Talk:Hyksos

/Archive 1

"Indo-European" elements and Martin Bernal

The Indo-European theories are all cited to mostly dead archaeologists or to poor sources, some of whose books are deceptively cited in versions with recent dates:

1. William McNeil (died 2016), book cited as 2009, but originally published in 1963;
2. A journal article from 1973 [1]
3. Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer (died 1982), cited to Encyclopedia Britannica [2]. Given that he's been dead for 40 years, this cannot count as recent scholarship.
4. John Bright (died 1995), cited in its fourth edition from 2000
5. Robert Drews (still alive), cited as 1994, originally published 1988
6. Philip K. Hitti (died 1978), cited as 2004, originally published 1951
7. The citation The arrival of the Hyksos in Egypt, along with the arrival of the Hurrians in Syria and the Kassites in Babylonia, has been connected with this migration. cited to this book [3] does not actually say that on the pages cited and is cited to a poor source meant for school children anyway.
8. William L. Ochsenwald (still alive), cited to Encyclopedia Britannica where he actually uses the word "Aryans" to refer to Indo-Europeans. This cannot be recent. It does not appear in the current article [4].

On the other hand, we have Martin Bernal, who is not a qualified historian in any sense, being used to argue that those who disagree with there being Indo-European elements are motivated primarily by anti-racism, along with more old sources against it rather than newer scholarship.

Bernal has obviously got to go, but this whole section needs a substantial rewrite. My suspicion is that no one thinks that the Hyksos were controlled by "Aryans" anymore (besides, ironically, the Afro-Centrist Bernal).--Ermenrich (talk) 21:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I've found the following references so far (Rise of the Hyksos Egypt and the Levant from the Middle Kingdom to the early Second Intermediate Period; Author: Anna-Latifa Mourad; Publisher: Oxford Archaeopress 2015). She has a section on "previous scholarship" that gives a breakdown of older theories. Here she refers to the time before the discovery of Tell El-Dab'a:

Engberg argued that the Fifteenth Dynasty rulers were Hurrian or 'Indo-Aryan' despite the 'clearly recognised Semitic element enmeshed in what is called the Hyksos movement'.18 The Hurrian group would have been part of the last phase of a migration across the Near East, their strength in archery and chariotry assisting their victorious outcome in Egypt. This Hurrian element was later favoured by Ward,19 von Beckerath20 and Helck,21 but has since been refuted on chronological grounds, with the Hurrian power emerging after the establishment of Dynasty 15.22Van Seters also asserted that Helck's association of Hyksos names with Hurrian personal names was not justified by the evidence. (p. 10)

Evidently, the literature before Tell el-Dab'a's excavations had formulated varying arguments. The eastern Hyksos could be Hurrian, Indo-European or Levantine, and the three basic models for their rise to power had been theorised as: (1)the invasion model; (2)the gradual infiltration and peaceful takeover; and (3)the gradual infiltration and violent takeover. The discoveries at Tell el-Dab'a have since greatly refined theories on the Hyksos. Scholarly consensus now agrees that the site marks the location of Avaris.31 Its material culture supports the presence of a large Levantine population and vindicates that the origins of the Hyksos should be sought in the Levant. The exact point of origin remains a matter of debate. Scholars are typically split in opinion with those favouring a Southern Levantine origin and those looking to the Northern Levant. (p. 10)

This is the only place that Mourad refers to an Indo-European or Hurrian origin. She refers to it as a refuted theory, whereas the current theory is "Levantine" origin.

I think on this basis alone I can move the offending two paragraphs.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:44, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

See also this paper by the current lead scholar on the Hyksos, Manfred Bietak from 2016: Intramural burials were, however, an integral custom at Avaris, which was inhabited at that time largely by a population of Near East-ern origin, which according to the sparse onomas-tic evidence seems to have spoken a Western Semitic idiom21 and may be called for convenience sake Canaanites. No mention of "Indo-Europeans" or "Hurrians.--Ermenrich (talk) 02:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

You're doing a fantastic job, thanks. Doug Weller talk 12:58, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

As an archaeological and historical point, if they had chariots as early as 1650 BC, then where did they get them from long enough to develop a culture that wasn't Indo-European? In every other case it seems to be Indo-Europeans that bring chariots when it's that early in that part of the world.

Also David W. Anthony in his 2010 book The Horse, the Wheel And Language indicates in passing that in his opinion the Hyksos were Indo-European or related. Chariots are not something you can just see and understand how you need to fit an axle just correctly to reduce drag, or that you use different types of wood on parts of the wheel, and so forth. No one else rode horses or had chariots before them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khahla (talk • contribs) 00:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Please add comments at the bottom of the page and not inside other people's comments, Khahla. There actually isn't that much consensus that chariots were even introduced by the Hyksos - they appear only at the end of the period and don't seem to have played much of a role in Hyksos warfare as recorded by the Egyptians. Archaeology and artifacts don't prove what language someone spoke either. I'm unable to find any reference in Anthony. At any rate, he's not a specialist in Egyptian history. Specialists in Egyptian history indicate that the Indo-European theory is dead and mostly motivated by "conquering race" and "Aryan" fantasies in the early twentieth century.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:55, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Hold on, what? There's plenty of circumstantial evidence that they could have been Indo-European speakers or their descendents ( genetically, possibly culturally) - not just chariots but their herding lifestyle is extremely possibly translated as "shepherd kings, OR chieftains of foreign lands". They were definitely not "just shepherds" as they had whatever military technology necessary to overthrow the Egyptian kingdom. As for this being about racism, and "Aryan fantasies", would they be the same Aryan fantasies that are now largely supported (not with Hitler's warped narrative) by archaeology and DNA?

It's very clear that there's evidence for "horse lords" conquering through Canaan at this time, like everywhere else. Bands of horseborne raiders - not hard to conceptualise. Pretty unstoppable, and fast moving. "Wolves" or Maryanna or Marut, various Indo-European words in many languages referring to, highly mobile chariot raiders. There's references all the way to India. Some are even immortalised in Vedic religion (Hinduism) as the young riders of Indra, a cognate of Herakles, likely a very early Indo-European hero figure. So some of those might have come to Egypt? Far from unlikely. The horse, and the chariot, were utterly devastating in warfare, and so it spread with these people and it was used by cultures they founded and ones they just passed by or ruled for a little while. They didn't just turn up on their own, the Egyptians didn't have horses and therefore the Egyptians can't have developed chariots, and yet they were fighting the Hittites with them! (Indo-European speakers by the way, originally an IE elite ruling over a local population, sound familiar?) The problem here is not looking at evidence so much as not trying to offend anyone while doing it. I'm not saying there's evidence for the Indo-Europeans being the Hyksos (not hard evidence anyway), but to write it off as just racist fantasies and say it's debunked without explaining why, is not really acceptable. It's very lazy scholarship to just accuse others of racism. They said the same thing about the Aryan invasion of India but that too is really incontrovertible these days, except to the Indians, ironically because they can't accept that anything ever originated outside India. They use claims of 50,000 year old temples and horses that have been extinct for something like 10 million years. Another question is, when did horses arrive in Egypt? Because I guarantee that they didn't wander in from the desert, horses were extinct everywhere in the world but the Eurasian steppe until Proto-Indo-European speakers domesticated them, and spread them along with their language and genetics. All domesticated horses come from the same genetics, which means they were domesticated once, and spread from there. I can't find Anthony's quote either, it's somewhere in the first 100 pages, and it says almost nothing more than that - that the Hyksos were Indo-European or someone related to them. It's just in passing, not meant to be controversial I think. He's not an Egyptologist, but he's an archaeologist in the IE field, which makes him eminently qualified to comment on their presence or not in Egypt, and plus it's just logic. If they had the horse and chariot by that point, and they did, then the discussion should be over unless shocking evidence is found that they say, domesticated some other unknown species of horse which has since died out AND managed to come up with a chariot with spoked wheel and independently turning axle without any previous burgeoning wagon technology from the previous say, 1500 years as the proto-Indo-European sites have. The spread of Indo-European languages, horses, the wheel and the impact it had on societies in the (especially) second millenium is massive, and frequently played down or not credited simply because racists co-opted it, not because it's necessarily untrue, and to say so based on race is not an acceptable academic argument, nor is it anything but insulting. In short, don't just say it's debunked because the theory was racist, use actual reasonable logic and method. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't see anyone else's aracheologically, linguistically, circumstantially and genetically confirmed evidence cited as racist the way Indo-European regularly, and erroneously (in many cases), are. Hopefully I've signed this properly this time. 203.219.90.240 (talk) 12:50, 22 January 2021 (UTC)Khahla

Sorry, but we have sources saying that the Indo-European theory is based on dreams of Aryan supremacy and is not held by anyone anymore. So everything you’ve said is unsourced. The Hyksos were Semitic speakers from the Levantine as far as we can tell and they may be related to the Amorites. We have to follow what RS say.—Ermenrich (talk) 13:31, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Complete Rewrite

I just unintentionally finished rewriting the whole article, I've realized. Please feel free to critique or comment on any aspect!--Ermenrich (talk) 18:56, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Merge Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt to here?

