Sanchuniathon (Greek: Σαγχουνιάθων; gen.: Σαγχουνιάθωνος) is the purported Phoenician author of three lost works originally in the Phoenician language, surviving only in partial paraphrase and summary of a Greek translation by Philo of Byblos, according to the Christian bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. These few fragments comprise the most extended literary source concerning Phoenician religion in either Greek or Latin: Phoenician sources, along with all of Phoenician literature, were lost with the parchment on which they were habitually written. He is also known as Sancuniates.

The author[edit]

All our knowledge of Sanchuniathon and his work comes from Eusebius's Praeparatio Evangelica, (I. chs ix-x)^[1] which contains some information about him along with the only surviving excerpts from his writing, as summarized and quoted from his supposed translator, Philo of Byblos.

Eusebius also quotes the neo-Platonist writer Porphyry as stating that Sanchuniathon of Berytus (Beirut) wrote the truest history about the Jews because he obtained records from "Hierombalus" ("Jerubbaal"? or "Hiram'baal" ?) priest of the god Ieuo (Yahweh), that Sanchuniathon dedicated his history to Abibalus king of Berytus, and that it was approved by the king and other investigators, the date of this writing being before the Trojan war^[2] (around 1200 BC) approaching close to the time of Moses, "when Semiramis was queen of the Assyrians."^[3] Thus Sanchuniathon is placed firmly in the mythic context of the pre-Homeric heroic age, an antiquity from which no other Greek or Phoenician writings are known to have survived to the time of Philo. Curiously, however, he is made to refer disparagingly toHesiod at one point, who lived in Greece ca. 700 BC.

The supposed Sanchuniathon claimed to have based his work on "collections of secret writings of the Ammouneis^[4] discovered in the shrines", sacred lore deciphered from mystic inscriptions on the pillars which stood in the Phoenician temples, lore which exposed the truth—later covered up by invented allegories and myths—that the gods were originally human beings who came to be worshipped after their deaths and that the Phoenicians had taken what were originally names of their kings and applied them to elements of the cosmos (compare euhemerism) as well as also worshipping forces of nature and the sun, moon, and stars. Eusebius' intent in mentioning Sanchuniathon is to discredit pagan religion based on such foundations.

This rationalizing euhemeristic slant and the emphasis on Beirut, a city of great importance in the late classical period but apparently of little importance in ancient times, suggests that the work itself is not nearly as old as it claims to be. Some have suggested it was forged by Philo of Byblos himself, or assembled from various traditions and presented within an authenticating pseudepigraphical format, in order to give the material more believable weight. Or Philo may have translated genuine Phoenician works ascribed to an ancient writer known as Sanchuniathon, but in fact written in more recent times. This judgement is echoed by the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which wrote that Sanchuniathon "belongs more to legend than to history."^{[citation needed]}

Not all readers have taken such a critical view. Squier Payne remarked in a preface to Richard Cumberland's Sanchoniatho's Phoenician History (1720)

The Humour which prevail'd with several learned Men to reject Sanchuniatho as a counterfeit because they knew not what to make of him, his Lordship always blam'd Philo Byblius, Porphyry and Eusebius, who were better able to judge than any Moderns, never call in question his being genuine.^[5]

However that may be,^[6] much of what has been preserved in this writing, despite the euhemeristic interpretation given it, turned out to be supported by the Ugaritic mythological texts excavated at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) in Syria since 1929; Otto Eissfeldt demonstrated in 1952^[7] that it does incorporate genuine Semitic elements that can now be related to the Ugaritic texts, some of which is shown in our versions of Sanchuniathon, remained unchanged since the second millennium BC. The modern consensus is that Philo's treatment of Sanchuniathon offered a Hellenistic view of Phoenician materials^[8] written between the time of Alexander the Great and the first century BC, if it was not a literary invention of Philo.^[9]

In what follows, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether Eusebius is citing Philo's translation of Sanchuniathon or speaking in his own voice. Another difficulty is the use of Greek proper names instead of Phoenician ones and the possible corruption of some of the Phoenician names that do appear. There may be other garblings.

