Egypt - Thebes-Hyksos Period

  General Description   During the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1720‒1567 BCE), or alternatively ’the Hyksos period and the Era of the Second Theban Petty State’, ^[1] Egypt as a whole once again experienced a phase of political decentralization, split into regions controlled by competing dynasties. The Hyksos (Fifteenth Dynasty) occupied the north. The Hyksos were a non-native Egyptian ruling clan who invaded Egypt from the Levant, establishing a military and bureaucratic stronghold at Avaris in the Nile Delta. ^[2] The area subject to Hyksos authority spread west and east across the delta and, at the polity’s peak in the mid-16th century BCE, probably reached as far south as Middle Egypt. ^[3] The Nile Valley south of Hermopolis was dominated by a rival power, the Theban kings of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties. ^{[4] [5]}
Population and political organization
Political fragmentation characterizes Egypt after the Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos invasion. In Upper Egypt, the Theban kingdom ruled by Egyptians (the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties) claimed a continuity with the Middle Kingdom, lasting about 100 years up to the end of the period. ^{[6] [7]} Egyptian archaeologist Josef Wegner has proposed based on finds near Abydos that a short-lived independent kingdom, an ’Abydos Dynasty’, existed alongside the Theban Sixteenth Dynasty but ’lost their independence as part of political events that led up to the Theban ascendancy’ of the Seventeenth Dynasty. ^[8]
Unfortunately, due to the disjointed nature of Egyptian politics at the time and the inconsistent material, ^[5] very little can be said about the population of the region during this period. The provincial organization of Theban Egypt at this time saw the king employ garrison commanders side-by-side with governors, or sometimes combined into one office. This may suggest ’a general militarization of the provinces’. ^[9] The governors of the provinces were often married directly into the family of the Upper Egyptian king. ^[9] At this time Upper Egypt was relatively poor and weak in relation to Lower Egypt. Among the achievements of the Hyksos administration at Avaris was the copying of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, which required a scribe trained to the highest degree of skill and with access to a specialized mathematical archive, most likely at the Temple of Ptah at Memphis. ^[10] By contrast, although they carried out renovations of ancient Egyptian temples and portrayed themselves as restorers of order and harmony in the old pharaonic style, the Theban rulers and elite were cut off from the scholarly legacy of the Middle Kingdom because they lacked access to the centres of scribal learning at Memphis. ^[11] In order to maintain the crucial funerary rituals, they were obliged to create new compilations of texts (including one of the earliest known examples of the spell book we know as the Book of the Dead. ^[12]

[1]: (Morenz and Popko 2010, 102) Ludwig D. Morenz and Lutz Popko. 2010. ’The Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 101-19. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[2]: (Bourriau 2003, 173) Janine Bourriau. 2003. ’The Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650-1550 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 172-206. Oxford. Oxford University Press.

[3]: (Bourriau 2003, 182) Janine Bourriau. 2003. ’The Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650-1550 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 172-206. Oxford. Oxford University Press.

[4]: (Lloyd 2010, xxxv) Alan B. Lloyd. 2010. ’Chronology’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, xxxii-xliii. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[5]: (Bourriau 2003, 172-73) Janine Bourriau. 2003. ’The Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650-1550 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 172-206. Oxford. Oxford University Press.

[6]: (Wegner 2015, 68) Josef Wegner. 2015. ’A Royal Necropolis at South Abydos: New Light on Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period’. Near Eastern Archaeology 78 (2): 68-78.

[7]: (Morenz and Popko 2010, 106-08) Ludwig D. Morenz and Lutz Popko. 2010. ’The Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 101-19. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

[8]: (Wegner 2015, 73) Josef Wegner. 2015. ’A Royal Necropolis at South Abydos: New Light on Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period’. Near Eastern Archaeology 78 (2): 68-78.

[9]: (Shirley 2013, 557) J. J. Shirley. 2013. ’Crisis and Restructuring of the State: From the Second Intermediate Period to the Advent of the Ramesses’, in Ancient Egyptian Adminstration, edited by Juan Carlos Moreno García, 521-606. Leiden: Brill.

[10]: (Bourriau 2003, 181) Janine Bourriau. 2003. ’The Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650-1550 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 172-206. Oxford. Oxford University Press.

[11]: (Bourriau 2003, 188, 193) Janine Bourriau. 2003. ’The Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650-1550 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 172-206. Oxford. Oxford University Press.

[12]: (Bourriau 2003, 193) Janine Bourriau. 2003. ’The Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650-1550 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 172-206. Oxford. Oxford University Press.