This other article is essential another name for the Hyksos. It seems to me it should simply redirect here.

I've been bold and made the redirect. That was me above as well, must've forgotten to sign.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

...and it was undone! Stay tuned, I guess I may need to do an official merge request...--Ermenrich (talk) 17:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a

Merge Proposal and / or Redirect. Please do not modify it.
The result of the request for the Proposed Merger of Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt into this talk page's article was:

Not Done—No Consensus to Merge at this time
— — — — —

I propose to merge Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt to Hyksos. Hyksos, as used in scholarship of the last 20 years or so at least, is a synonym for the fifteenth dynasty, and the other page only has two sources. Anything of value can be moved here to Hyksos#Rulers.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller, Dimadick, Krakkos, PiCo, and Stevenmitchell: (people who have posted here or at Fifteenth Dynasty in the last three years).--Ermenrich (talk) 20:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Addition I believe this can justified by WP:COMMONNAME, in the same way that we redirect Ptolemaic Dynasty to Ptolemaic Kingdom.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:21, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Oppose The Hyksos are a tribe or a group of foreigners, whereas the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt is a numbered dynasty in the Egyptian Dynastic system. The fact that the Hyksos ruled the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt does not justify confusing the two. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 11:01, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• पाटलिपुत्र, you're mistaken. The notion that the Hyksos are a tribe is a modern one, the name means “rulers of foreign lands” and is a title used by the fifteenth dynasty, who ruled over a mixed Asiatic and Egyptian population. See the following sources (all cited in the article):

The Hyksos1 (Ìqw Ìswt, “rulers of foreign lands”) must be understood as a foreign dynasty that ruled Egypt c. 1638–1530 BC.2 Their power was rooted in a population of Near Eastern origin. Where they came from, how they came to power and how they managed to assert themselves in Egypt are all still matters of ongoing debate. An additional question, if rarely posed, is what became of the Hyksos after their defeat by King Ahmose c. 1530 BC. These questions are best tackled by focusing on the people behind the Hyksos rule. Flavius Josephus used the designation “Hyksos” incorrectly as a kind of ethnic term for people of foreign origin who seized power in Egypt for a certain period.3 In this sense, for the sake of convenience, it is also used in the title and section headings of the present article. One should never forget, however, that, strictly spoken, the “Hyksos” were only the kings of the Fifteenth Dyna sty, and of simultaneous minor dynasties, who took the title Ìqw Ìswt. This article, however, deals with the people from whom these rulers came forth.--Bietak, Manfred (2010). "FROM WHERE CAME THE HYKSOS AND WHERE DID THEY GO?". In Maréee, Marcel (ed.). THE SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD (THIRTEENTH–SEVENTEENTH DYNASTIES): Current Research, Future Prospects. Peeters. p. 139. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

The Hyksos themselves are an excellent case study in cultural blending, as they both maintained aspects of their foreign origin and adopted Egyptian conventions of rule and administration. They likely arose from among the immigrant popula-tion at Tell el-Dab‘a, gaining power in the context of the political fragmentation and economic crisis that characterized the Second Intermediate Period.12 Until the discovery of the %kr-!r door jamb13 at Tell el-Dab‘a (fig. 1), the widespread assumption was that the Egyptians had labeled these foreign kings as HqA xAswt(Hyksos). However, the door jamb preserves a partial traditional Egyptian titulary alongside the use of HqA xAswt, leading scholars to suggest that the Hyksos may have taken on the HqA xAswt title for themselves.14 Bietak proposed that “although this new term perhaps was originally applied by the Egyptians in a disparaging way to the new rulers of the land, the rulers themselves employed ‘Hyksos’ as an official ruler’s title.”--Candelora, Danielle (2017). "Defining the Hyksos: A Reevaluation of the Title HqA xAswtand Its Implications for Hyksos Identity". Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt. 53: 204. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Rhe territory once directly administered by Late Middle Kingdom Egypt was divided between three states at the end of the epoch: the kingdom of Avaris, whose rulers of Levantine origin are referred to as the Hyksos, the Theban kingdom, and that of the ruler of Kush in Nubia (known in Egyptology as the kingdom of Kerma after its capital near the Third Cataract).--Ilin-Tomich, Alexander (2016). "Second Intermediate Period". In Wendrich, Willeke; et al. (eds.). UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. p. 2. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Two terms are connected to the Hyksos: the ethnonym aAm and the title HqA xAs.wt. The ethnonym was in use throughout the examined period, initially representing Asiatics from beyond the borders of Egypt and, from the second half of the Twelfth Dynasty, those of Levantine ancestry. Either newly migrated or of mixed Egyptian-Levantine heritage, they originated from various regions in the Levant. Evidently, and as previous scholars have argued, aAm was employed to refer to the Levantine ethnicity of the Fifteenth Dynasty's rulers and people. Based on the ethnonym alone, the Hyksos and their people could accordingly be from a range of Levantine regions and/or Egyptian-Levantines. One of the unique features of Dynasty 15 is its rulers' use of the title HqA xAs.wt. The title was apparently connected to high-ranking rulers acting as representatives of allied people for political and diplomatic pursuits. As seen in Chapter4, the Hyksos were particularly interested in opening new avenues of trade, securing strategic posts in the eastern Delta that could give access to land-based and sea-based trade routes. The title's association with diplomacy could have advantageously demonstrated the duties of the Hyksos as the leading representatives of a wide integrated trading network.--Mourad, Anna-Latifa (2015). Rise of the Hyksos Egypt and the Levant from the Middle Kingdom to the early Second Intermediate Period. Oxford Archaeopress. p. 216. doi:10.2307/j.ctvr43jbk. JSTOR j.ctvr43jbk. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

These sources support viewing the term "Hyksos" as referring primarily to the dynasty/dynasties and show that they were not a "people", with some even using "Fifteenth Dynasty" synonymously.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:26, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I am a bit suprised we even have to have this discussion. Per your own sources, the Hyksos do have defining characteristics (indeed a group of foreigners or a people of foreign origin) that go way beyond simply being rulers of the 15th dynasty. That's enough to have an article about who the Hyksos were, and there's a lot of material about this (including the above). On the other hand the "Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt" is a dynastic period, which is not only about its rulers, but also about its culture, its art, its historical events etc.... We cannot equate the two, let alone erase an important Egyptian dynasty with a simple redirect to the ethnicity or title of its rulers. I will now let others express their opinion. Cheers पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 12:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

पाटलिपुत्र, I'm not sure I understand your objection. The ethnicity of the Hyksos appears to be "West Semitic" or "Levantine" rather than "Hyksos," which is just the title for their rulers, and all the sources agree that they were not a "people" or "ethnicity" but a mixed group. Also: surely the ethnicity of a dynastic period is part of its culture, and the page Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt is just a list of rulers. Have you looked at either article?--Ermenrich (talk) 12:53, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, but this will be my last post. Even if you stretch the argument that "Hyksos" is just a title, how can you replace a whole dynastic period simply by an article on the title of its rulers? This does not make logical sense. You write "Surely the ethnicity of a dynastic period is part of its culture": exactly, but you cannot take a part of a whole to represent the whole... ethnicity is but a minute part of what the 15th dynasty is about. The 15th dynasty article is indeed a small article, which is bound to expand (culture, art, history...), but that does not change the fact that the ethnicity or title of its rulers is only a rather small aspect of was this dynasty is about. Cheers पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 13:20, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

पाटलिपुत्र, the article Hyksos is not just or primarily about the title: it is about the history and culture of the fifteenth dynasty, which is how it is discussed in reliable sources. That's precisely why I want to merge fifteenth dynasty to here! Feel free not to respond, but I don't understand the logic of your arguments.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:27, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Content "about the history and culture of the fifteenth dynasty" should go into the article Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt, not into the more narrow article "Hyksos". पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 15:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