The work[edit]

The fragments that come down to us contain:

Philosophical creation story[edit]

A philosophical creation story traced to "the cosmogony of Taautus, whom Philo explicitly identified with the Egyptian Thoth—"the first who thought of the invention of letters, and began the writing of records"—which begins with Erebus and Wind, between which Eros 'Desire' came to be. From this was produced Môt which seems to be the Phoenician/Ge'ez/Hebrew/Arabic/Ancient Egyptian word for 'Death' but which the account says may mean 'mud'. In a mixed confusion, the germs of life appear, and intelligent animals called Zophasemin (explained probably correctly as 'observers of heaven') formed together as an egg, perhaps. The account is not clear. Then Môt burst forth into light and the heavens were created and the various elements found their stations.

Following the etymological line of Jacob Bryant one might also consider with regard to the meaning of Môt, that according to the Ancient Egyptians Ma'at was the personification of the fundamental order of the universe, without which all of creation would perish. She was also considered the wife of Thoth.

Allegorical culture heroes[edit]

Copias and his wife Baau (translated as Nyx 'Night') give birth to Aeon and Protogonus ("first-born"), who are mortal men; "and that when droughts occurred, they stretched out their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him alone (he says) they regarded as god the lord of heaven, calling him Beelsamen, which is in the Phoenician language 'lord of heaven,' and in Greek 'Zeus.'" (Eusebius, I, x). A race of Titan-like mountain beings arose, "sons of surpassing size and stature, whose names were applied to the mountains which they occupied... and they got their names, he says, from their mothers, as the women in those days had free intercourse with any whom they met." Various descendants are listed, many of whom have allegorical names but are described in the quotations from Philo as mortals who first made particular discoveries or who established particular customs.

The history of the gods[edit]

The work includes a genealogy and history of various northwest Semitic deities who were widely worshipped. Many were listed in the genealogy under the names of their counterparts in the Greek pantheon (see interpretatio graeca), or in Hellenized forms of their Semitic names, or both. The additional names given for some of these deities appear usually in parentheses in the table below. Only equations made in the text appear here, but many of the hyperlinks point to the northwest Semitic deities that are probably intended. See the notes below the table for translations of the unlinked and several other names.

                                                        Elioun  =  Beruth 
                                                     (Hypsistus)|
                                                                |
                                                         +------+-----+
                                                         |            |
                                                         |            |
                                                       Uranus   =     Ge
                                                    (Epigeius)  |                              
                                                   (Autochthon) |    
                     +-----------+------------------------------+-----------+---------+--------------+--------+
                     |           |                              |           |         |              |        |
                     |           |                              |           |         |              |        |
      Anobret = Elus/Cronus  Baetylus  Uranus = (concubine) = Dagon       Atlas    Astarte = Elus = Rhea   Baaltis = Elus
              |      |                               |       (Siton)            (Aphrodite)|      |        (Dione) |
              |      |                               |   (Zeus Arotrios)                   |      |                |
        +-----+      +---------+--------+            |                +++++++-------+------+   +++++++----+        |   
        |            |         |        |            |                |||||||       |      |   |||||||    |        |
        |            |         |        |            |                |||||||       |      |   |||||||    |        |
   Iedud/Ieoud  Persephone  Athena   Sadidus      Demarûs    Sydyc = Titanides   Pothos   Eros  7 sons   Muth  daughters
                                               (Adodus/Zeus)   |   |(Artemides)                       (Thanatos)
                                                     |         |   |                                   (Pluto)
                                               +-----+   +++++++   +----+
                                               |         |||||||        |
                                               |         |||||||        |
                                          Melcarthus     Cabeiri    Asclepius
                                          (Heracles)   (Corybantes)
                                                      (Samothraces)
                                                        (Dioscuri)

                                                    Elus                               Nereus
                                                (in Peraea)                               |
                                                     |                                    |
                                     +---------------+---------------+                    |
                                     |               |               |                    |
                                     |               |               |                    |
                                Cronus (II)     Zeus Belus        Apollo                Pontus
                                                                                          |                                   
                                                                                          |
                                                                                          |
                                                                                          |
                                                                                          |
                                                                                    Sidon, Poseidon

