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The metropolis of the kingdom was once more shifted to the South, and, although the kings of the XIIth Dynasty actually resided in the North, their Theban origin was never forgotten, and Thebes was regarded as the chief city of the country. The XIth Dynasty kings actually reigned at Thebes, and there the later kings of the XIIIth Dynasty retired after the conquest of the Hyksos.
Equally pathetic is the picture drawn of the gradual but sure decay of the grand empire of the Pharaohs. Maspero, with masterly skill, passes a processional of these despots before our eyes. I. The Chaldæan Empire and the Hyksos Some countries seem destined from their origin to become the battlefields of the contending nations which environ them.
His name, however, was as familiar to the Canaanite as it was to the inhabitant of Chaldæa, and the god before whom his exploits were displayed was Yahveh and not Bel. It was about 1600 B.C. that the Hyksos were finally expelled from Egypt. They were originally Asiatic hordes who had overrun the valley of the Nile, and held it in subjection for several centuries.
He bowed without excessive humility and met the soul-piercing gaze of the pharaoh with calmness. "Be seated," said the pharaoh. The high priest sat on the floor. "Thou pleasest me," said Ramses. "Thou hast the bearing and the face of a Hyksos, and they are the most valiant troops in my army." Then he inquired, on a sudden,
The Cossæan king who seized on Babylon was named Gandish. He and his tribe came from the mountainous regions of Zagros, on the borders of Media. The Cossæan rule over the countries of the Euphrates was doubtless similar in its beginnings to that which the Hyksos exercised at first over the nomes of Egypt.
Yet it may be that my labours would have overcome all obstacles had it not been for a new and unlooked-for misfortune. "A great war had been waged against the Hyksos, and the Captains of the Great King had been cut off in the desert, with all their bowmen and horsemen. The shepherd tribes were upon us like the locusts in a dry year.
Great is the contrast when we turn from these giant dolls to the black granite sphinxes discovered by Mariette at Tanis in 1861, and by him ascribed to the Hyksos period. Here energy, at all events, is not lacking. Wiry and compact, the lion body is shorter than in sphinxes of the usual type.
Hyksos monuments have been found as far south as Gebelên and El-Kab, and the first Hyksos dynasty established its seat in Memphis, the old capital of the country. Gradually, however, the centre of Hyksos power retreated into the delta.
The disastrous period of the Hyksos domination in Egypt has left but one trace at Knossos, but that is of peculiar interest, for it is the lid of an alabastron bearing the name of the Hyksos King Khyan. It cannot be said that we know any of the Hyksos Kings, but Khyan is the one whose relics are the most widely distributed and have the most interest.
But even Sutekh was assimilated to Ra, the Sun-god of On, and the Hyksos Pharaohs felt no scruple in imitating the native kings and combining their own names with that of Ra. It was only the Egyptians who refused to admit the assimilation, and insisted on identifying Sutekh with Set the enemy of Horus. At the outset all Egypt was compelled to submit to the Hyksos domination.
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