पाटलिपुत्र, this article has always included information about the culture and history of the Hyksos period and its rulers. The page Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt is viewed by an average of 89 people per day [5]. The page Hyksos is viewed by a daily average of 656 people per day [6]. Moreover, 505 link to Fifteenth Dynasty [7] and 725 for Hyksos [8]. I would assume Fifteenth Dynasty is only linked that much because it is included in several templates. I think it is clear which topic people think of as primary just by these numbers.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:51, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Article pagecount has never been a legitimate argument to justify a defective nomenclature. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 17:00, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I think you’re applying your own criteria for what the correct terminology is. Are all the authors cited here who use Hyksos to refer to the fifteenth dynasty wrong?—-Ermenrich (talk) 17:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Let's see what other users will say on your proposal... पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 18:47, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Oppose The dynasty article provides a coherent list of rulers, with photographs of their seals, and estimated era of reigns. The general Hyksos article goes on too many other tangents to be useful. Dimadick (talk) 14:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Dimadick, the "coherent list of rulers" relies on a single source that includes kings not included by other scholars, and the estimated reigns are unsourced - the entire chronology of the period is completely up in the air.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:39, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Also John Van Seters[9] who says "But “Hyksos” is not an ethnic term; to use it as such begs the whole question of an openminded consideration of the archaeological evidence. The use of the term "Hyksos” to designate a style or type has created great confusion in the study of the archaeology of the period.10 Consequently, it is best to restrict the use of this term to refer to the period of foreign rule in Egypt and to use archaeological nomenclature when dealing with archaeological data from Syria and Palestine." But I think this needs a formal move request advertised at Wikiprojects, it will be reverted otherwise I'm sure. Doug Weller talk 14:47, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, I thought I had done that? Maybe you could help, I've had this problem before... I believe I've fixed the problem, but maybe you could check. I'm pretty incompetent when it comes to programming--Ermenrich (talk) 15:05, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: no, I'm thinking of move requests, sorry. This is fine, my bad. Looks ok now and I see it's listed at the AE Wikiproject. Doug Weller talk 15:12, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• Just to add what will hopefully be my last comment, this is the website of the project "The Enigma of the Hyksos" that is currently studying Avaris and the Hyksos under Manfred Bietak. It specifically says: The Hyksos were a dynasty of foreign rulers being in power in Egypt between c.1640 and 1530 BC. [10] That dynasty is, of course, the fifteenth dynasty. As I said, the two terms are synonyms.--Ermenrich (talk) 22:13, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I've spent some time looking at the sources, and it seems quite clear to me that the kind of statements you are quoting are simply convenient simplifications, and are certainly not intended as an affirmation that "Hykos" and "Fifteenth Dynasty" are synonymous words, which does not make sense and which none of your sources has ever claimed. It is a bit like saying "the Shoguns were a dynasty of military rulers in rulers in Japan", and then claim that "Shoguns" and "dynasty of military rulers in Japan" are synonymous, which also does not make sense. I also wish this to be my last comment, as there is no point in trying to equate a fairly wide-ranging designation for some foreigners ("Hyksos") with a precise Dynastic nomenclature ("Fifteenth Dynasty"). Counterexamples are numerous, such as Abisha the Hyksos, who just has nothing to do with the "Fifteenth Dynasty" and lived 200 years before it. If you want to claim that "the two terms are synonyms" then just find sources that actually say so rather than making inferments from your own personal interpretations. It's quite a no-brainer, and I am a bit surprised we have to spend so much time on this. Cheers पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 05:46, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

पाटलिपुत्र, Abasha is not a Hyksos in the sense generally used by scholars. He has the title that would be applied to them. See the following, particularly the latter one, from Lloyd, Alan B., ed. (2010). A Companion to Ancient Egypt. Vol. 1. Wiley-Blackwell. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help), which you can find completely online here [11]:

A period of administrative fragmentation consisting of the minor Fourteenth Dynasty based at Chois in the Delta, the Fifteenth (Hyksos) Dynasty which eventually achieved control of the whole of Egypt as far as Cusae, and the Sixteenth/Seventeenth Dynasties based on Thebes in the southernmost part of the country. p. xxxv

Referring to Abasha: Scene from the tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan, showing the arrival of Amu beduin at the nomarchal court of the Sixteenth Upper Egyptian nome. This scene, inscriptionally dated to Year 6 of Senwosret II, may be an early illustration of the way people from the Syro-Palestinian region penetrated into Egypt in increasing numbers in the latter part of the Twelfth Dynasty. Note that one of the bedouin, named Absha, bears the title HqA xAst, “chief of a foreign land.” This is the earliest known example of the term that would later be used to designate the Hyksos kings: P.E. Newberry et al., Beni Hasan I. Archaeological Survey of Egypt. Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society). London. 1893. Pl. XXVIII. p. 96.

Other sources:

From Kim Ryholt [12] p. 118, chapter title: The Fifteenth Dynasty: The Second Asiatic Kingdom in the Delta: the so-called "Hyksos"

Manfred Bietak, preprint from "The Spiritual Roots of the Hyksos Elite: An Analysis of Their Sacred Architecture, Part I" 2019 (available via Academia.edu): Their palace was burnt and, afterwards, the 15th Dynasty, the Hyksos, seized power and expanded their rule for a certain time over most of Egypt.

Article title: Forstner-Müller, I. 2011. Ritual Activity in a Hyksos Palace of the 15th Dynasty (Hyksos) at Avaris, in: Gundlach, R. - Spence, K. (eds.), Palace and Temple, 5. Symposium zur ägyptischen Königsideologie. Königtum, Staat und Gesellschaft früher Hochkulturen 4,2, Wiesbaden, p. 1-22.

From Wegner, Josef (2015). "A ROYAL NECROPOLIS AT SOUTH ABYDOS: New Light on Egypt's Second Intermediate Period". Near Eastern Archaeology. 78 (2): 68–78. JSTOR 10.5615/neareastarch.78.2.0068. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help): ...when Egypt had coalesced around the two rival kingdoms of the Hyksos 15th Dynasty and Theban 17th Dynasty. p. 75.

I believe this counts as finding sources that say the Fifteenth Dynasty and the Hyksos are the same. Abasha is not "Hyksos". You are simply mistaken, and you are rationalizing that by claiming that these are "simplifications."--Ermenrich (talk) 12:15, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll have to repeat the obvious: since you are the one claiming that "the two terms "Hyksos" and "Fifteenth Dynasty" are synonyms" then just find sources that actually say so specifically rather than making your own personal interpretations. At this point this remains an empty claim, a confusion of terms, a poor interpretation of the sources, and an attempt at Original Research. Cheers पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 18:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I just listed literally four sources that use them completely synonymously and in apposite to each other! If a source saying the Fifteenth (Hyksos) Dynasty isn't enough for you, it's clear that nothing will satisfy you. Nevertheless, you yourself cite the following [13]: While much is misunderstood, we know the Hyksos comprised a small group of West Asian individuals who ruled Northern Egypt, especially the Delta, during the Second Intermediate Period. These rulers were recorded as Egypt’s 15th dynasty in the Turin Royal Canon, the only known king’s list that documents their existence. If saying "The Hyksos were rulers" then "these rulers were recorded as the 15th dynasty" doesn't meet your standard for "saying so specifically" it's clear that this is a just a game of wp:CHEESE.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:39, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: "Comprise" has the nuance of "include" [14], which conveys that the Hyksos were more than exclusively "rulers of the Fifteenth Dynasty". As a matter of fact, and as even stated in this article, the Egyptians used the term "Hyksos" to designate many people from several historical periods and several geographical areas. User:A. Parrot also rightly pointed out that some other dynasties also used the qualifier "Hyksos", which destroys your argument. We are very far from your claim that "the two terms "Hyksos" and "Fifteenth Dynasty" are synonyms", which, besides being an outlandish claim and a lexicographical impossibility, cannot be found in the sources. Three established editors have now clearly opposed your merge proposal, taking a lot time and effort to explain their position. A friendly advice: isn't it time to move on? पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 13:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

@पाटलिपुत्र:, A. Parrot has not taken your position that the term is not used to refer primarily to the 15th dynasty, in fact he says: The sources that Ermenrich cites do seem to indicate that scholars are increasingly narrowing the term to refer to rulers and not an ethnic group, which seems to be more than you are willing to admit. This is an entirely separate issue from whether or not 15th dynasty should be maintained as a (in A. Parrot's terms) largely a subtopic of Hyksos, one with somewhat distinct concerns, the type of thing we put in a typical Egyptian dynasty article. Your argument at the moment comes down to It depends what the definition of is is.... The second definition of "comprise" at Miriam Webster is "to consist of; be composed of" and it's fairly obvious from the rest of Candelora's article which meaning he means, to quote further: Only in more recent decades have the Hyksos been revealed as a small group of rulers (we know of six) and not a population or ethnic group..

I'm happy to let the issue of the merge drop, but I find your insistence that I'm conducting wp:OR when I'm only telling you what the sources (which I have been reading quite extensively of late) are saying and whenever I give you a new quotation you move the goalpost by saying something new. First I gave you something that said The Hyksos were a dynasty of foreign rulers being in power in Egypt between c.1640 and 1530 BC. Your response: it's simply convenient simplifications. Then I give you multiple sources saying things like the 15th Dynasty, the Hyksos and you say I need to find a source that says so specifically that the Hyksos and the fifteenth dynasty are the same. Then I gave you the last source (which you clearly have not read), and your response is to argue about the definition of comprise! You have not produced a single source and yet you somehow remain convinced that you are right and interpret whatever I give you so that it does not mean what the words plainly say. This is textbook wp:CHEESE.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:23, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

1) You write: "Your position that the term is not used to refer primarily to the 15th dynasty"... well, this is not my position. I'm quite fine with saying the Hiksos "refer primarily to the rulers of the 15th dynasty". What we are not OK with is your claim that "the two terms "Hyksos" and "Fifteenth Dynasty" are synonyms". That's very different.

