At all events, the story must have been written by one who was well acquainted with the age of the Hyksos. It is true that an attempt has recently been made, on the strength of certain proper names, to show that it is not the Egypt of the Hyksos that is described, but the Egypt of Shishak and his successors. The names of Potipherah or Potiphar and Asenath are said to have been unknown before that date. A couple of proper names, however, is an insecure foundation on which to build a theory, more especially when the argument rests upon the imperfections of our own knowledge. That no names corresponding in formation to Potipherah and Asenath should as yet have been met with earlier than the time of Shishak is no proof that they did not exist. A single example of each is sufficient to prove the contrary. And, as a matter of fact, such examples actually occur. A stela of the reign of Thothmes III. records the name of Pe-tu-Baal, ‘the Gift of Baal,’ as that of the sixth ancestor of the Egyptian whose name it records;[98] while the Tel el-Amarna tablets contain the name of Subanda, the Smendes of Greek writers, which is an exact parallel in form to Asenath.[99] Pe-tu-Baal must have lived at the close of the Hyksos period, and the Semitic deity with whose name his own is compounded indicates that it has been formed under Semitic influence. It was, in fact, as we learn from the Phœnician inscriptions, an imitation of a Canaanitish name.[100] The Hyksos had come from Asia, and had imposed their yoke upon Egypt, where they ruled for more than five hundred years. Though they held all Egypt under their sway, they had established their capital at Zoan, now called Sân, far to the north on the eastern frontier of the Delta. Here they were near their kinsfolk in Canaan, and could readily summon fresh troops from Asia in case of Egyptian revolt. The court of the Hyksos Pharaohs, however, soon became Egyptianised. They adopted the arts and science, the manners and customs, of their more cultured subjects, and one of the few scientific works of ancient Egypt that have come down to us—the famous _Mathematical Papyrus_—was written for a Hyksos king. It was only in physiognomy and religion that the Hyksos conqueror continued to be distinguished from the native Egyptian.