Translations of Greek forms: arotrios, 'of husbandry, farming', autochthon (for autokhthon) 'produced from the ground', epigeius (for epigeios) 'from the earth', eros 'desire', ge 'earth', hypsistos 'most high', pluto (for plouton) 'wealthy', pontus (forpontos) 'sea', pothos 'longing', siton 'grain', thanatos 'death', uranus (for ouranos) 'sky'. Notes on etymologies: Anobret: proposed connections include ʿyn = "spring", by Renan ("Memoire", 281), and to ʿAnat rabbat = "Lady ʿAnat" by Clemen (Die phönikische Religion, 69-71);^[10] Ieoud/Iedud: perhaps from a Phoenician cognate of Hebrew yḥyd = "only" or of Hebrew ydyd = "beloved".^[10]

The Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty XVIII)^[1] (1543–1292 BC) is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt. As well as boasting a number of Egypt's most famous pharaohs, it includedTutankhamun, the finding of whose tomb by Howard Carter in 1922 was a sensational archaeological discovery despite its having been twice disturbed by tomb robbers. The dynasty is sometimes known as the Thutmosid Dynastybecause of the four pharaohs named Thutmosis (English: Thoth bore him).

As well as Tutankhamen, famous pharaohs of Dynasty XVIII include Hatshepsut (1479 BC–1458 BC), longest-reigning queen-pharaoh of an indigenous dynasty, and Akhenaten (1353–1336 BC/1351–1334 BC), the "heretic pharaoh", with his queen, Nefertiti.

Dynasty XVIII is often combined with Dynasties XIX and XX to form the New Kingdom period of ancient Egyptian history.

Dating[edit]

Radiocarbon dating suggests that Dynasty XVIII may have started a few years earlier than the conventional date of 1550 BC. The radiocarbon date range for its beginning is 1570–1544 BC, the mean point of which is 1557 BC.^[2]

Dynasty XVIII pharaohs[edit]

The pharaohs of Dynasty XVIII ruled for approximately two hundred and fifty years (c. 1550–1298 BC). The dates and names in the table are taken from Dodson and Hilton.^[3] Many of the pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings in Thebes (designated KV). More information can be found on the Theban Mapping Project website.^[4] Several diplomatic marriages are known for the New Kingdom. These daughters of foreign kings are often only mentioned in cuneiform texts and are not known from other sources. The marriages were likely a way to confirm good relations between these states.^[5]

Yahweh

by Ilil Arbel, Ph.D.