2) You are the one making the claim that "the two terms "Hyksos" and "Fifteenth Dynasty" are synonyms", so you are the one who needs to provide sources to back this specifically, which you haven't done. I don't have to provide sources simply for holding you accountable of your claims.

3) Candelora, whom you are quoting from, is a "she", not a "he". And I'm not sure we can put her on the same footing as other authorities in the field (yet :) ) [15]. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 16:45, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Fine, "largely synonymous", to same degree, or almost the same degree, as Ptolemaic Dynasty and Ptolemaic Kingdom. I believe I've supported that position, you apparently don't.

I think it's best we just leave this discussion - it appears we're talking past each other. As you say the merge is unlikely to occur. I'm certain you're acting in good faith and you've improved the article a lot finding images, but I remain annoyed by what I view as your semantic wrangling.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:10, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the current literature on the Hyksos to have a firm opinion, and the Wikipedian who probably knows it best, Iry-Hor, hasn't edited for a month. But I lean against merging. The sources that Ermenrich cites do seem to indicate that scholars are increasingly narrowing the term to refer to rulers and not an ethnic group—but that process isn't complete, so there are effectively two meanings for the term in use. Bietak says "strictly spoken, the 'Hyksos' were only the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty, and of simultaneous minor dynasties". I'd be interested to see what dynasties he means, but I don't see an indication of that from skimming the rest of the article. In any case, that sentence indicates the Hyksos and the dynasty aren't entirely synonymous even under the stricter definition. Note that even Bietak ended up using the broader meaning of "Hyksos" in his article "for the sake of convenience".

Most fundamentally, the two titles reflect a difference in focus. WP articles on Egyptian dynasties go into detail about chronology and sequences of rulers—the confused chronology that Ermenrich points out is a reason to say more about the subject, not less. A clear sequence of rulers like that of the Eighteenth Dynasty needs very little discussion, while an article like the Fifteenth needs to explain to the reader the confusing nature of the evidence. They also tend to discuss events in the timespan defined by the dynasty, though in a period like the Second Intermediate, with overlapping dynasties, that's less necessary, as the only place to fully treat events in Egypt in that timespan is in the article on the period itself. In contrast, much of the article on the Hyksos is going to be concerned with the origin of the people known by that name. (Ermenrich's objection that the Hyksos "were not a 'people' or 'ethnicity' but a mixed group" isn't much of an objection, because my understanding is that nomadic populations—the classic example being the waves of invasions of Europe in late antique and early medieval times—are usually ethnically mixed, and teasing out the nature of the resulting mixed culture is usually difficult. See Huns#Society and culture for a surprisingly well-written and sourced example.) The ancient Egyptians used different terminology for the rulers and the ethnicity, as shown by the excerpt from Mourad, but we're not about to write a separate article for the Aamu and their ethnic origin. The Semitic-people-who-gave-rise-to-the-Hyksos-rulers are a topic worth discussing, and there's no place to put that discussion but Hyksos. That means that Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt is largely a subtopic of Hyksos, one with somewhat distinct concerns, the type of thing we put in a typical Egyptian dynasty article. We could combine them, but there are also reasons for keeping the two distinct, especially if either article gets expanded significantly somewhere down the road. A. Parrot (talk) 18:56, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I actually wrote Huns#Society and culture, so thank you. If we aren't going to merge, than what should be at which article, in your opinion, A. Parrot, particularly if 15th Dynasty is a subtopic of Hyksos?

As to who else Bietak might mean: there are more kings with Semitic names and scarabs that use the title heqa khasut than there could possibly be Hyksos rulers. They usually get assigned, as a matter of convenience, to the fourteeenth or 16th dynasties, but given recent discoveries that seem to confirm a dynasty at Abydos, it's possible that there actually a bunch of princelets running around Egypt at the time. Scholars don't really seem to have a great grasp of the politics of the time (I say this as someone who's been trying to make sense of the secondary literature over the past two weeks, not an expert). One thing that does seem clear is that Hyksos never ruled all of Egypt like people used to think.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:35, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

For the most part I'd have to know the sources better than I do. But as I said, I would expect most of the detail about the Hyksos' origins and culture to be at Hyksos, with only a summary of the same at Fifteenth Dynasty, and most of the detail about the order and chronology of kings, and different sources' reconstructions, at Fifteenth Dynasty, with only a summary of the same at Hyksos. A. Parrot (talk) 19:51, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I suppose there's not much that I can do then. Thank you for your input. I will note that it does not appear clear that the Hyksos were a "nomadic" population, as they're closest cultural ties seem to have been to Byblos (something I may get around to adding to the article at some point) rather than, say, to bedouins living across Sinai.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:49, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Right, poor choice of words, but the point I meant to make was that we have separate articles for other mobile groups of people that clashed with established nations, even though their cultures and ethnicities are just as murky as those of the Hyksos Delta settlers of Levantine origin in the late Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period. A. Parrot (talk) 21:03, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

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A. Parrot Ermenrich Well I arrive after the battle so to speak, but I am happy with the decision taken: I would also have opposed the merger, especially in view of the current debate on the nature of the 14th and the existence of Hyksos vassals throughout the period. If we are archaeologically exact on the matter, "Hyksos" is a titulary that should refer to nothing more than the kings of the later part of the 15th Dynasty (perhaps from Sakir-Har onwards), certainly not the entire 15th line of kings. Historically however, the term seems to have been used mostly as a (misnomer) for the wider people to which these kings belonged. As a consequence and to clarify things, modern Egyptologists have been increasingly using the terms "Canaanite descent", "Levantine people" and the like to describe the Hyksos. This leads to important issues of distinction with the Canaanite 14th Dynasty (I hope Ryholt's arguments at least on the later part of this line of kings has convinced everyone that they were independent non-Hyksos rulers), and for that purpose it is convenient to fall back on the equation Hyksos = 15th Dynasty by retro-applying the Hyksos title to earlier 15th dynasty rulers such as Salitis, for convenience. Furthermore, I don't see any relation with the issue of the precise territory they controlled: from parts of the Delta up to almost all of Egypt (c. 1600 BC), when they controlled Thebes shortly around the fall of the 13th Dynasty and near to the Abydos dynasty possible existence. As Bietak and Redford say, they likely had numerous vassals, so "control" must here be understood in more of a feudal sense than in an "empire" sense. BUT Egyptologists recognize (and we should do the same) that the term "Hyksos" has escaped the confines of pure egyptology a long time ago and culturally refers to the people invading Egypt from c. 1650 BC to 1550 BC, even though this use is not archeologically precise. And it is nobody's fault nor something we can change easily: it is Manetho's and Herodotus' fault, who used the term indiscriminately. Wikipedia has to state the modern scholarship on the subject (as discussed in the two articles) bu itt must also recognize the still widespread use of the term for the laymen and that is why I would have opposed.Iry-Hor (talk) 17:16, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

"Ahmose battling the Hyksos"

I believe that this image does not depict either Ahmose I or the Hyksos, for several reasons:

• The first one is easy: the pharaoh's cartouches are empty;
• The original source (http://www.scinet.cc) of the image does not seem to provide anything besides the file name "hyksos". Everything else has been added over the years by a succession of Commons editors. If the original source was unreliable, then any subsequent speculation should fall like a house of cards;
• I cannot find any mention of such a relief attributable to Ahmose, anywhere;
• I'm not an expert on this specific period but I believe that, from an artistic point of view, this iconography emerged later into the 18th Dynasty;
• An loose interpretation at the The Pharaonic Village in Cairo of a Battle scene from the Great Kadesh reliefs of Ramses II on the Walls of the Ramesseum.jpg old comment on the image's talk page claims that it depicts Ramesses II against the Hittites, and that the image in its proper context can be seen in Heinz's Die Feldzugdarstellungen des Neues Reiches, p. 293. I can't access this source, but I have no reason to believe that this is untrue;

To me, this is likely a loose interpretation of the battle of Qadesh depicted in Ramesses II's mortuary temple at Abydos (compare here [16]), possibly mixed up with other reliefs/battles referable to the same iconography. Khruner (talk) 16:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Khruner: Thanks! After some research it does seem to be a relief of the Battle of Kadesh showing Ramses II against the Hittites (curiously inverted and rather imperfect as a copy) Ref. Thanks for the heads-up! I've removed it from the article, and I'll have it renamed. The actual historical relief is this one. The low quality interpretation of the relief above is in The Pharaonic Village in Cairo 11:56पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 18:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• 
  Battle scene from the Great Kadesh reliefs of Ramses II on the Walls of the Ramesseum
• 
  The original relief from the Ramesseum

पाटलिपुत्र, I just wanted to say: nice work finding all these great images! They really improve the article.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:31, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich, you're very welcome! It is an interesting subject. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 16:34, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I've just obtained the page from Heinz's Die Feldzugdarstellungen des Neues Reiches and it matches the B/W image of the Battle of Qadesh visible above, to further confirm that the coloured image derives directly from that loose reconstruction for tourists at that Pharaonic Village. Khruner (talk) 20:34, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 20:48, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Ryholt's Identifications of Hyksos rulers

