1.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
2.
Thebes, Egypt
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Thebes, known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, was an ancient Egyptian city located east of the Nile about 800 kilometers south of the Mediterranean. Its ruins lie within the modern Egyptian city of Luxor, Thebes was the main city of the fourth Upper Egyptian nome. It was close to Nubia and the desert, with their valuable mineral resources. It was a center and the wealthiest city of ancient Egypt at its heyday. The Ancient Egyptians originally knew Thebes as Wose or Wase A was was the scepter of the pharaohs, a staff with an animals head. Thebes is the Latinized form of the Greek Thebai, the form of the Demotic Egyptian Ta-pe. This was the name not for the city itself but for the Karnak temple complex on the northern east bank of the city. As early as Homers Iliad, the Greeks distinguished the Egyptian Thebes as Thebes of the Hundred Gates, as opposed to the Thebes of the Seven Gates in Boeotia, from the end of the New Kingdom, Thebes was known in Egyptian as Niwt-Imn, the City of Amun. Amun was the chief of the Theban Triad of gods whose other members were Mut and this name appears in the Bible as the Nōʼ ʼĀmôn of the Book of Nahum and probably also as the No mentioned in Ezekiel and Jeremiah. In the interpretatio graeca, Amun was seen as a form of Zeus, the name was therefore translated into Greek as Diospolis, the City of Zeus. To distinguish it from the other cities by this name. The Greek names came into use after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great. Thebes was located along the banks of the Nile River in the part of Upper Egypt about 800 km from the Delta. It was built largely on the plains of the Nile Valley which follows a great bend of the Nile. As a natural consequence, the city was laid in a northeast-southwest axis parallel to the river channel. Thebes had an area of 93 km2 which included parts of the Theban Hills in the west that culminates at the sacred 420-meter al-Qurn, in the east lies the mountainous Eastern Desert with its wadis draining into the valley. Significant of these wadis is Wadi Hammamat near Thebes and it was used as an overland trade route going to the Red Sea coast. In the fourth Upper Egyptian nome, Thebes was found to have neighboring towns such as Per-Hathor, Madu, Djerty, Iuny, Sumenu, according to George Modelski, Thebes had about 40,000 inhabitants in 2000 BC
3.
Egyptian Museum
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The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or Museum of Cairo, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with an amount on display. The edifice is one of the largest museums in the region, as of February 2017, the museum is open to the public. The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities contains many important pieces of ancient Egyptian history and it houses the world’s largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities. The Egyptian government established the museum, built in 1835 near the Ezbekeyah Garden, in 1855 Archduke Maximilian of Austria was given all of the artifacts by the Egyptian government, these are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. A new museum was established at Boulaq in 1858 in a former warehouse, the building lay on the bank of the Nile River, and in 1878 it suffered significant damage in a flood of the Nile River. In 1891, the collections were moved to a royal palace. They remained there until 1902 when they were moved, for the last time, during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the museum was broken into, and two mummies were destroyed. Several artifacts were shown to have been damaged. Since then 25 objects have been found and those that were restored were put on display in September 2013 in an exhibition entitled Damaged and Restored. There are two floors in the museum, the ground floor and the first floor. On the ground there is an extensive collection of papyrus. The numerous pieces of papyrus are generally small fragments, due to their decay over the past two millennia, several languages are found on these pieces, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, and ancient Egyptian. The coins found on floor are made of many different metals, including gold, silver. The coins are not only Egyptian, but also Greek, Roman and this has helped historians research the history of Ancient Egyptian trade. Also on the floor are artifacts from the New Kingdom. These artifacts are generally larger than items created in earlier centuries, two special rooms contain a number of mummies of kings and other royal family members of the New Kingdom. In the garden adjacent to the building of the museum a memorial to famous egyptologists of the world is located, the Murder of Tutankhamen, A True Story
4.