This article is not intended as a religious discussion. It relates only to the mythological and historical aspects of the use and development of the name of God. No attempt will be made to discuss the values and strengths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the three great religions that hold God as their core. Such an attempt will be well above the scope of one article; the interested reader is encouraged to pursue the wealth of material available to everyone.The name YHVH or YHWH is written with four consonants only; it is the holy Tetragrammaton, or in Hebrew, Shem Hameforash. Hebrew has no vowels. In ancient times, it didn't even have vowel points. These were added much later, and at that time pronouncing the name was already forbidden for generations. So no one knows how the most ancient name of God was pronounced. The vowel points make it sound like Yehova, and later it was anglicized to Jehovah. The reader may not say it. He or she must say instead the name Adonai, which means "My Lord." The name occurs about seven thousand times in the Bible.
Every taboo has a reason. In ancient times, names had power. If you knew the real name of an entity, you had power over it. Often, an entity had two names, one widely-known and one secret. It is quite possible that in the very early stages, Yahweh was God's secret name and was used to influence or even control Him. Later use of the Shem Hameforash in the Kabbalistic tradition points to this direction, and will be discussed later in the article.
This practice is close to magic and idol worship, so as monotheism developed and broadened, the magical use of God's name was objected to. So while the name Yahweh remains written in Jewish liturgy, Jews felt that an invisible, omnipresent, omniscient part of reality cannot have a name. Only titles are allowed: God, Most High, Holy one, etc. Today, among the Jews, Yahweh or Jehovah is never used.
To understand the relationship of the name to the entity, one must pay attention to the historic and mythic development of the concept of God, and particularly to the development of monotheism in Judaism. The most important document for such a review is the Bible. It is the core, the major source of Judaic mythology. It covers a period in the development of Judaism which was transitional between Polytheism and monotheism. The Bible is full of demigods, monsters, giants, and larger than life heroes. Animals talk and angels roam the earth, discoursing with common people. God is supreme - there is no argument that He is the Almighty, but he is not alone. This is not only part of Genesis, where creation myths would allow it, but even in the books of the prophets and in the poetry. Nor did the myths stay there. They went on into the two Talmuds, completed around 400 and 500 CE, and on to the midrashic literature and the mystical literature, all the way to the thirteenth century. These later traditions actually allow more latitude than Genesis, being considered less sacred. In Genesis, God creates the entire world by speaking. In the later literature, he commits heroic deeds and battles with such evil entities as "The Prince of Darkness," "The Prince of the Sea," and various monsters that actively object to His creation. He either kills or imprisons them, thus sealing His supremacy as the fiercest warrior God; he is not, however, the only one.
The opening act in the great epic drama of the Jews as a separate nation was the original encounter between Abraham and Yahweh. A covenant was declared. Abraham and his descendants would follow Yahweh's instructions and obey His commandments. The only commandments requested at this stage were the circumcision of all males, and the taboo on human sacrifice, as later expressed by the significant story of the Binding of Isaac. More divine demands would come later, eventually leading to the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Yahweh would treat Abraham's descendants as his Chosen People -- not better than any other nation, but certainly different. This difference is the intangible reward. The tangible reward would be the eternal possession of land of Canaan, later named the land of Israel, after Abraham's grandson, Jacob-Israel.
It was understood that other nations worshiped various gods. Idols often existed even in the households of the patriarchs, though generally ignored by them and worshiped only by other members of the household. Eventually, Yahweh won over all other gods, and became first among them, but they didn't really go away. He issued the command that He would be the only God - but the struggle with other gods and their priests and priestesses continued not only in the early and the desert years, but even later, with the Jews settled again in the land of Israel, long after Exodus. The Bible mentions them often -Asherah, Baal, Anath, El, Dagon, and many others; their temples existed side by side with the worship of Yahweh. Some even had special relationships with Him.
When Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, each tribe was gathered under its own banner -- illustrated with an image of a god. A lion was depicted on the banner of Judah, probably looking much like the Egyptian Sphinx. A serpent, named Nechushtan, was depicted on the banner of the tribe of Dan. Later, a bronze image of Nechushtan was placed in Solomon's temple -- and stayed there until much later, when King Hezekiah melted the bronze from which the idol was made. It is possible that the tribes adopted these gods during the hundreds of years they spent in Egypt. Or perhaps the tribes were never part of the descendants of Abraham that accepted Yahweh during the covenant, and only joined this loose alliance of tribes later. Possibly, the covenant never happened and was only a later myth, added to the cycle of origin stories in the Bible. No one really knows. But the images on the banners were there, showing the tribes' alliances to other gods.
The tribe of the Levites, with whom Moses was associated, was another matter altogether. They worshiped a thundering, fierce god, whose location was either Mount Horeb, or Mount Sinai. Very likely the two mountains are one and the same -- there is no proof either way. Was this god the same Yahweh, the God of Abraham? Very possibly. If not, the two entities, Yahweh of Abraham and the warrior god of the Levites were combined into one impressive entity that Moses, very likely a full-blooded Levite himself, had adopted as his own God. That is proven by the fact that later, only the Levites acted as priests toYahweh in the various Temples.
The Israelites had to physically leave Egypt to worship Yahweh. They could not, under any circumstances, worship Him in Egypt, because they could not even see him there. Exodus is very specific as to what they had to see: "They took their journey from Succoth and encamped at Etham, in the edge of the wilderness. The Lord Yahweh went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night (Exodus 13:21)." This is a clear and simple description of an active volcano- - smoke by day, fire by night.
Then, to fully prove this assumption, they gathered around this mountain, and were told that they were never to climb or touch it, on danger of death. "Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever touchesth the mount shall be surely put to death (Exodus 19:12)." The mountain must have been dangerously hot to the touch. The passage continues: "And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord Yahweh descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." Another clear description of an active volcano. And at this emotionally impressive location Moses gave the Israelites a Code of Law, and reforged a covenant which was to become the basis for the development of monotheism.
