Van Seters John. The Hyksos. A New Investigation

New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1966. — xix, 220 p."The Hyksos remain a perennial object of comment and controversy in the history of Egypt and the ancient Near East. This new, comprehensive, and up-to-date study by Dr. Van Seters is a notable and well-balanced contribution to its theme.
In his introduction, the author notes the opposing views of the Hyksos rule in Egypt as represented by Save-Soderbergh and Helck, and ably criticizes the often sloppy use of the term Hyksos for cultural phenomena where it is unjustified. The poverty of direct Egyptian evidence leads him to survey first the archaeological data of the relevant period in neighbouring Syria-Palestine.
In part I, therefore, Dr. Van Seters deals with the chronology of the Palestinian Middle Bronze Age in relation to that of Egypt (ch. i), before turning to a compact and very handy summary of the material culture of Middle Bronze Age Palestine : fortifications (glacis, gates, siege warfare, etc.), urban life (palaces, temples, masseboth; burial customs), and crafts and arts (pottery, metallurgy ; Egyptian objects, scarabs ; cylinder-seals, ivories, etc.). In ch. v, the author tackles the thorny question of how to interpret Egyptian monuments found in Middle Bronze Syria-Palestine—Egyptian rule, or diplomatic contacts ? A good clue is afforded by literary evidence, the ' Story of Sinuhe', which indicates not direct rule but in fact intensive diplomatic relations between Egypt and the Levant. The execration texts may be an Egyptian reaction to a growing independence of power in Syria-Palestine, a trend only briefly halted by Neferhotep I in the Thirteenth Dynasty.
In part II,' The Hyksos in Egypt', we come to the main problems of the subject. In the late Twelfth and early Thirteenth Dynasties, increasing numbers of Asiatics appear in Egypt—but whether as prisoners of war, results of a slave trade, or from immigration into voluntary servitude, it is impossible to say; several such factors may have operated concurrently. The role of the Eastern Delta in the late Middle Kingdom here finds a useful discussion, as springboard for the rise of the Hyksos rulers.
The main part of ch. viii (' Rise of the Hyksos ') is reproduced from Dr. Van Seters's paper in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, L, 1964, 13-23. This is his very persuasively argued suggestion that the ' Admonitions of an Egyptian sage' reflects the fall of Middle Kingdom Egypt to the Hyksos, and not the collapse of Old Kingdom Egypt at least 500 years earlier as commonly thought. His arguments from terminology for foreigners and in administration plus the nature of Egyptian relations with (e.g.) Crete seem particularly appealing. With the 'Admonitions ' phrase ' to show the Asiatics the state of the land' (p. 118), one may aptly compare Genesis xlii, 9-17. Dr. Van Seters points out the distinction between Josephus' account of the Hyksos as a massive invasion and the less highly-coloured accounts of the epitomes (Africanus, etc.), indicating that the latter perhaps offer a more realistic account; here, he aligns with Save-Soderbergh rather than Helck, probably justifiably.
Discussion of the location of the Hyksos Delta-capital Avaris leads the author into the whole vexed problem of Eastern Delta topography revolving round the location of both Avaris and the later capital Pi-Ramesse, probably successive but widely separated phases in time of the history of a single site. As between Tanis and Qantir and environs, Dr. Van Seters marshals very powerful arguments indeed in favour of the latter as site of Avaris-Pi-Ramesse. At Tanis, virtually nothing is in situ before the Twenty-first Dynasty, whereas Qantir has yielded remains of a palace of Ramesses II, and many doorways from houses of his high officials. Literary evidence on the environment and geographical connexions of Pi-Ramesse also fit the Qantir district far better than Tanis ; the reviewer is particularly pleased to see the evidence of the ' Waters of Re ' properly applied to this question, a factor given too little weight hitherto.
In ch. x, Dr. Van Seters argues (like other recent writers) for one main Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty of six rulers. These kings would include Khyan, Apopi (with three prenomina), and Khamudy—other candidates for membership remain less certain for sheer lack of evidence. The Sixteenth Dynasty (again, often agreed now) is merely local princelings. The regime of the Hyksos (ch. xi) the author views as analogous to the system of alliances between states common in contemporary Western Asia and here exemplified by the links between the Hyksos, Theban, and Nubian Dynasties in Egypt.
Hyksos religion (ch. xii) and ethnic origins (ch. xiii) are much controverted. Dr. Van Seters offers an eminently sane and careful treatment of both. The cult of Seth was favoured, but certainly not exclusively (e.g. Apopi is called ' living image of Re', the sun-god, etc., p. 172). Western Asiatic equivalents for Seth and other deities (followed by fuller syncretism in the New Kingdom) are from the West-Semitic pantheon—Baal, Anath, etc.—not from Hurrian or Hittite circles. This agrees with the clear attestation of West Semitic names among the Hyksos, whereas Hurrian names are only occasionally possible and so far are not yet provably attested. Hence, it is fair to suggest on present evidence that the Hyksos rulers were Semitic rather than, say, Hurrian or Indo-Aryan. Semitic place-names in the Delta agree.
In short, Dr. Van Seters has made a major and valuable contribution to a notoriously tricky field."(Review by K.A. Kitchen in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. — 1968. — Vol. 31, Issue 1. — pp. 140-141).