Josephus claims to be quoting directly from Manetiao in his description of the conquest and occupation of Egypt by the Hyksos:
By main force they easily seized it without striking a blow; and having overpowered the rulers of the land, they then burned our cities ruthlessly, razed to the ground the temples of the gods. .. Finally, they appointed as king one of their number whose name was Salitis. He had his seat at Memphis, levying tribute from Upper and Lower Egypt, and always leaving garrisons behind in the most advantageous positions.
This picture of Hyksos rule is confirmed by the very fact that the Theban ruler Kamose rejected his status as vassal. The strict control of the border at Cusae, the imposition of taxes on all Nile traffic, and the existence of garrisons of Asiatics led by Egyptian commanders are all mentioned in the Kamose texts. The Hyksos kings seem to be following the model set up by the i2th-Dynasty kings in their rule over Nubia, for which the bureaucratic and military institutions were probably still in place. The key role of Memphis is also clear from Kamose’s account. Avaris was the Hyksos king’s home city, the centre of his power, but Egypt, even the northern part of it, could not be ruled from the eastern Delta. Ruling Egypt meant controlling the Nile and every ruler of Egypt has done this from the apex of the Delta, the region of Memphis and modern Cairo.
Indisputable evidence of destruction and looting by the Hyksos is rare. Four colossal sphinxes of the i2th-Dynasty ruler Amenemhat III and two statues of the i3th-Dynasty ruler Smenkhera were found at Tanis, inscribed with the names of Aqenenra Apepi (another name of Aauserra Apepi). Their original dedication inscriptions to Ptah indicate that they were first set up at Memphis. It is usually assumed that they were looted by Apepi, taken to Avaris, and then removed in Ramessid times to Tanis, but all that we can be sure of is that Apepi claimed them by writing his name on them, and they may never have left Memphis at all until Ramessid times. Nevertheless, at least one royal monument of a I3th-Dynasty king was violated: the pyramidion from the top of King Memeferra Ay’s pyramid, which was probably built at Saqqara, was found at Faqus, close to Tell el-Dab'a.
There is, to date, nothing to show that the Hyksos kings commissioned funerary monuments in the Memphite tradition in the Western Desert overlooking the city. However, we need to remember the wholesale demolition at Tell el-Dab'a by the victorious Ahmose and the greed of later kings for building stone before we accept too readily an argument e, x silentio. For example, two blocks, one of limestone and one of granite, carrying the names of Khyan (c. i6oo bc) and Aauserra Apepi, have been found in the temple of Hathor at Gebelein. Since there is no unequivocal evidence that the Hyksos ever controlled this part of Egypt, let alone built monuments so far south, the blocks are more likely to originate from Memphis and to have been brought to Gebelein during the New Kingdom.
During the 1980s, as part of a survey of the vast ruin field of Memphis by the Egypt Exploration Society, a small area of the town was excavated, revealing strata of the Second Intermediate Period. The culture of this community, revealed by pottery, domestic architecture, mud sealings with scarab impressions, metalwork, and beads, is entirely Egyptian (especially when compared with that of Tell el-Dab'a) and shows an unbroken cultural development from the 13th Dynasty. Similarities in Egyptian ceramics allow strata at Memphis to be related to those at Tell el-Dab'a, and this reveals a major break at both sites after the last Hyksos stratum. Tell el-Dab'a D/2. There follows at Memphis a sequence of sandy deposits in which no permanent structures were built and in which the ceramics contain increasing quantities of Upper Egyptian types dating to the very beginning of the i8th Dynasty. The subsequent phase shows buildings aligned quite differently and ceramics of pronounced early i8th-Dynasty style. These sandy deposits are thought to coincide with the period of the Hyksos-Theban wars.
What is missing at Memphis is the presence of Middle Bronze Age traits such as those that are visible at Tell el-Dab'a from the late 12th Dynasty onwards. Imports and Egyptian copies of Palestinian pottery are present at both sites, but at Memphis they represent less than 2 per cent and at Tell el-Dab'a, 20-40 per cent, of the repertoire. There is no cultural break at Memphis from the earliest strata excavated, which are mid-i3th Dynasty, until the end of the Second Intermediate Period. Can this pattern be observed at any of the other major centres of the region?