Time passed. Judges, kings and prophets presided over the Israelites. Yahweh continued side by side with the other gods. The first attempt to create pure monotheism, one God without an image, was conceived by the prophet Isaiah. Philosophically inclined, Isaiah was extremely advanced in his views about monotheism, well ahead of his time. His vision could not tolerate other gods next to the one, universal God. He prompted King Hezekiah to remove the image of the serpent, Nechushtan, out of the Temple, and melt it down. They also removed all the lion-shaped idols, gods of the tribe of Judas, and shattered them to pieces. The Temple lost all the images and remained empty of anything but the invisible and all pervasive presence of Yahweh. Isaiah even claimed that although Yahweh preferred his Chosen People, the Israelites, He must be also the God of all other nations, because other gods simply could not exist.
Two other prophets continued to develop the concept. Habakkuk claimed that Yahweh was a righteous, loving God, not the fierce volcano God of fire and war, and the God of all men. There was no war between Yahweh and other gods, because no other gods could exist.
Jeremiah went even further with that philosophy, reemphasizing the covenant and denouncing war. He saw God as a loving entity, more concerned about justice and peace among men than with burnt offerings -- a new and advanced concept at that time. Jeremiah went as far as to beg the Israelites to refrain from fighting the Babylonians, who were also God's children. He did not succeed in his peace mission. The Israelites rebelled, and the Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, conquered Jerusalem. He did not waste time killing the entire population, as is sometimes assumed. He destroyed the walls instead, and from the population, estimated to be about a quarter of a million, took approximately 35,000 captives straight to Babylon. The people taken were the aristocracy, including teachers, physicians, and very significantly -- priests. The tribe of the Levites must have constituted a large part of the people who went into the Babylon exile. In Israel, Nebuchadnezzar left the peasants to fend for themselves.
What happened in the seventy years of the Babylonian diaspora shaped the change in Yahweh. Until then, the Israelites, like all other nations, believed that each god had a locality. A god belonged to a country, a city, a mountain, a river. He or she dwelled in a temple built in this special location. Any captive, merchant, immigrant, or traveling physician worshiped in the town or village where he now lived, because his former gods were simply out of touch. The Israelites, who were treated quite well in Babylon, were invited to worship any Babylonian god they wished, as was the custom. But the Israelites could not do that. Perhaps if the peasants, and other simple people were driven to Babylon they would have willingly changed -- but not the Levites. They simply could not give up their connection to the God they so loved, were so connected to, identified themselves with. It was unthinkable.
Instead, an equally unthinkable, unprecedented religious revolution took place. The Jews transformed God. They made him omnipresent, liberated Him from His location, and made him a universal God. They no longer really needed a temple, though eventually a new temple would be built, as a national symbol. Instead, they built synagogues, where people could congregate and pray together to a God that was omniscient, omnipresent, had no location, no shape or form, and no rivals. As a result, the Jews had to accept the fact that He must be the God of every other person on Earth. The Jews were still God's chosen people -- but only chosen to spread His word and suffer for the sake of the rest of the nations so that the world can be redeemed, an honor and a burden given to them by God. With such immense presence, He also had to mature psychologically. Obviously, he was no longer a warrior God, a fierce volcano God, fighting for his chosen people. The vision of Isaiah, Habakkuk and Jeremiah took the final stride toward a merciful, righteous God, whose love permeated the entire universe.
In Babylon, the Jews put together all their lore and laws and codes into a book -- The Torah, knitting together all the preexisting narratives. An incredibly significant point of that book is that the word Elohim, which once meant the "other gods" became one of Yahweh's many titles. In other words, any other divinity was nothing but an aspect of this unseen presence of Yahweh. The transformation was complete.
But God's ancient name, now taboo, was not forgotten. For a group of people so strongly wrapped up in their religion, it was not likely to happen. So when Jewish Mysticism came into being, a whole new body of myth followed it. The mystics believed that God's name reflected the hidden meaning and totality of all existence. Through the Shem Hameforash, everything acquired its existence. A specific sub-discipline was created, called Hokhmat-ha-Tseruf, meaning The Science of the Combining Letters. It was a guide to a form of meditation, with the use of the letters in Yahweh's name and their many configurations. The method is extremely complicated. Some compare it to music, because of its approach to the power of sound. Others compare it to modern physics because of a major system it employed for moving from one concept to another. The term is "dilug and kefitza," which mean "jump and leap," bringing the idea of quantum leaps to mind.
The Jewish mystics, however, strongly objected to the frivolous use of God's name, and believed that only under some circumstances the power gained by using it properly was justified. Mostly it was accepted as a means to save lives. An interesting paragraph taken from a major work bears witness to all that was discussed in this article. This is copied from a book written by Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla, a famous thirteenth-century Kabbalistic philosopher in Spain. Rabbi Joseph's work is considered one of the most systematic approaches to Jewish mysticism:
"It is within the parameters of our historical covenant, however, that those who want their needs fulfilled by employing the Holy Names should try with all their strength to comprehend the meaning of each Name of God as they are recorded in the Torah, names such as EHYE, YH, ADoNaY, EL, ELOH, ELoHIM, SHADAY, TZVAOT. One should be aware that all the names mentioned in the Torah are the keys for anything a person needs in the world. When one contemplates these Names one will understand that all the Torah and the Commandments are dependent upon them. Then when he knows the purpose of every Name he will realize the greatness of "He who spoke and thus the world came into being." He will be fearful before Him and he will yearn to cleave to Him through His blessed Names. Then he will be close to God and his petitions will be accepted, as it is written: 'I will keep him safe, for he knows My Name. When he calls on Me I will answer him.' The verse does not promise safety by merely mentioning His Name but by knowing His Name. It is the knowing that is most significant. Only after the knowledge does the verse present the petition, '...when he calls on me I will answer.' This means that when the time comes he should know the Name that is intrinsically tied to what he needs, then when he calls, 'I will answer.' ...Know that all the Holy Names in the Torah are intrinsically tied to the Tetragrammaton, which is YHVH. If you would contend, however, that the name EHYEH is the ultimate source, realize that the Tetragrammaton is like the trunk of the tree from which the branches grow and the Name EHYEH is like the root from which grow the other roots. It is the trunk of the tree that nurtures the branches which are the other Names of God, and each one of these branches bears a different fruit. Know too that all the words in the Torah are connected to one of the unerasable Divine Names just as the other cognomens [for the different Names of God] are intrinsically tied to a specific Name... Just as EL, EloHIM and the Tetragrammaton have Cognomens, their Cognomens also have Cognomens until one finds that all the words of the Torah are intrinsically woven into the tapestry of God's Cognomens with are tied to God's Names which, in turn, are tied to the ineffable Tetragrammaton, YHVH, to which all the Torah's words are inextricably linked. Thus, all the Torah is woven with all the strands of YHVH and it is for this reason it is stated: "The Torah of YHVH is complete. (Psalm 19:8)"

