Ancient History- Historical Time Period:
New Kingdom Egypt to the Death of Thutmose IV
1. Internal Developments:
Impact of the Hyksos: political, economic, and technological
Political:
The second Intermediate Period was a time of great disunity in Egypt. There was no centralised rule with the country being broken up into independently administered regions. Hyksos sources are archaeological rather than written and are incomplete. Excavations at Tell el- Dab’a in the north-eastern Delta by Manfred Bietak (archaeologist), have identified this site as an ancient Avaris, the capital of a foreign people known as the Hyksos.
Who were the Hyksos? The name comes from the Greek version of the Egyptian hekau khasu, an epithet meaning ‘rulers…show more content… However, it is believed that the Hyksos occupation produced significant cultural and technological developments in Egypt. The historians Demovic and Baker state in their book New Kingdom Egypt,
‘The Hyksos did all they could to “Egyptianise” their rule, adopting Egyptian throne names including the name of Ra, the Sun God…They worshipped the Egyptian Gods, especially Seth, the patron God of Avaris, to whom they built temples…’
Reunification of Upper and Lower Egypt:
Ahmose was known as the ‘founding father of the New Kingdom’. His final expulsion of the Hyksos paved the way for unification of both Upper and Lower Egypt under a new dynasty with Thebes as its capital. His ambitions went beyond uniting Egypt; he wanted to build Egypt into a powerful nation. Ahmose and his army headed south to Nubia. In a series of battles, Ahmose’s army crushed the Nubians and once again, he was victorious. Ahmose son of Ebana tells the historians that he ‘made a great slaughter among them…Ahmose conquered southerners and northerners.’
Breasted said in his book, Ancient Record of Egypt Volume I,
‘…The Hyksos domination provided the Egyptians with the incentive...towards world expansion and so laid the foundations, and to a great extent, determined the character of the New Kingdom, or, as it is often called, the Empire.’
In the documentary, The Warrior Pharaoh, it states how to ‘ensure that foreigners would never rule his [Ahmose] country again, he pushed Egypt’s
