Although historians have identified the 15th and 16th dynasties as Hyksos, danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt’s analysis of kings from this period listed in the Turin canon places the 16th dynasty in Thebes. These kings may have been the predecessors of the kings of the 17th dynasty, who are well attested in Theban inscriptions. At dra Abu el-naga in Western Thebes, daniel Polz of the German Archaeological Institute, cairo, has excavated the small mud-brick pyramid of a 17th-dynasty king, Intef VII. Two small obelisks of this king that were discovered by Auguste Mariette in 1860 probably came from this pyramid complex.
Ryholt also proposed the existence of a short-lived dynasty centered at Abydos (ca. 16501600 Bc), based on textual evidence. This theory has recently been confirmed by excavations of Josef Wegner (University of Pennsylvania) at Abydos, where the tomb of a king named Senebkay and another unnamed king have recently been uncovered.
Archaeological evidence from this period is also known elsewhere in Upper Egypt. At Edfu, a nome capital in southern Egypt (see 6.13), Nadine Moeller has excavated a court with 18 circular grain silos which dates to the Second Intermediate Period. Some of these silos were built over an earlier columned hall from an administrative complex of the late Middle Kingdom, but with no large centralized state in the 17th dynasty, the town of Edfu had its own reserve of grain.
In 1900 George Reisner, directing the Hearst Expedition, excavated a late Second Intermediate palace complex at deir el-Ballas in Upper Egypt, and in the 1980s the complex was re-examined by Peter Lacovara (Carlos Museum, Emory University). The largest structure excavated there was the “North Palace” surrounded by an enclosure wall, ca. 300 x 150 meters, with a nearby court which contained two granaries and a bakery. A royal residence, the North Palace was originally decorated with wall paintings (including a scene of soldiers carrying battleaxes), faience tiles, and gold leaf - all of which were found in fragments there. Three large houses to the west of the palace were also decorated with wall paintings. clusters of other houses of varying sizes were also excavated and camps may have existed on the periphery, but not all of the domestic areas have been excavated. According to Lacovara, a possible workmen’s village consisting of small houses with contiguous walls was located on the northern side of the “South Hill”; ca. 35 houses were excavated there by the Hearst Expedition and possibly more are located in the unexcavated area to the east. In the “South Wadi” area a possible administrative complex, laid out orthogonally, seems to be similar to the official quarter structures and long narrow storerooms in the central city at Amarna (see Figure 8.5). In terms of dating the deir el-Ballas site, the archaeological and inscriptional evidence, including a lintel found in the nearby village with the name of the
Late 17th Dynasty king Taa, indicates that it was a “campaign palace” used by the Theban kings as they expanded their kingdom northward to conquer the Hyksos. It was abandoned in the early 18th dynasty, by which time the Egyptian kingdom controlled all of Egypt. In the Wadi el-Hol, an overland Western desert route between Thebes and Hu in upper Egypt, and another route to Kharga oasis, John and deborah darnell (the Theban desert Survey, Yale university) have found evidence of fortified towers, which can be dated by associated 17th-Dynasty sealings. Both Kerma Ware and c-Group pottery have been excavated at these towers, providing evidence of Nubian soldiers employed there by the Theban kingdom. An earlier script carved on rock in the Wadi el-Hol, which John darnell dates to the reign of Amenemhat III and the 13 th dynasty, was used to write a West Semitic language. darnell has proposed that this is the earliest known alphabetic writing (earlier than the Serabit Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions; see 7.9), an invention that may have been the result of interaction between Egyptian scribes and soldiers from southwest Asia who were in the service of the Egyptian army during the late Middle Kingdom.
More recently at the site of umm el-Mawagir in Kharga oasis the Yale expedition has found a large site (ca. 88 hectares) with mud-brick buildings, including an administrative complex and a large bakery - with an estimated half-ton of ceramic bread molds - dating to the Second Intermediate Period. The site was located along a major trade route from the Theban kingdom in southern Egypt southward into Sudan and several thousand people may have lived there. According to John darnell, with Thebes extending its control to the desert caravan routes to the west, the polity may have gained an advantage against the Hyksos in northern Egypt. War with the Hyksos is first known from the reign of (Seqenenra) Taa, whose mummy demonstrates a violent death, with an ax cut on his forehead (in addition to dagger cuts). Texts from the reign of Taa’s successor Kamose, the last king of the 17th dynasty, place the boundary with the Hyksos kingdom in Middle Egypt at Cusae. This king began the reconquest and reoccupation of Nubia, and two Theban stelae describe his campaign northward against the Hyksos.
Ahmose I, Kamose’s successor and the first king of the 18th dynasty, finally conquered the Hyksos capital at Avaris. He continued campaigning in southwest Asia, and then fought Nubian bowmen below the Second Cataract, which are described in a detailed biographical text at the Elkab tomb of Ahmose, son of Ibana. It was Ahmose I who began the Egyptian palace at Avaris, symbolically built on the site of the earlier Hyksos fortress (see 7.11). Beginning with the reigns of Taa and Kamose, the conquest of the Hyksos was not completed until ca. year 18 of Ahmose’s reign - with the expulsion of the Hyksos rulers taking over 20 years to succeed.
World History