The Hyksos rulers of the fifteenth dynasty of Egypt were of non-Egyptian origin. Most archaeologists describe the Hyksos as a mix of Asiatic peoples, suggested by recorded names such as Khyan and Sakir-Har that resemble Asiatic names, and pottery finds that resemble pottery found in archaeological excavations in the area of modern Israel. The name Hyksos was used by the Egyptian historian Manetho (ca. 300 BC), who, according to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (1st century AD), translated the word as "king-shepherds" or "captive shepherds". Josephus himself identified the Hyksos with the Hebrews of the Bible. Hyksos was in fact probably an Egyptian term meaning "rulers of foreign lands" (heqa-khaset), and it almost certainly designated the foreign dynasts rather than a whole nation. The Hyksos kingdom was centered in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt and was limited in size, never extending south into Upper Egypt, which was under control by Theban-based rulers except for Thebes's port city of Elim at modern Quasir. Hyksos relations with the south seem to have been mainly of a commercial nature, although Theban princes appear to have recognized the Hyksos rulers and may possibly have provided them with tribute for a period. The Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty rulers established their capital and seat of government at Memphis and their summer residence at Avaris.

Hyksos 15th dynasty[edit]

Hyksos in hieroglyphs

The rule of these Hyksos kings overlaps with those of the native Egyptian pharaohs of the 16th and 17th dynasties of Egypt, better known as the Second Intermediate Period. The first pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, Ahmose I, finally expelled the Hyksos from their last holdout at Sharuhen in Gaza by the 16th year of his reign.^[1][2] Scholars have taken the increasing use of scarabs and the adoption of some Egyptian forms of art by the Fifteenth Dynasty Hyksos kings and their wide distribution as an indication of their becoming progressively Egyptianized.^[3] The Hyksos used Egyptian titles associated with traditional Egyptian kingship, and took Egyptian god Seth to represent their own titular deity.^[4]

Scarab bearing the name of the Hyksos King Apophis, now at theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston

