscription and the Nine-
teenth Dynasty king-lists. It may well be, however, that, while the
name derives from Amenhotpe III, the Amenophis of the tradition is a
composite of the third and fourth kings of that name.
(8) R. Helm, Eusebius Werke VII. Die Chronik des Hieronymus I
(Leipzig 1913) 42, in Aethiopia multae pestilentiae locates ut Plato memo-
rat fuerunt. The Sothis Book for Amenophthis (Waddell, Manetho 242)
similarly mentions Ethiopia, but in connection with a movement of
peoples from the Indus [sic]. The insinuation of a southern milieu is
to be explained by the later reworking of the motif under the influence
of the events of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (see above, p. 4).
(*) That the legendary Kenchres or A kn encheres was Akhenaten has
been argued by Helck, Untersuchungen zu Manetho 41.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
gods" (*), but was advised first to remove those infected by the
pestilence. "Seeing the gods" is a rather odd occupation. Certainly
Akhenaten's cult was characterized by openness rather than secrecy.
One wonders whether Pseudo-Manetho here reflects a folkloristic
interpretation of the mtrw- shrine, the "seeing-place" of a particular
god, introduced into Egyptian ecclesiastical architecture apparently
under Amenhotpe III, and well known from Amarna (a). After col-
lecting the plague-ridden peoples in his kingdom among whom, signi-
ficantly, were some priests, the king sent them off to work in the
quarries. It is well known that the Amarna period witnessed some
of the most ambitious and hasty construction projects ever under-
taken in the Nile valley; and the texts indicate that from the incep-
tion of the reign the quarries were worked as they had never been
before (3). Even the high-priest of Amun in an evident attempt to
humiliate him, was dispatched to Hammamat for stone (4). Accord-
ing to the prophecy of Amenophis son of Hapu, the plague-ridden
peoples would dominate Egypt for thirteen years. This seems to
correspond to the portion of Akhenaten's reign spent at Amarna
(years 5 to 17), rounded off, as occasionally in Manetho's epitomes,
to the next highest year.
To judge from these details, then, the substance of the plague
tradition in Pseudo-Manetho ( Contra Apionem i, 26) clearly arises out
(*) Contra Ap. i, 28.

(a) A. Badawy, JEA 42 (1956) 58ff.
(8) Extensive quarry activity had begun under Amenhotpe III in
connection with the building program of that king. Already in his
second year "His Majesty commanded the opening of new quarry cham-
bers to extract fine limestone ... to build castles (which shall last) for
millions of years, after he had found buildings . . . fallen into disrepair
since days of old. It was His Majesty who started renovations" {Urk
IV 1681). Early in Akhenaten's reign we hear of "the first occasion
when His Majesty issued a command to [ ] to pursue all work
from Elephantine to Sambehdet, and to the commanders of the army
to levy a numerous corvée for quarrying sandstone in order to make
the great benben of Reharakhte, in his name ' Shu- who-is-in- Aten' at
Karnak. The princes, courtiers, supervisors, and baton-ķearing officers
were in charge of his exactment for transporting stone" (Silsileh, Urk IV
1962). To judge by Ramose's reply, it was some such program that
Akhenaten placed under that vizier's charge in the famous tomb relief:
Davies, The Tomb of the Vizier Ramose , pl. 36.
(4) G. Goyon, Nouvelles inscriptions rupestres du Wadi Hammamat
(Paris 1957), pl. 25 (no. 90); Redford, J AOS 83 (1963) 240f.
Orientatici - 4