Does anyone have access to Ryholt's full identification of Hyksos rulers? My preview on Google books doesn't let me see his final proposed reconstruction.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:52, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: Have you tried changing the country identifier in the Google address? For example, change from google.com to google.it or google.fr or google.de or google.ru and type the page of your choice after the segment pg=PA .... it can work miracles ... but not always ... some pages can remain out of bound पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 16:10, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Otherwise you can ask at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 16:19, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips! I've decided to put in an ILL request: if the information is in the chapter I think it's in, I should be able to find it once it gets fulfilled...--Ermenrich (talk) 16:26, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich I have bought the physical book ! Just ask me what you want !Iry-Hor (talk) 17:40, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Iry-Hor! Perhaps you could check whether the version I've added to the table at Hyksos#Rulers (based on this draft User:Archaeobuf/sandbox/hyksos#Sequence_and_Dynastic_Affiliation, near the bottom of the section) is accurate? I'd also be curious whether or not you have access to von Beckerath's reconstruction, particularly the 1999 one (Handbuch der aegyptischen Koenigsnamen). The draft doesn't even give a page number for him, unfortunately. I don't think we need to include the versions from before the 90s - so much has changed since then.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:50, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich So Ryholt, who has examined the original Turin king list in details, talks about the reconstruction of the 15th Dynasty at length p. 118-119. He give evidence that only the later part of it can be read on the document as the earlier part (before Khyan) is on loose fragments who fibers do not align with the later part. He states the Turin canon only reads : "[Khayan / name lost] 10+years [...,(months), ... (days)]" on entry 10/26 (watch out, Ryholt's numbering of the rows and column differs from Gardiner's), then on 10/27 [Apophis name lost] 40+years [...,(months), ... (days)], then 10/28 Khamudi [...(years)...,(months), ... (days)], then 10/29: "6 Hyksos. They ruled 108 years [..., months, .... days]". This implies that 3 earlier rulers are missing from the Turin list owing to its poor state of conservation. Ryholt then details the use of the title Hyksos by the kings of the time, noting notably that Apophis actually never had it! (p. 124), while Sakir-Har did not have Egyptian nomen and prenomen. I am skipping the details here for the moment. P. 125 Ryholt give his conclusion: 1. Šamuqēnu ?. 2. 'Aper-'Anati ? 3. Sakir-Har. 4. Khayan Sewoserenre 5. Apophis Awoserre, Aqenenre, Nebkhepeshre 6. Khamudi Hotepibre. I do have von Backerath 1999 chronology indeed, I will give you the page numbers when I have access to my other computer with the pdf of the book.Iry-Hor (talk) 07:09, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Another interesting source is "THE DATE OF KINGS SHESHI AND YAQUBHAR AND THE RISE OF THE FOURTEENTH DYNASTY" cited in the article on Sheshi, and which can be found online. The arguments for the reconstruction of the early 15th Dynasty are exposed and various reconstructions are compiled. You may be interested in the following relative chronology, by Rolf Krauss in 1998 from early to late but without clear dynastic attribution "Sekhaenra - Nubwoserra - Khawoserra - Ahotepra - Sheshi - Merwoserra - Khayan - Apophis". Here we see another issue, namely how to relate the various names of the same kings. For example for Ryholt Ya'amu = Nubwoserra but Krauss does not go that far. You can see more of the problem on Sheshi, which is the best documented king of the period in terms of number of artefacts. To add to the confusion and to the debate on what the term Hyksos refers to, see "Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR) 315, 1999, pp.47-73." where Ben-Tor argues that kings who did not bear the Hyksos title reigned concurrently with the late 15th Dynasty as vassals over the Delta.Iry-Hor (talk) 08:57, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your help Iry-Hor! I wonder how in detail we should go in this article... So far I've just limited myself to different reconstructions of the six (or I guess seven in Schneider's case) 15th dynasty Hyksos kings. On top of that all, I'm sure you've heard that based on new material Khyan is possibly a much earlier ruler than we thought (with his seals found in the same contexts as Sobekhotep IV!) and now they're talking about redrawing the whole chronology of the period, including getting rid of the notion that the 15th dynasty only lasted 108 years. It's quite difficult to wrap one's head around, particularly when none of the works specifically about the Hyksos has synthesized all the new information yet to give a coherent narrative and so much of the older stuff is criticized for wishful thinking/making assumptions...--Ermenrich (talk) 13:26, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich Khyan's seals in conjunction with Sobkehotep IV is heavily debated and does not seem to hold much water with the latest sources, although unfortunately I forgot in which article I read the fiercest latest criticisms. It seems that the evidence is still overwhelming that nearly a century separates both rulers while the chance of intrusion in the archeological layers cannot be ruled out completely. I think the Hyksos article should focus on the Hyksos as people, and by this I mean the Asiatics who invaded Lower Egypt at some point in the late SIP. Debates about the reconstruction of the 15th Dynasty are important but only for the article on this subject (and you see why merging wasn't ideal). I don't see a better way of doing than to patiently present all hypotheses one by one on the 15th Dynasty... For the Hyksos article, we would need a section on the 15th Dynasty that is synthetic, perhaps clearly listing those kings that everybody attributes to the 15th Dynasty (Apophis, Khamudi for example) but also giving the kings that are being debated with explicit mention that this is not settled in egyptology. In any case, only a summary would be required for the Hyksos article, that should instead focus on their culture, influence, historiography etc. Originally I had in mind a bottom up approach that would have required first a thorough understanding of each king separately, i.e. a featured article per Hyksos ruler, starting with Sheshi (due to him being well attested, but restrospectively a poor choice as he was likely not a Hyksos....), but then I moved to applying this idea to the 5th Dynasty rulers. Concluding, I propose that your work on the dynastic reconstruction is crucial for the 15th Dynasty article (where I would say all details are welcomed) but not the Hyksos one (debate synthesis only). Once I am done with Pepi I and it gets featured, I can move to making Khyan featured to clarify things if this helps.Iry-Hor (talk) 15:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Iry-Hor, I haven't looked into the arguments much, but several authors in THE HYKSOS RULER KHYAN AND THE EARLY SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD IN EGYPT: PROBLEMS AND PRIORITIES OF CURRENT RESEARCH Proceedings of the Workshop of the Austrian Archaeological Institute and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Vienna, July 4 – 5, 2014 (2018) seemed to support the idea, with Ryholt and Schneider proposing completely new readings for the length of Dynasty 15. Another scholar noted a complete lack of consensus on the issue (cited in article). As this publication is just two years old, it must represent more or less the current thinking, even if there's a long delay between the actual conference and the publication, as there always is. But like I say, I'm really only noting the possibility. Maybe someday soon someone will write a new Hyksos monograph that goes into such things.

I'm mostly just interested in completing the table in this article with any other more-or-less sequenced identifications at the moment, not a full reconstruction, which looks near impossible. At some point it may be possible to add this information to Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt, but there's already a table there, and you'll notice that at least one user opposed merging Fifteenth Dynasty here because he liked that table, even though it's woefully sourced. I'd prefer not to get in any fights about it.

Here's a review of the volume I just mentioned (in German from 2019), on the last page the reviewer says: In der Summe zeigen die einzelnen Beiträge auf, dass eine frühere Regierungszeit Khyans als plausibel anzusehen ist. Translation: In sum, the individual chapters show that an earlier reign for Khyan should be viewed as plausible.. Only "plausible," not certain, but still a real possibility.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich Thank you for these fascinating sources which I did not know. There is ample need for a thorough and serious discussion of these issues in Khyan's article, so I would be glad to move to this task after Pepi I ! P.S: I see that speak German. Would it be possible for you to translate a few selected sentences if the need arises while working on Khyan ? Iry-Hor (talk) 07:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Iry-Hor, more than happy to!--Ermenrich (talk) 12:41, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

AD/BC vs. BCE/CE

I started the rewrite using AD/BC because that's what (I think) was here before, however I actually prefer CE/BCE and I notice that some additions in this style were made by other editors. Would there be any strong objections to changing to CE/BCE?--Ermenrich (talk) 19:23, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Support I also do prefer CE/BCE and I sometimes edit this way out of habit, but this normally works by anteriority. I would support aligning the article on BCE/CE as the more modern format, but that would require a consensus of editors of this page I guess. [17] पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 04:10, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I generally check the initial creation and then the first entry for each year to see what the dominant style is. In this case it started as BC, went BCE for 2005-2006, and was back to BC again by 2007 where its stayed ever since, barring occasional edit interludes. I think at this point the bulk of 16 out of 18 years means the article is well established, and I don't see any cause for changing it. (EDIT: Also, that should be MOS:ERA in my edit summary, not WP:ERA, in case anyone wants to reference it; I always mix the two up). Cheers. Palindromedairy (talk) 06:19, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Comment I doubt it matters which style is used, since they are interchangeable. Just try to have your version of the article consinstently use one format. Dimadick (talk) 15:59, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Baal-Pharaoh Scarab

