Page 166 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1720-1650 b.c.] The Princes of the Desert 137

in the one lost battle against the Hyksos were not persuaded.
They were old men now, too old to work the fields, content to
sit in the sun outside their adobe huts and to remember the
time when Egypt had been its own master. And often as they sat
their gaze would turn towards the south, as though something
might some day appear there.

This chapter is largely myth—but with a very solid basis of
fact. It is acknowledged fact that the Egyptian Twelfth Dynasty
ended with Sebeknefrure, wife of Amenemhet IV, in 1776 b.c.
(the date is only disputed within very close limits), and that the
succeeding Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties reigned simul­
taneously in the south and north, from Thebes and Memphis re­
spectively. Somewhat untrustworthy lists name a large number
of kings in both dynasties; the names suggest that both claimed
continuity with the foregoing Twelfth Dynasty.
The invasion of the Hyksos is a historical event, and later
Egyptian writings make clear the bitterness with which it was
recalled. Lists of kings, inscriptions, and later histories are agreed
that the Hyksos came from the east, that some at least of the
kings had Semitic names, and that, while there were Bedouin
among them, there were also peoples of previously unknown race.
That the Hyksos introduced the horse chariot into Egypt is a fact,
though it is uncertain whether they possessed it at the actual
time of invasion. The precise date of the Hyksos invasion is dis­
puted, within the range of about 1730-1660 b.c. While I have
tried not to be too precise, I have assumed the date most gener­
ally agreed on, about 1700-1690. I have assumed an Amorite-
Canaanite-North-Arabian-FIurrian-Indo-European mixture for
the Hyksos, the result of the formation of a strong Semitic power
in the Palestine region under pressure from the Hurrians now
established in northern Syria. It is not my own idea, and would
be generally accepted by students of the period. It is confirmed
by the strong castles that archaeology attests were being built
at about that time in Palestine. The entry of the Hyksos as the
allies of the north against the south, and their usurpation there­
after of power is unsupported by evidence, but is inherently not
unlikely. Nor is it my own original idea. There is some discussion