Edfu
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Edfu is an Egyptian city, located on the west bank of the Nile River between Esna and Aswan, with a population of approximately sixty thousand people. For the ancient history of the city, see below, Edfu is the site of the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus and an ancient settlement, Tell Edfu. About 5 km north of Edfu are remains of ancient pyramids, the town is known for the major Ptolemaic temple, built between 237 BC and 57 BC, into the reign of Cleopatra VII. Of all the remains in Egypt, the Temple of Horus at Edfu is the most completely preserved. Built from sandstone blocks, the huge Ptolemaic temple was constructed over the site of a smaller New Kingdom temple, oriented east to west, facing towards the river. The later structure faces north to south and leaves the remains of the older temple pylon to be seen on the east side of the first court. The remains of the ancient settlement of Edfu are situated about 50 m to the west of the Ptolemaic temple - to the left of the temple pylon. This settlement is known as Wetjeset-hor and the Latin name was Apollinopolis Magna, according to Notitia Dignitatum, part of Legio II Traiana Fortis was camped in Apollo superior, which was the Roman name for the town. Although unassuming and unglamorous to the tourists, Tell Edfu is a monument that contains evidence of more Egyptian history and is of more archaeological interest than the Ptolemaic temple. The remains of the settlement provides an insight into the development of Edfu as a town from the end of the Old Kingdom until the Byzantine period. The settlement at Edfu was the capital of the Second Upper Egypt nome, the oldest part of the town which can be dated to the late Old Kingdom lies on the eastern part of the tell, not far from the Ptolemaic temple. There is evidence that the town flourished during the First Intermediate Period when it expanded extensively to the west, interestingly, it is one of few settlements in southern Egypt that throve when it seems that the north, especially around the delta, was in economic decline. A central part of the site was explored by Henri Henne from the Institute for Egyptology in Lille in 1921 and 1922 and his team identified the remains of a small sanctuary from the Late or Ptolemaic period, possibly the Osiris chapel built by Psamtek I. Henne was followed by Octave Guéraud in 1928 then by Maurice Alliot in 1931 who each explored and excavated different aspects of the settlement remains, bruyère, J. Manteuffel and Kazimierz Michałowski, and three elaborate reports on the archaeology of Tell Edfu were published. Unfortunately, since no new detailed discoveries or thorough research has been completed at the tell except for recent work done by Barry Kemp. Since 2001, the Tell Edfu project has been directed by Nadine Moeller, the current work focuses on the eastern part of the site. Latter dates to the Second Intermediate Period, at least seven large round silos have been excavated here with a diameter between 5.5 and 6.5 meters which makes them the largest ones so far discovered within an ancient Egyptian urban centre. No larger remains dating earlier than the 5th Dynasty have been found at Edfu, the ancient cemetery comprised mastabas of the Old Kingdom as well as later tombs
5.
Egyptian temple
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Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of the gods and in commemoration of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt and regions under Egyptian control. Temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated and these rituals were seen as necessary for the gods to continue to uphold maat, the divine order of the universe. Housing and caring for the gods were the obligations of pharaohs, nevertheless, a temple was an important religious site for all classes of Egyptians, who went there to pray, give offerings, and seek oracular guidance from the god dwelling within. The most important part of the temple was the sanctuary, which contained a cult image. These edifices are among the largest and most enduring examples of Egyptian architecture and their typical design consisted of a series of enclosed halls, open courts, and massive entrance pylons aligned along the path used for festival processions. Beyond the temple proper was a wall enclosing a wide variety of secondary buildings. A large temple also owned sizable tracts of land and employed thousands of laymen to supply its needs, temples were therefore key economic as well as religious centers. The priests who managed these powerful institutions wielded considerable influence, temple-building in Egypt continued despite the nations decline and ultimate loss of independence to the Roman Empire. With the coming of Christianity, however, Egyptian religion faced increasing persecution, for centuries, the ancient buildings suffered destruction and neglect. Dozens of temples survive today, and some have become world-famous tourist attractions that contribute significantly to the modern Egyptian economy, Egyptologists continue to study the surviving temples and the remains of destroyed ones, as they are invaluable sources of information about ancient Egyptian society. Ancient Egyptian temples were meant as places for the gods to reside on earth, indeed, the term the Egyptians most commonly used to describe the temple building, ḥwt-nṯr, means mansion of a god. A gods presence in the temple linked the human and divine realms and these rituals, it was believed, sustained the god and allowed it to continue to play its proper role in nature. They were therefore a key part of the maintenance of maat, maintaining maat was the entire purpose of Egyptian religion, and it was the purpose of a temple as well. Because he was credited with divine power himself, the pharaoh, as a king, was regarded as Egypts representative to the gods. Thus, it was theoretically his duty to perform the temple rites, the pharaoh was nevertheless obligated to maintain, provide for, and expand the temples throughout his realm. Although the pharaoh delegated his authority, the performance of rituals was still an official duty. The participation of the populace in most ceremonies was prohibited. Much of the lay religious activity in Egypt instead took place in private and community shrines, however, as the primary link between the human and divine realms, temples attracted considerable veneration from ordinary Egyptians
6.
