The decline of the Middle Kingdom, like that of its predecessor, appears to have been gradual. The Twelfth Dynasty came to an end about 1773 Bc, and then there was a succession of kings with short reigns. As they assert different lineages, it is possible that power circulated among leading families. Slowly they began losing their grip on the borders of Egypt. In the eastern Delta there was an influx of migrants from Palestine, which was enjoying a period of particular prosperity. By the late eighteenth or early seventeenth century a Semitic-speaking ruling elite which combined Egyptian and Asian cultural traits took charge of the city of Avaris on the eastern Delta, the site of which, long lost, has now finally been identified as the modern Tell el-Dab’a. Aware of their foreign roots, the newcomers called themselves Heqau-khasut, literally ‘chiefs of foreign lands’. They are usually referred to by the Greek corruption of this, Hyksos. They provide an intriguing interlude to the flow of Egyptian history.
The settlement at Tell el-Dab’a has been expertly excavated by the Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak. Originally it was a frontier city founded by Amen-emhat I to mark the border between Egypt and Asia. In the Middle Kingdom it seems to have had both a defensive and a trading role and in the latter it attracted an influx of outsiders from Lebanon and Syria, Palestine, and even Cyprus who, it
Seems, intermarried with local Egyptians. There is a cosmopolitan air to the range of artefacts found in the city that include Minoan pottery and jewellery and cylinder seals from Syria. The chronology of the site is hotly contested (in that it is difficult to link the variety of artefacts found to external chronologies) but about 1710 there appears to have been an epidemic in the city—bodies have been found unceremoniously buried in shallow pits.
It is in the period of recovery that a new wealthy elite appears to have gained control just as the Thirteenth Dynasty kings at Itj-tawy were in decline. Their last effective ruler was Sobekhotep about 1725 bc. In Avaris one Nehesy, who was probably Egyptian but may have been Nubian, appears to have seized power and adopted many traditional royal epithets such as ‘lord of the two lands. He linked himself to the ‘local’ god Seth, normally a god of disorder but now appropriated for the new regime. The Hyksos kingdom of Nehesy and his successors, notably Khyan (ruled c.1610-1580) whose palace has recently been found, mixes features of both Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian cultures and gained immense prosperity from trade. The texts speak of imports of ‘chariots and horses, ships, timber, gold, lapis lazuli, silver, turquoise, bronze, axes without number, oil, incense, fat and honey’. Avaris grew fast— eventually to three times the size of any contemporary site in Palestine.
Then came expansion to the south. Khyan was especially determined to prove himself king of all Egypt in the traditional style of his adopted country. He took a Horus name of ‘He who embraces the banks of the Nile’ to signify his ambition. Itj-tawy and Memphis were overrun and a border with Upper Egypt defined at Kis on the Nile some 200 kilometres south of Memphis. While Avaris was regarded as the capital of the dynasty, control of northern Egypt was enforced from Memphis, which was much better placed strategically than Avaris for direct supervision of the Nile. The Avaris kings used pathways across the desert to forge links with Nubia, where the weakening of Egyptian power had led to the emergence of the independent kingdom of Kush. Its capital, Kerma, a religious as much as a political centre, flourished between 1750 and 1500 overseeing an extensive network of trade which included close contact with the kingdoms to the north.
The confusions surrounding Manetho’s list of dynasties for this period have now been resolved. Manetho’s Fourteenth and Fifteenth Dynasties are believed to represent the Avaris kings while the Sixteenth and Seventeenth represent a rival set of kings who maintained power in Thebes and who saw themselves as direct heirs of the Thirteenth Dynasty. Their kingdom was hemmed in by the Avaris rulers to the north and the kingdom of Kush to the south, so they were isolated and vulnerable. There is a heavy stress in their inscriptions on military prowess but at first there was little they could do and they were forced to coexist with the Hyksos rulers. There is some evidence of trading contacts, and the daughter of the Hyksos king Apepi may even have married into the Theban royal family.
However, at some point after 1550 bc, the Theban kings consolidated their power and, having seen off an invasion from Kush, marched north. The first campaign was launched by Kamose (ruled c.1555-1550), the last king of the Seventeenth Dynasty. Apepi panicked and a letter (intercepted by Kamose) shows him begging the ruler
Of Kush for help against the Theban invader, promising him land in southern Egypt in return. Kamose’s successor, the formidable Ahmose I (c.1550-1525), entered the Delta itself, first taking Memphis and isolating Avaris from Palestine so that he could capture it. The archaeological evidence shows that the Hyksos were armed only with copper weapons while the Thebans had the much harder bronze. The survivors were expelled and large areas of the city were completely abandoned. The citadel was destroyed and giant store-rooms built on the site.
Ahmose’s achievement was recognized in making him founder of a new dynasty, the Eighteenth. A set of new palaces was then constructed at Avaris that are notable for their Minoan frescos. Although these are in fragments and will take many years to reconstruct, they have led to the revival of an ancient tradition that Ahmose married a Cretan princess although they are now dated somewhat later, to the early fifteenth century Bc. Whether they represent diplomatic exchanges or actual trade they show that the Hyksos had opened Egypt up to the wider world of the Ancient Near East and the eastern Mediterranean at a crucial moment when a group of powerful states were emerging (see earlier, p. 34). Finally Ahmose struck eastwards into Palestine itself and then, the borders with Asia secure, he returned south to restore Egyptian control over Nubia. The scene was now set for the New Kingdom, a period of stability which lasted for 500 years and involved a massive expansion of Egyptian power into Asia.
World History
