Page 221 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

the picture in the north became clear.

Amose, with the largest army Egypt ever had known, lay

before Avaris. But his sappers and miners had been unable to
make any impression on the moats and ramparts of the fortress

city, and his fleet of river vessels could not maintain an effective

blockade on the seaward side. The Hyksos were effectively con­
tained, however, and the rest of Egypt had submitted with en­

thusiasm to a king of Egyptian race.

There were exceptions. In a number of the nomes, the

earldoms into which Egypt had from ancient times been divided,
the nobles appointed by the Hyksos still ruled. They were often

collaborators, members of the hereditary nobility of the nome

who had made their peace with the Hyksos and kept their lands,
even in the south, but who, when Sekenenre’s rising commenced,

had changed sides sufficiently promptly to retain their position,

at least until Amose had time to deal with them. One of these,

Aata, from a province up-river from Thebes, showed his hand
while Amose was tied down before Avaris and upper Egypt was

denuded of troops. He raised his own army of retainers, manned

a river fleet, and sailed north against Thebes.

He had reckoned without the queens. The dowager Ahotep
and her daughter Nefertari gathered what troops they could and

held off the rebel. And Amose, leaving the bulk of his army to

continue the siege, hurried south by river with a picked force
and, fighting from his ships, cut the fleet and army of Aata to

pieces. Then he hurried back to the siege, with scarcely time to

visit Thebes and confer with his mother and wife before he left.

The following year the Hyksos king capitulated—on terms.
He would surrender Avaris, but he himself and his whole army

were to be allowed to march out and to cross unmolested into

their native realm of Palestine.

Amose accepted the terms, waited until the Hyksos troops
had passed the frontier—and then followed. Both he and his