Egypt in 1600 BC

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 50 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

• Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km or so of the Nile, from the First Cataract (near modern Aswan) to the Mediterranean Sea. To the south lies the Kingdom of Kush ruled from Kerma.
• Population: 1.0 million.
• Major cities: north to south: Avaris, Memphis, Abydos, Thebes, Elephantine.
  • capital: Avaris and Thebes as rival capitals.
• Language: Late Egyptian spoken, Middle Egyptian written.
• Religion: idol worship of many gods, especially Seth (god of chaos) based in Avaris in the north, and Osiris (god of the undeworld) based in Abydos in the middle of Egypt, a centre of pilgrimage. New: The Book of the Dead.
• Government: The northern half of Egypt is ruled by the 15th (Hyksos) Dynasty from Avaris in the Delta, the southern half by the 17th Dynasty from Thebes. Abydos is independent of both.
• Economy: Wheat, barley, flax, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, honey, figs, beer.
  • imports: copper, timber, pottery, gold, etc. The 15th Dynasty trades with Crete, Cyprus, Byblos, Ugarit, Aleppo, Hattusa (the Hittite capital), and Kush (Nubia). The 17th Dynasty, the southern half of Egypt, is cut off from international trade.
• Currency: none. Barley and gold a common medium of exchange.
• Transport: Nile River, sail boats, barges, donkeys. Rare: roads, horses, and wheeled transport. Camels unknown. Horses did not start to become common till the -1500s.
• Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, stone blocks, paper, glass, bee-keeping, linen (not cotton or silk), bronze (not yet iron), mechanical lock, saw, alphabet, bathroom mirrors. Hyksos technology (horse and chariot, compound bow, bronze body armour, etc) has not yet taken hold.

The last 100 years: the -1600s:

• Hyksos: after -1650 they take over the Delta and even Memphis – the first time the ancient capital has fallen to foreigners. Egypt’s days of splendid isolation are over – forever. The kings of Egypt flee to Thebes, leaving the Hyksos to rule the northern half of Egypt, as far south as Hermopolis (300 km south of Cairo).
• The Hyksos have Semitic names and probably come from the Levant (what is now Syria, Lebanon and Israel). “Hyksos” is the Greek version of the Egyptian term heka khaswt – “rulers of foreign lands”, the name Egyptians gave to the princes of the Near East. The Hyksos may never have been a majority in Egypt, though when they arrived in the eastern Delta it was already majority-Palestinian thanks to centuries of immigration.
• The Hyksos do not impose their culture on Egypt but instead take on some Egyptian ways, even worshipping Egyptian gods, taking Seth to be Baal and Hathor to be Astarte. The Egyptians will, though, copy their military technology and outlook in the -1500s, leading to an Egyptian empire in the -1400s.
• Joseph of the Bible: Josephus and others say he was a Hyksos. He arguably did arrive in Egypt the -1600s, though the traditional chronology puts it in the -1800s.
• The Book of the Dead makes its debut in about -1650. It is the definitive guide to the afterlife. Price: six months’ wages or three donkeys.
• The Edwin Smith Papyrus, a medical text (pictured at top), dates to this time. Hyksos rule did not stop Egyptian science and literature.

Meanwhile in Britain, Stonehenge now completed.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

• Hyksos
• Egyptian century of the week
  • Egypt in 3000 BC
  • Egypt in 2500 BC
  • Egypt in 2000 BC
    • Egypt in 1900 BC
    • Egypt in 1800 BC
    • Egypt in 1700 BC
  • Egypt
  • Egypt: a brief history
  • Ancient Egypt
• Egyptian
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics
• Egyptian gods
  • Seth
  • Osiris
• Book of the Dead
• Nubia
  • Kingdom of Kush
• The British
  • The British through time: the last 10,000 years
  • Stonehenge
• Bible chronology

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