Qift
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Qift is a small town in the Qena Governorate of Egypt about 43 km north of Luxor, on the east bank of the Nile. In ancient Egypt, Qift, known then as Gebtu, was an important center for administration, religion, from Qift and Qus, trading expeditions heading for the Red Sea and many mining expeditions into the Eastern Desert left the Nile Valley. Gebtu was at the starting-point of the two great routes leading to the coast of the Red Sea, the one toward the port Tââou. Gebtu was the most important religious center in the area and its principal male deity was Min, a sky-god whose symbol was a thunderbolt. He became a fertility deity, and also was regarded as the male deity of the desert region to the east. His cult rose to prominence in the Middle Kingdom, at that time, he became associated with Horus as the deity, Min-Horus. Later, he was fused with Amen in the deity Min-Amen-ka-Mut-ef, Gebtu, once politically important, especially under the eleventh dynasty, was overshadowed by Thebes. It recuperated its prominence under the Antonines, it was the camp of Legio III Cyrenaica. It rebelled, but soon was captured in 292 by Diocletian after a siege and almost destroyed. In the 6th century, Qift was renamed Justinianopolis, like other cities. Under the Muslim caliphs and the sultans, Qift remained one of the cities of Upper Egypt. In the 13th century, there still were numerous monasteries around the city, Qift was ruined in the 16th century by the Ottomans. Qift was the focus of an American archaeological project from 1987 to 1992, the undecorated northern temple of Min and Isis dates to the Ptolemaic period. Earlier structures on the date back to the Middle Kingdom. The temple was rebuilt during the Ptolemaic Period, the later work has been attributed to an official named Sennuu-shepsi on behalf of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. This northern temple has some additions by Ptolemy IV Philopator ruling from 221-205 BC. He was the son of Ptolemy III and Berenice II of Egypt and was the pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Egypt. More additions were added by Julio-Claudian emperors of Rome, Caligula, the second pylon still carries the dedication text of Nero, and the cartouche of Caligula appears on the north end of this structure
7.
Horus
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Horus is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom, different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a falcon or peregrine falcon. In another tradition Hathor is regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife, Horus served many functions, most notably being a god of the sky, war and hunting. Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as ḥr. w Falcon, additional meanings are thought to have been the distant one or one who is above, over. As the language changed over time, it appeared in Coptic dialects variously as hoːɾ or ħoːɾ and was adopted into ancient Greek as Ὧρος Hōros and it also survives in Late Egyptian and Coptic theophoric names such as Har-si-ese Horus, Son of Isis. Nekheny may have been another falcon god worshipped at Nekhen, city of the falcon, Horus may be shown as a falcon on the Narmer Palette, dating from about the 31st century BC. In early Egypt, Horus was the brother of Isis, Osiris, Set, as different cults formed, he became the son of Isis and Osiris. Isis remained the sister of Osiris, Set and Nephthys, the Pyramid Texts describe the nature of the pharaoh in different characters as both Horus and Osiris. The pharaoh as Horus in life became the pharaoh as Osiris in death, New incarnations of Horus succeeded the deceased pharaoh on earth in the form of new pharaohs. The lineage of Horus, the product of unions between the children of Atum, may have been a means to explain and justify pharaonic power. The gods produced by Atum were all representative of cosmic and terrestrial forces in Egyptian life, the notion of Horus as the pharaoh seems to have been superseded by the concept of the pharaoh as the son of Ra during the Fifth Dynasty. Once Isis knew she was pregnant with Horus, she fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set, who jealously killed Osiris, there Isis bore a divine son, Horus. Since Horus was said to be the sky, he was considered to contain the sun. It became said that the sun was his eye and the moon his left, and that they traversed the sky when he. Later, the reason that the moon was not as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as the The Contendings of Horus and Seth. As Horus was the victor he became known as ḥr. w wr Horus the Great. In the struggle, Set had lost a testicle, explaining why the desert, Horus left eye had also been gouged out, then a new eye was created by part of Khonsu, the moon god, and was replaced
8.