It would appear as though Hyksos administration was accepted in most quarters, if not actually supported by many of their northern Egyptian subjects. The flip side is that in spite of the prosperity that the stable political situation brought to the land, the native Egyptians continued to view the Hyksos as non-Egyptian "invaders". When they eventually were driven out of Egypt, all traces of their occupation were erased. There is no surviving accounts that record the history of the period from the Hyksos perspective, only that of the native Egyptians who evicted the occupiers, in this case the rulers of Eighteenth Dynasty who were the direct successor of the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty. It was the latter which started and led a sustained war against the Hyksos. Some think that the native kings from Thebes had an incentive to demonize the Asiatic rulers in the North, thus accounting for the destruction of their monuments. From this viewpoint the Hyksos dynasties represent superficially Egyptianized foreigners who were tolerated, but not truly accepted, by their Egyptian subjects. In contrast scholars such as John A. Wilsonfound that the description of the Hyksos as overpowering, irreligious foreign rulers had support from other sources.^[5]

The origin of the term Hyksos derives from the Egyptian expression heka khasewet ("rulers of foreign lands"), used in Egyptian texts such as the Turin King List to describe the rulers of neighbouring lands. This expression begins to appear as early as the late Old Kingdom^{[citation needed]} in Egypt, referring to various Nubian chieftains, and as early as the Middle Kingdom, referring to the Semitic chieftains of Syria and Canaan.

The names, the order, and even the total number of the Fifteenth Dynasty rulers are not known with full certainty. The names appear inhieroglyphs on monuments and small objects such as jar lids and scarabs. In those instances in which Prenomen and Nomen do not occur together on the same object, there is no certainty that the names belong together as the two names of a single person. The Danish EgyptologistKim Ryholt sums up the complex situation by stating that "there are only vague indications of the origin of the Fifteenth Dynasty" and concurring that the small number of surviving names of the Fifteenth Dynasty are "too few to allow for general conclusions" about the Hyksos' background in his 1997 study of the Second Intermediate Period.^[6] Furthermore, Ryholt stresses that

we also lack positive indications that any of the rulers of the Fifteenth Dynasty were related by blood, and, accordingly we could be dealing with a dynasty of mixed ethnic origin.^[7]

Manetho's history of Egypt is known only through the works of others, such as Against Apion by Flavius Josephus. These sources do not list the names of the six rulers in the same order. To complicate matters further, the spellings are so distorted that they are useless for chronological purposes; there is no close or obvious connection between the bulk of these names—Salitis, Beon or Bnon, Apachnan or Pachnan, Annas orStaan, Apophis, Assis or Archles—and the Egyptian names that appear on scarabs and other objects. The Turin king list affirms there were six Hyksos rulers, but only four of them are clearly attested as Hyksos kings from the surviving archaeological or textual records: 1. Sakir-Har, 2.Khyan, 3. Apophis and 4. Khamudi.

Khyan and Apophis are by far the best attested kings of this dynasty whereas Sakir-Har is attested by only a single doorjamb from Avaris which bears his royal titulary. Khamudi is named as the last Hyksos king on a fragment from the Turin Canon. The hieroglyphic names of these Fifteenth Dynasty rulers exist on monuments, scarabs, and other objects.

Two Hyksos pharaohs remain unknown. Many scholars have suggested they were Maaibre Sheshi, Aper-Anath, Samuqenu, Sekhaenre Yakbimor Meruserre Yaqub-Har (who are all attested by seals or scarabs in the Delta region) but thus far, all that is certain is that they were Asiatic kings in the Egypt's Delta region. They could be either the remaining two Hyksos kings or were members of the previous Fourteenth Dynasty at Xois.

Origin hypotheses[edit]

Manetho and Josephus[edit]

In his Against Apion, the 1st-century AD historian Josephus Flavius debates the synchronism between the Biblical account of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and two Exodus-like events that the Egyptian historian Manetho apparently mentions. It is difficult to distinguish between what Manetho himself recounted, and how Josephus or Apion interpret him.

Josephus identifies the Israelite Exodus with the first exodus mentioned by Manetho, when some 480,000 Hyksos, wrongly interpreted as "shepherd kings" by Josephus (also referred to as just as shepherds, as kings and as captive shepherds in his discussion of Manetho), left Egypt for Jerusalem.^[8] The mention of Hyksos identifies this first exodus with the Hyksos period (16th century BC).