At Saqqara, the necropolis closest to Memphis, the focus for activity in the late Middle BCingdom was the mortuary temple of King Teti (2345-2323 BCj. There are private tombs and evidence of the continuous celebration of the cult of the king until the first half of the 13th Dynasty. As far as the late 13th Dynasty and Second Intermediate Period are concerned, there is so far only one isolated intact burial comprising a man placed in a rectangular coffin. The man’s name, Abdu, suggests that he was an Asiatic, and he was furnished with a dagger inscribed with the name of Nahman, a follower of King Apepi. Since the dagger is the only part of the find that has so far been published, it is not known whether the burial compares with those of similar date from Tell el-Dab'a, but the rectangular coffin suggests that it does not. Nor do we know if the dagger is contemporary with the burial Or an heirloom. Apart from this ambiguous find, there is clear evidence in the same area of an extensive cemetery of rich surface graves belonging to the reigns of the early i8th-Dynasty rulers Ahmose and Amenhotep I.
At Dahshur, site of the mortuary complexes of tv/o great kings of the i2th Dynasty, Senusret III and Amenemhat III, ritual activity must have continued at least into the early 13th Dynasty, because King Awibra Hor was buried there at that time. At some later date large mud-brick grain silos were built within the mortuary complex of Amenemhat III. When the silos had fallen into disrepair, they were used as convenient rubbish pits for the pottery discarded from a small nearby settlement. Similar pottery occurs at Memphis in strata below the sand deposits and at Tell el-Dab'a in strata G/4 onwards. Its character is emphatically Middle Kingdom and Egyptian. It appears that buildings were erected on the sacred space at Dahshur some time after the early 13th Dynasty; these structures were associated with a settlement that continued to be occupied, although it is not yet clear how long this occupation lasted, except in relative terms. Thereafter there is no evidence of activity until Ramessid times. The ‘silo’ pottery at Dahshur is also present at Lahun, in the settlement which grew up close to the mortuary complex of Senusret II. Thereafter, at Lahun, there is a gap until pottery of the mid-i8th Dynasty appears.
At Lisht, the necropolis closest to Itjtawy (the royal residence of the i2th - and 13th-Dynasty kings), the picture is more complex. A large private cemetery grew up around the pyramid of Amenemhat I, which eventually intruded into the royal funerary complex itself. Among these latest graves were a few fairly rich burials containing types of ‘Tell el-Yahudiya’ pottery vessels that occur both at Tell el-Yahudiya itself and at Tell el-Dab'a in graves of strata D/3 and D/2 (that is, the strata dating to the end of the Hyksos period). These latest burials at Lisht are wholly Egyptian in character. A settlement of workers connected with the necropolis grew up during the 13th Dynasty in the same area, and some burial shafts were dug within house complexes both during and after their occupation. This un-Egyptian style of burial is paralleled at Tell el-Dab'a, but there is no further evidence to suggest that the inhabitants were not Egyptians. In the surface debris from the excavation of houses and graves were found two scarabs with the name of the i6th-Dynasty ruler Swadjenra Nebererau I (c.1615-1595 bc). His dates, tentative though they are, fall within the range of those assigned by Bietak to D/3. There is no evidence of the i8th Dynasty at Lisht until the reign of Thutmose III.