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50 D. B. Redford
of the Amarna Age and the

plague, which one would exp
periment to have been inter
apostasy, is now translated
the apostasy itself. In a sim
qenenre describes the Hykso
there was no master l.p.h.
qenenre l.p.h. was ruler l.p.h.
was in the town of Re(?) (a
ris...". One wonders whether the text merely reflects the age-old
belief that bad times are attended by calamities of every sort (3) ;
or whether the tradition of a plague has by now firmly attached itself
to the Hyksos. But one should probably not underestimate the
currency of a motif: the Hyksos occupation was a disaster for Egypt,
and disaster means inter alia the plague.
Conversely, political and social distress within Egypt are al-
ways explained in Egyptian casuistry by the incursion of external
elements. Merikare describes the troubles of Herakleopolis as being
in part due to the marauding Asiatics (4) ; Neferty devotes a portion
of his description of the "Time of Troubles" to the incoming Asia-
tics (5) ; and the ascription of Egypt's woes to the same vile people
from the east during the Hyksos period was a commonplace. If then,
at the time of king Amenophis, pestilence had afflicted some part of
the Egyptian populace, must not the malady have been connected
somehow with the Asiatics? And do historical events at the time
give evidence of a new incursion of this Asiatic scourge? The villains
of the piece, the worshippers of Aten, were Egyptians; their mentor
that "enemy of Akhetaten", was himself an Egyptian. But in the
Levant a new menace was descending out of the north upon the
(*) I?dt; see Gardiner, Admonitions , 25; idem, JE A 5 (1918) 40, n. 2;

for "plague year", see Vandier, Pap.Jumilhac 18/8 and n. 631; for the
uraeus as the author of plague (or perhaps better), "distress", see idem,
ZÄS 93 (1966) 135, III.
(2) Pace Gardiner (Late Egyptian Stories , 85a), what is required here
is an element to provide an antithetic balance with "southern town".
The text therefore must not be emended.
(3) Cf. Ipuwer 2, 5-6, "... hearts are violent, plague is throughout
the land, blood is everywhere. .
(4) Merikare, 98ff. (Volten, Zwei altäg . polit. Schriften , 5 If.).
(*) P. Leningrad 1116b, 20ff. (Wilson, ANET*, 444ff.).

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC
Egyptian homeland in the form of the Hittite forces of Suppilu-

liumas. They had wrested all inland Syria from the hands of Mi-
tanni, Egypt's ally; they had penetrated further south, and had
attacked Egyptian territory in the Beqa; and at the request of one
of the factions inside Egypt they had even sent a Hittite prince to
Egypt to support the queen's cause by marrying her, in the hope of
thus gaining the pharaonic throne (x). Small wonder that the trad-
ition contained in Pseudo-Manetho interpreted this thrust toward
the Nile as a counter-attack by the Hyksos at the instigation of a
disaffected element within Egypt, which had held out the hope of
a return to power on the banks of the Nile. The hope was never
realized, and tradition remembered that too. But the solution of
the plot was cast around the motif of the flight to Ethiopia and
subsequent return of avenging forces, a fact which shows that the
tradition did not take final shape until sometime subsequent to the
seventh century b.c.
The Hyksos never achieved the status of a "Nero re di vi vus" (a)
hovering just beyond the pale, constantly about to reappear in
Egyptian politics. But they did contribute significantly to the motif
of invasion from the north by providing the Egyptians of the second
half of the first millennium b.c. with a classical archetype for such
incursions. This motif, however, lies beyond the scope of the pres-
ent paper.
(*) H. Güterbock, J CS 10 (1956) 94f. Scholars have been a little

too quick, in the writer's opinion, to accept uncritically the evidence of
KUB XXXIV, 24, 4 and thereby to conclude that the Egyptian queen
in question was Ankhesenpaaten: cf. most recently K. A. Kitchen, JE A
53 (1967) 179. The point at issue is not whether the cuneiform Nib -
hururiya can be derived from Egyptian Nfr-hprw-r * (it cannot be),
but whether Mursilis, who is responsible for his fathers annals, has got
his historical facts straight! See Redford, Seven Studies.... 158ff.
(*) Cf. lt. W. Barnard, JEA 44 (1958) 104f.

103.43.162.2 on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 04:47:03 UTC

The Hyksos Invasion in History and Tradition

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