Henry Salt (Egyptologist)
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Henry Salt was an English artist, traveller, collector of antiquities, diplomat, and Egyptologist. Salt, the son of a physician, was born in Lichfield on 14 June 1780 and he trained as a portrait painter, first in Lichfield and then in London under Joseph Farington and John Hoppner. In 1802 he was appointed secretary and draughtsman to George Annesley and they started on an eastern tour, traveling on the British East India Companys extra ship Minerva to India via the Cape Colony. Salt explored the Red Sea area, and in 1805 visited the Ethiopian highlands and he returned to England on 26 October 1806. Salts paintings from the trip were used to Valentias Voyages and Travels to India, the originals of all the drawings were kept by Valentia, as also the copper plates after Salts death. The format and style of the plates is similar to Thomas and William Daniells work, Salt returned to Ethiopia in 1809 on a government mission to explore trade and diplomatic links with the Tigrayan warlord Ras Wolde Selassie. He later returned and continued a friendship with the Ethiopian warlord Sabagadis, in 1815 Salt was appointed British consul-general in Cairo. But Salt was not easily discouraged and resorting to the methods as his rival. Thanks to his assistants, Salt was able to build up his important collection in just two years, Salt also managed to assemble a third collection, containing 1,083 objects. It was sold by auction, largely to the British Museum, in 1835, Salt was portrayed by Robert Portal in the 2005 BBC docudrama Egypt. Henry Salt, Artist, Traveller, Diplomat, Egyptologist
9.
Diadem
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A diadem is a type of crown, specifically an ornamental headband worn by monarchs and others as a badge of royalty. The word derives from the Greek διάδημα diádēma, band or fillet, from διαδέω diadéō, I bind round, such ribbons were also used to crown victorious athletes in important sports games in antiquity. It was later applied to a crown, generally in a circular or fillet shape. For example, the worn by Juliana was a diadem. The ancient Celts were believed to have used a thin, semioval gold plate called a mind as a diadem. Some of the earliest examples of types of crowns can be found in ancient Egypt, from the simple fabric type to the more elaborate metallic type. A diadem is also a jewelled ornament in the shape of a crown, worn by women. In some societies, it may be a wreath worn around the head, the ancient Persians wore a high and erect royal tiara encircled with a diadem. Hera, queen of the Greek gods, wore a crown called the diadem. By extension, diadem can be used generally for an emblem of power or dignity. The head regalia worn by Roman Emperors, from the time of Diocletian onwards, is described as a diadem in the original sources and it was this object that the Foederatus general Odoacer returned to Emperor Zeno after his expulsion of the usurper Romulus Augustus from Rome in 476 CE. Civic crown Tainia Fillet Tiara Diadem
10.
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
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The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden is the national archaeological museum of the Netherlands. The Museum grew out of the collection of Leiden University and still closely co-operates with its Faculty of Archaeology. The museum calls itself the center for archaeology, and focuses on ancient Egypt, the ancient Near East, the classical world of Greece, Etruria and Rome. The collection of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden began with an inheritance in 1743, after the death of Gerard van Papenbroek his collection was bequeathed to Leiden University. The bequest comprised about 150 antiquities and was published in 1746 by a professor of the university and it was put on public display, but poorly taken care of until half a century later it would finally get an official curator. Caspar Reuvens, the worlds first archaeology professor, along with his duties as a professor at the university came the care of the archaeological cabinet, then consisting mainly of the Papenbroek inheritance. Reuvens quickly added other collections from both within and outside Leiden to the universitys antiquities, Antiquities from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam were transferred to Leiden with government support in 1825. Some pieces from the Thoms Collection were among the favorites of the director of the Amsterdam museum and it was agreed that these would not be moved to Leiden until after his directorship. These became part of the Leiden collection in 1844, in 1826 a collection of prehistorical materials arrived from the Museum of Natural History. The growth of the National Museum of Antiquities would prove to be depended much more upon foreign investments, despite the gathering of antiquities from various Dutch organizations, the really important additions to the museum would come from buying personal collections. Among the first of these was the first Rottiers Collection and it belonged to a retired Flemish colonel who had begun collecting during a stay in Athens. In 1820 this collection was offered to the government of the Low Countries, Reuvens was enthusiastic about the collection because it contained original Greek sculpture and Greek pottery, categories which lacked in the Leiden collection until then. Cautioning the ministry not to buy at any price, the Rottiers collection was sold for the sum of 12,000 guilders. In 1822 Rottiers sold a collection, of smaller importance. The best piece in this collection would later turn out to be a modern cast of a marble head, with both the first and the second Rottiers collections the origins would remain shady. In both cases it was hinted or outright claimed that Rottiers respectively his son had dug up at least part of the antiquities themselves, however, in both cases it would turn out that perhaps all of the collection was bought. Rottiers also repeatedly admitted to selling forgeries and misleading buyers, but told Reuvens that he would never do so to him, from 1824 to 1826 Rottiers made a journey through the Mediterranean, paid for by the ministry. This journey was Rottiers own idea, and the purpose of it was to buy antiquities, Reuvens, who was not very enthusiastic about this project, was asked to provide Rottiers with instructions
11.
