Avaris is generally
assigned to the region towards Pelusium on the strength of its being
located in the Sethroite nome by Josephus, but Petrie thinks it was at
Tell el-Yahudiyeh (Yehudia), where Hyksos scarabs are common. From the
remains of fortifications there he argues that the Hyksos were
uncivilized desert people, skilled in the use of the bow, and must thus
have destroyed by their archery the Egyptian armies trained to fight
hand-to-hand; further, that their hordes were centered in Syria, but
were driven thence by a superior force in the East to take refuge in the
islands and became a sea-power--whence the strange description
"Hellenic" in Manetho, which most editors have corrected to [Greek:
alloi], "others." Besides the statue of Khyan, blocks of granite with
the name of Apopi have been found in Upper Egypt at Gebelen and in
Lower Egypt at Bubastis. The celebrated Rhind mathematical papyrus was
copied in the reign of an Apopi from an original of the time of Amenemhe
III. Large numbers of Hyksos scarabs are found in Upper and Lower Egypt,
and they are not unknown in Palestine. Khyan's monuments, inconspicuous
as they are, actually extend over a wider area--from Bagdad to
Cnossus--than those of any other Egyptian king.
It is certain that this mysterious people were Asiatic, for they are
called so by the Egyptians. Though Seth was an Egyptian god, as god of
the Hyksos he represents some Asiatic deity. The possibility of a
connexion between the Hyksos and the Israelites is still admitted in
some quarters. Hatred of these impious foreigners, of which there is
some trace in more than one text, aroused amongst the Egyptians (as
nothing ever did before or since) that martial spirit which carried the
armies of Tethmosis to the Euphrates.
Besides the histories of Egypt, see J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records
of Egypt_; Historical Documents ii. 4, 125; G. Maspero, _Contes
populaires_, 3me éd. p. 236; W. M. F. Petrie, _Hyksos and Israelite
Cities_, p. 67; Golénischeff in _Recueil de travaux_, xv. p. 131.
(F. Ll. G.)
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