THE HYKSOS
14. THE HYKSOS
An Egyptian chariot (Florence Museum)
Fig.18
Donald A. Mackenzie in his EGYPTIAN MYTH
AND LEGEND (The Gresham Publishing Co., London)
comments “Whence came the horse which shattered and
built up the great empires ? It was first tamed by the
Aryans ………”. The Hyksos are therefore important to
us. It is not clear who they were but we can be sure who
they were not.
It has been suggested that these people were of the
nomad tribes of northern Arabia. This is impossible.
Only a rich people could have afforded the horse in that
early period when it was a newly imported “pearl of great
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THE HYKSOS
price” in Western Asia which Mackenzie accepts.
Further, they could not have been charioteers for they
would have been unable to construct chariots or even
repair them, not to speak of the impossibility of a hungry
horde of desert dwellers, an uncontrolled rabble from
Arabia, maintaining firm control of Egypt for a
prolonged period. If there were desert tribes involved
they would have been merely plundering Bedouins,
Amorites, etc. accompanying the Hyksos army which
might have been aided as well by Libyans, mercenaries
from Crete and the Aegean Peninsula and even
Phoencecians who had migrated from the north of the
Persian Gulf to the Palestine coast. The nomads who
accompanied the Hyksos are apparently “the barbarians
in the midst of them” in the inscription of Queen
Hatshepsu. It is relevant to consider that to the Egyptians
all foreigners were by and large Hyksos so when Queen
Hatshepsu refers to “barbarians” she specifically
excludes such from the concept of the Hyksos which
implies that the Hyksos themselves were a civilized
people.
The myth of the “Arabian” horse is apparently the
background to the assertion by some that the Hyksos
were nomads of northern Arabia.
Some time before the Hyksos invasion of Egypt
Kassites from the mountains of Elam and their Aryan
allies on horseback and in chariots overran portions of
Babylonia. This is the first appearance in history of the
Indo-European people and is of special interest because
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THE HYKSOS
of the use of the horse and the chariot. A westward
pressure of tribes followed. The Hyksos invasion of
Egypt was probably due to the migrations from the
Iranian plateau themselves caused by migrations from
Central Asia. It is certain that the Aryans continued to
advance and prior to the close of the Hyksos period they
had reached the Syrian coast and thrust into Asia Minor.
Whether they entered Egypt is not known. Egyptian
records are of no help because to the Egyptians all
foreigners, other than “barbarians”, were Hyksos.
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