Even this evidence both of the use of the necropolis at Lisht and of continuity of Middle Kingdom culture there until far into the Second Intermediate Period does not answer the question of when the king and his court moved from Itjtawy to Thebes. The last i3th-Dynasty king known to have had monuments in the area is Memeferra Ay (c.1695-1685 BC). There is also the testimonial of an official called Horemkhauef, a chief inspector of priests who was sent to collect the temple statues of Horus of Nekhen (the local deity of Elkab) and of the goddess Isis. His funerary stele, found in the courtyard of his tomb at Elkab, describes a visit to Itjtawy in the course of this mission:
Horus, avenger of his father, gave me a commission to the Residence, to fetch (thence) Horus of Nekhen together with his mother, Isis... He appointed me as commander of a ship and crew because he knew me to be a competent official of his temple, vigilant concerning his assignments. Then I fared downstream with good dispatch and I drew forth Horus of Nekhen in (my) hands together with his mother, this goddess, from the good office of Itjtawy in the presence of the king himself
The divine images collected by Horemkhauef were presumably newly made or restored statuettes that had perhaps been used in a festival connected with the kingship. Significantly, therefore, the Residence appears at this time to have been the only place where craftsmen, scribes, and lector priests were able to make such images. This explains Horemkhauef s need to undertake a long journey and his pride in his success. Unfortunately for us, the king who sent him is never named. The making of such statues was one of the most significant acts of the Egyptian ruler, enabling him to validate his own divine status. References to the kings’ creation of such images occur in all surviving royal annals going back to the beginning of the Old Kingdom. This tradition of sacred craftsmanship, of which the king was guardian, was evidently broken when the Residence was abandoned and ties with Memphis were cut.
One result of the loss of this artistic tradition was a break in what has been described as the ‘hieroglyphic tradition’. The writing of the formulas used in funerary inscriptions changed because they were being produced under the influence of scribes trained in the cursive hieratic script (used in administrative documents), whereas previously the inscriptions had been created by the scribes who were specifically trained in the carving of hieroglyphic inscriptions on stone monuments. This change in the writing of the funerary formula can be used as a means of dating inscriptions to the period before or after the end of the Middle Kingdom. The writing on Horemkhauef s stele is of the Post-Middle Kingdom type, which perhaps suggests that the political fragmentation may actually have taken place during his lifetime. A chronology has been deduced from genealogies of officials from Elkab recorded in inscriptions, and on this basis it is suggested that Horemkhauef s tomb was prepared between 1650 and 1630. If his visit to the Residence took place at the beginning of a twenty-year tenure of high office, it may date to between 1670 and 1650, at least fifteen years after the end of the reign of Memeferra Ay in 1685.
Three small cemeteries at the mouth of the Faiyum Oasis (Maiyana, Abusir el-Melek, and Gurob) date to the period of the wars between the Hyksos and the Thebans, which is otherwise represented only at Memphis. These Faiyum burials are Egyptian in character, with the bodies laid extended in rectangular coffins. At Gurob, two burials contain Kerma-ware pottery, indicating that they may belong to Kerma Nubians serving in the Theban army (see below). One intact burial at Abusir contained a scarab of the Hyksos ruler Khyan, which provides a terminus post quern for the burial.
The pottery at Maiyana (a small cemetery of men, women, and children, situated close to Sedment el-Gebel) includes cylindrical combed Tell el-Yahudiya juglets, like those in stratum D/2 at Tell el-Dab'a, as well as imported Cypriote base-ring I juglets, like those in the earliest i8th-Dynasty strata both at Tell el-Dab'a and at Memphis. There are no weapons, apart from a throwstick, but the use of sheepskins and the decoration of the dead with feathers and flowers is not typically Egyptian. This small cemetery seems to record the short-lived existence of a foreign community, but one that was distinct from that flourishing at Avaris.
A small group of graves in the large New Kingdom cemeteries at el-Haraga and el-Riqqa provide parallels to the Maiyana-Gurob-Abusir el-Melek-Memphis pottery corpus and confirm that there is a shortlived but distinct archaeological phase marking the transition between the final phase of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the i8th Dynasty in this region. Roughly 130 years before this period of transition, the king moved his Residence from Itjtawy to Thebes. Even before this defining event took place, the sacred spaces at the mortuary complexes of the 12th-Dynasty kings began to be encroached upon, as the cults of the royal ancestors ceased to be celebrated. At Lisht, however, the cemetery (and possibly its settlement) continued in use until the end of the Second Intermediate Period. If the life of the necropolis paralleled that of the Residence, then it too continued in some form.
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