Pharaoh
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The word pharaoh ultimately derive from the Egyptian compound pr-ˤ3 great house, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr house and ˤ3 column, here meaning great or high. It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-ˤ3 Courtier of the High House, with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace. From the twelfth dynasty onward, the word appears in a wish formula Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health, but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person. During the reign of Thutmose III in the New Kingdom, after the rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period. During the eighteenth dynasty the title pharaoh was employed as a designation of the ruler. From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-ˤ3 on its own was used as regularly as hm. f, the term, therefore, evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty. For instance, the first dated appearance of the pharaoh being attached to a rulers name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun and this new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-second dynasty kings. Shoshenq I was the successor of Siamun. Meanwhile, the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as pr-ˤ3 continued in traditional Egyptian narratives, by this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence Herodotus derived the name of one of the Egyptian kings, Φερων. In the Bible, the title also occurs as פרעה, from that, Septuagint φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō, both -n stem nouns. The Quran likewise spells it فرعون firawn with n, interestingly, the Arabic combines the original pharyngeal ayin sound from Egyptian, along with the -n ending from Greek. English at first spelt it Pharao, but the King James Bible revived Pharaoh with h from the Hebrew, meanwhile in Egypt itself, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ prro and then rro. Scepters and staves were a sign of authority in ancient Egypt. One of the earliest royal scepters was discovered in the tomb of Khasekhemwy in Abydos, kings were also known to carry a staff, and Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on stone vessels carrying a so-called mks-staff. The scepter with the longest history seems to be the heqa-scepter, the earliest examples of this piece of regalia dates to pre-dynastic times. A scepter was found in a tomb at Abydos that dates to the late Naqada period, another scepter associated with the king is the was-scepter. This is a long staff mounted with an animal head, the earliest known depictions of the was-scepter date to the first dynasty
12.
Hyksos
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The Hyksos were a people of mixed origins from Western Asia, who settled in the eastern Nile Delta, some time before 1650 BC. The arrival of the Hyksos led to the end of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt, in the context of Ancient Egypt, the term Asiatic – which is often used of the Hyksos – may refer to any people native to areas east of Egypt. Immigration by Canaanite populations preceded the Hyksos, canaanites first appeared in Egypt towards the end of the 12th Dynasty c.1800 BC, and either around that time or c.1720 BC, established an independent realm in the eastern Nile Delta. The Canaanite rulers of the Delta, regrouped in the Fourteenth Dynasty, coexisted with the Egyptian Thirteenth Dynasty, the power of the 13th and 14th Dynasties progressively waned, perhaps due to famine and plague. In about 1650 BC, both dynasties were invaded by the Hyksos, who formed the Fifteenth Dynasty. The collapse of the Thirteenth Dynasty created a vacuum in the south, which may have led to the rise of the Sixteenth Dynasty, based in Thebes. The Hyksos eventually conquered both, albeit for only a time in the case of Thebes. From then on, the 17th Dynasty took control of Thebes and reigned for some time in peaceful coexistence with the Hyksos kings, eventually, Seqenenre Tao, Kamose and Ahmose waged war against the Hyksos and expelled Khamudi, their last king, from Egypt c.1550 BC. The Hyksos practiced horse burials, and their deity, their native storm god, Baal, became associated with the Egyptian storm and desert god. The Hyksos were a people of mixed Asiatic origin with mainly Semitic-speaking components, although some scholars have suggested that the Hyksos contained a Hurrian component, most other scholars have dismissed this possibility. The Hyksos brought several innovations to Egypt, as well as cultural infusions such as new musical instruments. The changes introduced include new techniques of working and pottery, new breeds of animals. In warfare, they introduced the horse and chariot, the bow, improved battle axes. Because of these advances, Hyksos rule became decisive for Egypt’s later empire in the Middle East. There are various hypotheses as to the Hyksos ethnic identity, most archaeologists describe the Hyksos as multi-ethnic, to include all of the peoples who occupied the Nile Delta. The origin of the term Hyksos derives from the Egyptian expression hekau khaswet, the German Egyptologist Wolfgang Helck once argued that the Hyksos were part of massive and widespread Hurrian and Indo-Aryan migrations into the Near East. According to Helck, the Hyksos were Hurrians and part of a Hurrian empire that, most scholars have rejected this theory, and Helck himself abandoned this hypothesis in a 1993 article. The Hyksos were likely Semites who came from the Eastern Mediterranean, khyans name has generally been interpreted as Amorite Hayanu which the Egyptian form represents perfectly, and this is in all likelihood the correct interpretation
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