Visual history of an empire
The 'rulers of foreign lands' from Canaan who governed northern Egypt for a century, brought the horse and chariot, and were expelled to found the New Kingdom.
- Existed
- 1,650 BC to 1,550 BC
- Duration
- 100 years
- Existed
- About 1650 to 1550 BC
- Area
- About 300,000 km2 (Lower and Middle Egypt)
- Capital
- Avaris (Tell el-Daba)
- Notable rulers
- Khyan, Apophis (Apepi)
- Ended by
- Ahmose I's capture of Avaris
The Hyksos were a dynasty of West Semitic (Canaanite) origin who ruled Lower Egypt from Avaris in the Nile delta as the 15th Dynasty, from about 1650 to 1550 BC. Long portrayed as invaders, they are now thought to have risen from a Canaanite population already settled in the delta. They introduced or spread the horse-drawn chariot, composite bow and new bronze weapons, traded with Crete and Nubia, and coexisted with a native Theban dynasty in the south until the Theban kings Seqenenre, Kamose and Ahmose fought them and drove them out around 1550, opening the New Kingdom.
When it existed: the era ribbon
The bold bar is Hyksos. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.
Hyksos-controlled territory
Timeline of the Hyksos
- 1,800 BCCanaanite settlement grows at Avaris
- 1,650 BCHyksos 15th Dynasty takes power
- 1,600 BCKhyanPeak of Hyksos trade.
- 1,560 BCSeqenenre killed
- 1,555 BCKamose's campaigns
- 1,550 BCAhmose takes AvarisNew Kingdom begins.
Who were the Hyksos
The name is Greek for the Egyptian heqa khasut, 'rulers of foreign lands'. Manetho, writing 1,300 years later, described a savage invasion, but excavations at Avaris show a Canaanite town growing for generations under the weak 13th Dynasty until its leaders took power. Recent isotope studies of Avaris burials confirm the population was mostly born abroad but had settled before the Hyksos kings emerged.
Rule from Avaris
The Hyksos kings used Egyptian titles and worshipped the storm god Baal identified with Seth. Khyan's name appears on objects from Knossos and Baghdad, suggesting wide trade. They controlled the delta and Middle Egypt and were overlords or allies of the Kushite kingdom of Kerma to the south, hemming in the Theban 17th Dynasty. Their period saw the arrival of the horse, chariot, composite bow, sickle sword and new pottery and weaving techniques.
Expulsion
A Theban story tells of Apophis complaining that Seqenenre's hippopotami kept him awake 700 km away; Seqenenre's mummy shows he died of axe wounds, probably in battle. Kamose attacked and boasted of reaching Avaris; his brother Ahmose took the city around 1550 and pursued the Hyksos to Sharuhen in Canaan. Egypt's later obsession with controlling the Levant grew from the memory of the Hyksos.
Related empires and wars
Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.
Empires of the same era and region
- Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2,055 BC to 1,650 BC)
- New Kingdom of Egypt (1,550 BC to 1,069 BC)
- First Babylonian Empire (1,894 BC to 1,595 BC)
- Old Hittite Kingdom (1,650 BC to 1,500 BC)
- Mitanni (1,500 BC to 1,300 BC)
- Elamite Empire (2,700 BC to 539 BC)
8 surprising things about the Hyksos
- The Hyksos are the earliest people known to have used the horse and chariot in Egypt.
- Seqenenre Tao's mummy shows five head wounds from at least two different Hyksos-style weapons.
- The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, a key source for Egyptian maths, was copied under the Hyksos king Apophis.
- Josephus later identified the Hyksos with the Israelites of the Exodus, an idea most historians reject.
- A palace at Avaris was decorated with Minoan bull-leaping frescoes, the only such paintings outside Crete.
- The Hyksos capital Avaris was rebuilt by Ramesses II as Pi-Ramesses two centuries later.
- The Hyksos are one of the very few foreign dynasties in 3,000 years of pharaonic history before the Persians.
- The name of the Hyksos king Khyan has turned up on a lion statuette in Baghdad and a jar lid at Knossos.