Does anyone know if there's any way to acquire this image or the original it's based on for the article: it's in the result for this search, page 105: [18]--Ermenrich (talk) 22:40, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The source appears and other examples are found at [19] p. 135.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:05, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I guess the only way would be to make your own drawing, as derived from the original object, which is itself Public Domain due to its antiquity. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 04:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Khruner (if I may), I believe you've made drawings like this before? Might you be able to make one now? I have no skill in such things, and I think that a scarab that gives the pharaoh the attributes of Baal is a great illustration of cultural mixing under the Hyksos.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:35, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately I'm currently in vacation away from home, I won't have the stuff I need for drawing until Monday I think. I only have access to the first source, the drawing there is most likely as same as what I would draw. Is there the chance for the second source to contain a picture instead? Or at least useful stuff like its current location and/or some bibliographical references about it? Khruner (talk) 16:48, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Khruner, there's no rush. The second source also appears to be a drawing... I'll have another look and see if it's referenced in the text with a possible location.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:16, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Khruner, here's what I found: Abb. 25a-c, ein Skarabäus mit der genau gleichen Ikonographie, wurde im Dezember 1993 bei Sotheby's in London versteigert. (Image 25a-c, a scarab with exactly the same iconography, was auctioned by Sotheby's in London in December 1993). There's a picture in the article (which I can send you) and it's footnoted to: 8 Sotheby's, Antiquities. London Thursday 9th December 1993. Friday lOth December 1993. London 1993, 134 Lot 472. Das Stück befindet sich als Dauerleihgabe mit der Inventarnr. SK 1993:21 am Biblischen Institut der Universität Freiburg/Schweiz. Es besteht aus Enstatit und mißt 18 x 12,7 x 7,9. mm. (The piece is a long-term loan with the inventory number SK 1993:21 at the Biblical Institute of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. It consists of Enstatite and measures 18 by 12.7 by 7.9 mm.).--Ermenrich (talk) 13:58, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich would you send me the full page? Now I'm curious. Sending you a hook mail right now. Khruner (talk) 15:27, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Khruner, done. References are on p. 126, image on p. 135 (Abb. 25a-c).--Ermenrich (talk) 15:47, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately I couldn't find anything with the given refs, so I'd stick with the first drawing. Thanks anyway. Khruner (talk) 07:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Ermenrich sorry to keep you waiting. Here's our regulus, hope you like it. Khruner (talk) 12:31, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Khruner, a thousand thanks!--Ermenrich (talk) 13:34, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Shadow contributor

I've just found that User:Archaeobuf, who has been almost inactive for the last year, has worked quite a bit in the shadow on the expansion of the Hyksos article @ User:Archaeobuf/sandbox/hyksos. I've left him a message to suggest participation, but in the meantime anyone interested is invited to check this content, and possibly borrow the good stuff if any, with attribution in the Edit Summary. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 13:11, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Pinging @Ermenrich: पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 13:16, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh my, this will require quite a look through to see what can be added! Unfortunately, a lot seems to not yet be sourced, but I'm sure there's quite a bit of useful info in there!--Ermenrich (talk) 13:27, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Looking through, I'm sure there's some good material there, but it's very difficult to tell - they've definitely found some good images, but it's hard to track sources for a lot of the statements and many are missing page number citations as well. Just to give an example: most scholars assign Nehesy to dynasty 14, but the draft includes him as a Hyksos ruler. A lot of the sources that I can identify appear to be old and thus not take more recent reconstructions into account. Thus we have several reconstructed lists of Hyksos kings but none more recent than 1997. That's not to say that nothing in there is useful, however.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:36, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

David Rohl

पाटलिपुत्र, you recently added a citation to a book by David Rohl, who appears to be a wp:fringe source. According to the book description:

At the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age - two thousand years before the assassination of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate - a new people appeared on the stage of history to join the great civilisations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. These 'Indo-European'-speaking tribes were chariot-riding warriors from the northern mountains and plains. They became the Hittites, the Aryan kings of Mitanni, the Vedic heroes of the Indus, and the founders of the later empires of Greece, Persia and Rome. They had many legendary names - the Divine Pelasgians of Greece, the Luwians of Troy and western Anatolia, the Rephaim and Anakim of the Bible, and the Hyksos rulers of Avaris who suppressed Egypt for generations. Their heroes and heroines are legionary: Inachus, mythical king of Argos in the Peloponnese; his daughter the beautiful Princess Io who married an Egyptian pharaoh; Danaus, the Hyksos ruler who, fleeing from Egypt to Greece, founded the Mycenaean dynasty which culminated in Agamemnon's ill-fated Trojan War; Cadmus, the bringer of writing to the West; Minos, the Cretan high-king of Knossos who built the infamous Labyrinth; Mopsus, warrior and sage who led a vast Greek, Philistine and Anatolian army into the Levant in a daring attempt to seize Egypt in the time of Ramesses III. All these, and more, are the stuff of legend - but The Lords of Avaris reveals these Classical heroes as flesh-and-blood characters from our ancestral past.

The "Aryan theory" of the Hyksos is generally rejected nowadays (as cited to van de Mieroop in the article, it's related to Indo-European/white supremacist "conquering race" notions), and Rohl appears to be arguing for both the historicity of Danaus and the idea he was Hyksos. Furthermore, if you look at Rohl's page here, you'll see that he's pushing some alternative chronology of ancient Egypt and doing things like arguing for the historicity of the bible and proposing locations for the Garden of Eden.

I don't think we should cite him, but I don't know which part of the caption you've cited to his book so I would leave you to remove/replace it.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:54, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, thank you for the information, I'll remove him (I have a second source for the same claim, so I'll just delete his ref). Thanks for the heads-up! पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 15:14, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

"you'll see that he's pushing some alternative chronology of ancient Egypt" We already have a rather detailed article on the topic: New Chronology (Rohl). He published his original chronology back in 1995 and ,to put it mildly, it has not found many supporters. We quote Kenneth Kitchen who calls the New Chronology "100% nonsense." Dimadick (talk) 09:54, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Ramesses II Hyksos Ancestry Claim

The claim that some scholars have suggested that Ramesses has Hyksos ancestry is currently cited to "Shalomi-Hen, Racheli PhD., "Introduction to Ancient Egyptian Religion", The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, 2016." I have no idea what this is. No hits come up if you search it. Racheli Shalomi-Hen is a real professor, but I can't find anything written by her with this title. I think I may have run across this claim somewhere else, but it's not mentioned at Ramesses II or Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. It's clearly a rare enough assertion (and possibly something people said around 1900 for all I know) that I wonder if we should mention it all. I've looked around. So, two questions:

1. Does anyone actually know a source for this claim?
2. Should we include it if we can find one? Unless it's a well-known scholar and not extremely old, my feeling is probably that we shouldn't.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Anon edit [20]. Not a big fan either if no better sources are available. Let's remove पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 19:00, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I've removed it. If anyone has a good source we can always re-add, but it does not seem to be a common claim since I haven't been able to find it in any of my searches.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:46, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Hyksos sphinxes

About the "Royal construction and patronage" subsection, it is just me or there is no mention of the Hyksos sphinxes in the book by el-Shahawy? Just asking, I've always had an interest in these statues. Khruner (talk) 14:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Khruner, they aren't called "Hyksos sphinxes" but the fact that the sphinxes of Amenemhet III were transported to Avaris is mentioned on p. 117. There may be better sources out there, I believe the other one is quite old.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:16, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh I see thanks, it can't be seen from the preview. I'll try to add something on the topic in the next days. As far as I know, only Apophis is known to have put his name on a couple of these sphinxes. Khruner (talk) 14:50, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

oh interesting, I thought Khyan was the one who did the most “graffiti” (in one recent book it’s called the equivalent of writing “I was here” rather than appropriation).—Ermenrich (talk) 14:59, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Archiving talk page

Could someone who knows how create an archive for this talk page? At the moment most of the discussions are ancient and irrelevant to the current article or the rewrites going on.—Ermenrich (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Done Khruner (talk) 19:08, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

No invasion

In PLOS ONE[21] "Who were the Hyksos? Challenging traditional narratives using strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of human remains from ancient Egypt" Abstract

"A foreign dynasty, known as the Hyksos, ruled parts of Egypt between c. 1638–1530 BCE. Their origins are thought to be rooted in the Near East, which is supported by architectural features and grave accoutrements of Tell el-Dabca. In this former Hyksos capital in the Eastern Nile Delta, burial culture is characterized by a blend of Egyptian and Near Eastern elements. However, investigations are still ongoing as to where the Hyksos came from and how they rose to power. The aim of this study is to elucidate the question of possible provenience. We present the results of strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) ratios of human tooth enamel (n = 75) from Tell el-Dabca, focusing on comparing pre- and during Hyksos rule and sex-based differences. An influx of non-locals can be observed in the pre-Hyksos period (12th and 13th Dynasties, c. 1991–1649 BCE) during the constitution of this important harbor town, while the number of individuals already born in the Delta is larger during the Hyksos period. This is consistent with the supposition that, while the ruling class had Near Eastern origins, the Hyksos’ rise to power was not the result of an invasion, as popularly theorized, but an internal dominance and takeover of foreign elite. There is a preponderance of non-local females suggesting patrilocal residence. We discuss our findings against the current evidence of material culture and historiography, but more investigation in Near Eastern comparative sites has to be conducted to narrow our future search for the actual origins of the Hyksos."

Also this Haaretz article[22] Doug Weller talk 18:06, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Should we add this to the “origins “ section or would it be better to wait a while? New genetics research always makes me a bit cautious. Even if in this case it confirms what the archaeologists have been saying.—Ermenrich (talk) 14:08, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Unacceptable reverts by Ermenrich

USer:Ermenrich is inexplicably removing content I added. First off, I added the rest of the content in the quote from Bietak, which previously was out of context. He has not explained why he does not want the whole paragraph included. Secondly, he keeps removing content from Faust, p.476, which states the MAJORITY view of scholars (it uses the words specifically). I have already discussed this repeatedly at Talk:Book of Exodus. The majority of scholars agree there was probably a group in the highland settlers in the proto-Israelites who came ultimately from Egypt (this is stated clearly). It is also stated that the majority of scholars, and the archaeological evidence, do not support complete or simple continuity of sedentary Canaanite settlement to Israelite settlement in the highlands, which is what the current format INCORRECTLY states. The archaeological evidence is clear that there was discontinuity, and that the highland settlements involved pastoralists, including some migrants from other areas. This user needs to stop removing scholarly content that is the majority view in this field.

"While there is a consensus among scholars that the Exodus did not take place in the manner described in the Bible, surprisingly most scholars agree that the narrative has a historical core, and that some of the highland settlers came, one way or another, from Egypt (cf. Bietak 2003;Gottwald 1979; Herrmann 1985: 48; Mazar 2001: 76; Na’aman 1994: 245; Stiebing 1989:197–9; Friedman 1997: 82–83; Halpern 1992:104, 107; Halpern 2003; Dever 1993: 31*;1995: 211; Tubb 1998: 169; Williamson 1998:149–150; Hoffmeier 1997; Weisman 1984:15–16; Malamat 1997; Yurco 1997: 44–51;Machinist 1991: 210; 1994; Hendel 2001, 2002;Knohl 2008; see also Levy and Holl 2002; and see many contributions to this volume)." (Faust, p.476 [23]) Greumaich (talk) 16:55, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Furthermore, the evidence from both Faust (p.475) and the current link by Shaw, 2002, do not support the current statement. The current article reads, simplistically and incorrectly, that "Archaeological evidence suggests that the Israelites primarily emerged natively from Canaan." But the link provided here as citation, from Shaw (p.313 [24]), actually states: "Redford, however, makes a good case for equating the very earliest Israelites with a semi-nomadic people in the highlands of central Palestine whom the Egyptians called Shasu...By the end of the 13th century BC, however, the Shasu/Israelites were beginning to establish small settlements in the uplands, the architecture of which closely resembles contemporary Canaanite villages.

Faust elaborates:

"The first “positive” line of argument of the Canaanite origins school is based on material evidence of continuity with the Late Bronze Age Canaanite society. If this continuity in material traits would be complete and uninterrupted,then there would be no real doubt that we are discussing the same peoples. But it is clear that such is not the case. There are some marked differences between the Late Bronze Age material culture and that of the Iron I highlands. The differences are expressed in almost every aspect—settlement form and patterns, burials,ceramic repertoire, etc. (more below)—and it is clear that one cannot speak of straight forward and complete continuity...Consequently, the first Israelites may have been “local” in a loose meaning of the term, but they were most likely NOT settled Canaanites, and it is clear, at least, that the evidence does not suggest this. (p.472)

"While I agree that many Canaanites became Israelites in the course of the Iron Age (and that in the bottom line they might have even been the majority, see below), and that as far as the “later” Israel is concerned the above reconstruction (which views the Canaanites as the main population source from whom the Israelites evolved) might be correct, it is clear that they did not constitute the original “core” of this group— Merneptah’s Israel". (p.473)

"It follows then that the first settlers were, to a very large extent at least, seminomads, as all of the above qualities are expected to be found among them and were not present, as far as we know, among any known Late Bronze Age sedentary Canaanite group. These seminomads came, most probably, from among the Shasu groups (perhaps including small groups of “local” Apiru, or outcast Canaanites). This is, most likely, the core of Merneptah’s Israel." (p.475) Greumaich (talk) 17:08, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Just posting the same discussion and block of quotes everywhere is not the right way to go about things. You don’t have consensus for your changes, you are using a single source that does not state that there is scholarly consensus that the Israelites included an exodus group to state that there is. You are likely to be blocked for edit warring for repeatedly reverting other editors.—Ermenrich (talk) 17:12, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I am not posting the same thing, as I discuss the Shaw citation (but you conveniently ignore). I am reposting other content because you are ignoring it. You are not even reading the material as stated by Faust, and claiming it his 'only his view' - it is not. The source states the MAJORITY VIEW OF SCHOLARS, and it specifically uses the words "MOST SCHOLARS", backed up by multiple references showing this. YOU don't have consensus for your changes and reverts, which are removing cited, scholarly material, and the majority view of scholars. If you are pushing a minority, fringe view, the onus is on you to explain why. The majority view of scholars should not be removed from the article.

"you are using a single source that does not state that there is scholarly consensus that the Israelites included an exodus group to state that there is." This sentence here shows how you are not being cooperative. You clearly did not read the quotes from the source I provided, which contain MULTIPLE sources, and state the MAJORITY view of scholars - it again says specifically MOST SCHOLARS, and then backs it up with all the sources from those scholars as I have shown above (see the multiple sources from Faust, p.476 and the sentence saying "MOST SCHOLARS"). Also, this does not explain your removal of including the component of Israel's origins that involves seminomad pastoralists, including the Shasu, - which AGAIN is what the archaeological evidence shows and is the majority view. It is only disputed how much of them were these seminomad pastoralists. Lastly, you are removing content from Bietak's quote that I added. Why? I am including the ENTIRE quote so that it is in proper context. You have not ONCE explained why you removed this addition.

I have a highly respected, mainstream scholarly quote - with citations from multiple scholars - stating the view of the MAJORITY of scholars. What do you have contesting this?? What academic source have you provided to support your reverts? The citation as it stands - Shaw, 2002, p.313 - ITSELF states that the first Israelites included semi-nomadic pastoralists, like the Shasu. You are doing nothing but POV PUSHING and removing scholarly content, and consensus, that you personally disagree with. That is not acceptable for a Wikipedia article. It is not your personal blog or sandbox. Please stop this behaviour. Greumaich (talk) 17:58, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I’m not the one making the edits than posting long wp:WALLs of text against other editors. Faust doesn’t speak for every scholar on there having been an exodus group. This has been explained ad nauseam at talk:The Book of Exodus#Addition of Faust material. Starting discussions everywhere you make the same edit is counterproductive.—Ermenrich (talk) 18:15, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

No, but you are not reading the respected, scholarly content I have added, including the views of most scholars. You are just removing it without explanation, and without any respected sources saying the contrary. What have you provided rejecting this? NOTHING. What I have posted is also not meant to be 'walls of text'. I am posting the direct quotes from the sources because you are ignoring them, not reading them and misrepresenting the claims (e.g. you make a completely false claim that what I entered is only Faust's view - it is not, and the source clearly states it is the view of MOST SCHOLARS, and provided sources from each of that majority of scholars; also, what I entered is from the citation already in the article, from Shaw, p.313).

"Faust doesn’t speak for every scholar on there having been an exodus group."

He doesn't do that. He provides the references from all of those scholars stating they do think there probably was some group ultimately from Egpyt, whether it is an 'exodus' group or not. Faust is a very respected, mainstream scholar in this field. You are not. You can't just remove the content because of your own POV. Sorry, but that does not hold more weight than Faust - and the citations he lists - on what most scholars in this field believe. But you also ignored here that most scholars also agree there were seminomad pastoralists in Israel's ethnogenesis. And, you have not once explained yourself for removing the quoted material from Manfred Bietak which I added.

I am taking this to dispute resolution. Greumaich (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Go ahead, but it’s not going to get you anywhere. You are not going to fool anyone who knows anything about exodus scholarship into thinking Faust is representing consensus on this point, sorry. This Discussion here and now dispute resolution look an awful lot like wp:Forum shopping.—Ermenrich (talk) 18:51, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

You are the one fooling people. You have not provided anything other than your own opinion, or that of maybe one other user here, as if it somehow overrides highly respected scholars like Faust and Shaw. I have entered what they say VERBATIM, so it is obvious to everyone but you. You are ignoring what both sources say. When it comes to you and Faust describing what MOST SCHOLARS believe, Wikipedia policy - and academics - goes with Faust, especially since Faust REFERENCES ALL THOSE SCHOLARS IN THE LINK PROVIDED (Bietak, Gottwald, Herrmann, Mazar, Na’aman, Stiebing, Friedman, Halpern, Dever, Tubb, Williamson, Hoffmeier, Weisman, Malamat, Yurco, Machinist, Hendel, Knohl, Levy and Holl, etc.) What have you provided to somehow override Faust about this? NOTHING. You have not provided ANYTHING showing those scholars hold a position somehow to the contrary. NOT ONE THING. Greumaich (talk) 19:04, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Greumaich and Ermenrich: Please see page 123 of Grabbe, and the following pages down to 130, if Google Books allows you access. The scholarly consensus seems to be that the Israelite nation originated in the central highlands of Canaan (not the whole region, over which it only gradually extended itself) from both migrating groups and Canaanites who had moved from sedentary agriculture to pastoralism as order in the cities broke down. Faust emphasizes the former as more important, while Dever emphasizes the latter, but both leave room in their hypotheses for the other. So the text that Ermenrich is restoring isn't ideal—some of the migrants could have come from the Transjordan, which seems to count as "Canaan" under at least some definitions of that fuzzy term, and some could have come from Egypt, which definitely isn't Canaan—but all that's needed is some tweaking of the text. And it's not all that relevant to the Hyksos. The main thing to emphasize in this article is that Israel did not originate with a mass migration out of Egypt, and that it originated centuries after the Hyksos. A. Parrot (talk) 18:58, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I don’t really care about the Shasu question, but the exodus group isn’t a consensus position - or do you disagree A. Parrot?—Ermenrich (talk) 19:00, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

But you are removing content I added about the pastoralists as well, like the Shasu. You also removed the content I added from Bietak's quote, without explanation. AND I have a highly respected source - Faust - saying (with a massive reference list showing so) that MOST SCHOLARS believe there was a group ultimately from Egypt (which doesn't necessarily mean it is an 'exodus' group). The only thing you have provided to the contrary is your own opinion!! That is not good enough. You are not an expert academic in this field like Faust. Sorry, but if all you have is your personal opinion, that does not override Faust on what most scholars think in this discipline. Greumaich (talk) 19:10, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

It is widespread among scholars, but not universal. The hypothesis of a small Exodus group is based on the idea that the Exodus story was inspired by a real migration of some kind, not on any archaeological findings. Archaeology can neither prove nor disprove the movement of such a small group. As I said at Talk:Book of Exodus, Na'aman doesn't believe a real migration is necessary to explain the origin of the story, and Grabbe, when speaking for himself rather than surveying the scholarly field, also seems rather skeptical). A. Parrot (talk) 19:08, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Parrot, these are some interesting takes on the issue, but again this is your opinion. Faust is a highly respected academic source in this discipline. I don't mean any offence here, but that takes precedence over the opinion of this Ermenrich person, or yours for that matter, on what most scholars view on the small group from Egypt. Wikipedia policy backs academic sources, not the personal opinions of random editors. Greumaich (talk) 19:13, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd also add that the source from Faust states that this majority view among archaeologists about the group from Egypt is based almost entirely on textual sources, and not material evidence. But that is not the case for the semi-nomadic pastoralists - this is backed by the evidence from material culture, and the sources from Shaw (p.313) already in the article as well as Faust and Grabbe state this. There was a section in this article about Israel's origins which was inaccurate, as it stated that there was just simple Canaanite continuity, which is false. I added the section stating the majority view of scholars about the role of seminomadic pastoralists (of whatever origins) and the probability of a small group from Egypt. The role of the Hyksos in Israel's ethnogenesis - if any - is discussed elsewhere in the article, and as mentioned by Faust, Bietak and others, is debate among scholars. Greumaich (talk) 19:21, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I have to remove intervening edits to revert your addition of the “exodus group “ being consensus.—Ermenrich (talk) 19:12, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I have a highly respected source stating that the small group from Egypt (not simply an "exodus group") in the early Israelites is the view of most scholars. YOU DO NOT have such an academic source claiming anything to the contrary. Until you do, my edit stands according to Wikipedia policies on reliable sources (your POV is not a reliable source). Greumaich (talk) 19:14, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Where does he say that? He says that most scholars believe the exodus has a historical core, not that most scholars believe there was an exodus group. Not the same thing.—Ermenrich (talk) 19:15, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

This comment here ^^ is exactly why I asked for dispute resolution. I have posted multiple times the exact quote where Faust says that most scholars believe there was some group from Egypt (whether it is an'exodus' group or not is irrelevant). Read:

• "most scholars agree that the narrative has a historical core, AND that some of the highland settlers came, one way or another, from Egypt....Though the size of this group is debated, most of the above scholars agree that it was in the range of a few thousands, or even hundreds." (p.476) >>>>>>> Faust, A., 2015, The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus, in T.E. Levy, T. Schneider and W.H.C. Propp (eds.), Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archeology, Culture and Geoscience, Springer, P.476 Greumaich (talk) 19:25, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Who are “the above scholars”? That implies a large group that doesn’t agree, and many scholars do not think the exodus has any historical basis at all. The only thing everyone agrees on is that the bulk of the Israelites didn’t come from Egypt. We have to make it clear when there is debate, and other scholars say things at odds with what you purport to quote. Trust me, the exodus on Wikipedia attracts all sorts of people trying to argue for one thing or another, you can’t simply come and add a position that’s fairly controversial without discussing it and being willing to at least compromise on the wording. And none of this is particularly relevant to this article. You don’t appear to be willing to work within consensus based on what you’ve written A Parrot.—Ermenrich (talk) 19:35, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Salted

Gérard Gertoux has been salted for a reason. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:49, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

What name did the Hyksos call themselves?

Must be something somewhere? 2A00:23C7:2B13:9001:4:A548:B7AE:B701 (talk) 02:16, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Indo-European connections

Sutyarashi, I've reverted your addition for two reasons:

1. we have a statement that this has been rejected by scholars in the line immediately preceeding;
2. your cited source is an unpublished PhD dissertion. While dissertations can be useful sources for some uncontroversial facts, they are not generally the highest quality sources. In particular, unpublished ones raise issues with verifiability.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:06, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ermenrich, I agree with your points. However, several scholarly sources do mention and discuss the proposed Indo-Iranian or Maryannu relation with the Hyskos; for instance pp. 55–58. Regarding your edit summary for WP:RS/AC, the statement added did not suggest any academic consensus for the Maryannu relation; rather contrary to it. While the source which I added before may not be of highest quality, but its author appears reliable. Given that the section already deals with the modern view of scholars over origins of Hyksos (and includes the ones now usually rejected as well), the mention of Maryannu, with academic consensus for it later is not violation of WP:UNDUE or WP:RS/AC in any way. Sutyarashi (talk) 19:14, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok, so I didn't see that this proposed Indo-European relation has been discussed extensively before. Still, let me know what you think about single-line mention of Maryannu. Sutyarashi (talk) 19:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I think that you would need another recent source beside the dissertation to add that. And I'm not sure where you're referring to in Candelora, but all I see is him citing refuted previous scholarship, in fact exactly like van Mierop, only in more detail. The idea that the Hyksos were Aryan is associated explicitly with Nazi racial theories. I see no mention of the Maryannu.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:48, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

This is another recent source that suggests that Maryannu formed part of Canaanites who established Hyksos dynasty. The previous theory of Indo-European origins of Hyksos mainly connected them with the Maryannu, and that's why in my opinion it merits its inclusion. Sutyarashi (talk) 13:13, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that source is about Thebes in Greece. When citing something, we have to be careful we're actually following what recent scholars who study the subject in question have to say, because WP:AGEMATTERS. If that source cites recent scholarship that states that there are scholars who still, in the 21st century, hold to this opinion, you should follow the citations to them and bring them rather than just incidental mentions in sources about something else. Otherwise, we have multiple sources that indicate that this theory has been abandoned and was at least partially motivated by racism.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:23, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually it is not about Thebes, at least not the concerned section. To be clear, I'm aware that the academic consensus is for Levantine origins of Hyksos. However, earlier views for Indo-Iranian origins of Hyksos linked them with the Maryannu who are believed to introduce chariots and horses into West Asia, and introduction of both of them into Egypt is connected with the Hyksos. This view, not doubt that now rejected like that of Hurrian or Indo European origin, is significant enough to be mentioned. Sutyarashi (talk) 16:33, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry. I misread "Tribes" as "Thebes". Unfortunately, I cannot access that source. Can you quote the relevant text? If it's merely a recounting of a now discarded theory, we should really only add it as another discarded theory.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

The source suggests that Canaanites who formed Hyksos had a Maryannu component among them. It would be rather long quotation spanning several paras, but you can access the book in pdf form here, or you can also search it at Springer's collection through Wikipedia library. Given that most recent sources don't support any connection between Maryannu and Hyksos, I think it can be added as a now discarded theory. Sutyarashi (talk) 16:20, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

References