The Second Intermediate Period of Egypt marks when ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the Middle Kingdom‘s end and the New Kingdom’s start. In the Second Intermediate Period (late 13th to 17th Dynasty), the territories that the centralised Egyptian state had ruled—including Lower Nubia—were divided between the kingdom of Kerma and the Theban Dynasty kingdom of Avaris and possibly other little-known political entities. The concept of a “Second Intermediate Period” was coined in 1942 by German Egyptologist Hanns Stock.
It is best known as the period when the Hyksos people of West Asia appeared in Egypt. Their reign comprised the 15 Dynasty, which, according to Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, was founded by a king named Salitis.
End of the Middle Kingdom
The 12th Dynasty of Egypt ended at the end of the 19th century BC with the death of Queen Sobekneferu (1806–1802 BC). She had no heirs, causing the 12th Dynasty to come to a sudden end and, with it, the Golden Age of the Middle Kingdom; the much weaker 13th Dynasty succeeded it. Retaining the seat of the 12th Dynasty, the 13th Dynasty ruled from Itjtawy (“Seizer-of-the-Two-Lands”) for most of its existence, switching to Thebes in the far south, possibly since the reign of Merneferre Ay.
The 13th Dynasty is notable for the accession of King Khendjer (whose name Kim Ryholt interprets as Semitic). However, the 13th Dynasty proved unable to hold on to the entire territory of Egypt. A provincial ruling family in the Nile Delta broke away from the central authority to form the 14th Dynasty (contested rulers proposed by Ryholt as the first five rulers of the Dynasty are commonly identified as Canaanite (Semitic) descent based on their names. Ben Tor’s study contested his conclusions about their chronological position within the period. Other sources don’t refer to the Dynasty as foreign or Hyksos; they were not referred to as “rulers of foreign lands” or “shepherd kings” in kings lists.
Hyksos Rule of Second Intermediate Period
15th Dynasty
The 15th Dynasty dates approximately from 1650 to 1550 BC. Known rulers of the Fifteenth Dynasty are as follows:
- Salitis
- Sakir-Har
- Khyan
- Apophis, c. 1590? BC–1550 BC
- Khamudi, c. 1550–1540 BC
The 15th Dynasty of Egypt was the first Hyksos dynasty. It ruled from Avaris but did not control the entire land. The Hyksos preferred to stay in northern Egypt since they infiltrated from the northeast. The names and order of their kings are uncertain. The Turin King list indicates six Hyksos kings, with an obscure Khamudi listed as the final king of the 15th Dynasty.
Some scholars argue there were two Apophis kings named Apepi I and Apepi II, but this is primarily because there are two known prenomina for this king: Awoserre and Aqenenre. However, the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt maintains in his study of the Second Intermediate Period that these prenomens all refer to one man, Apepi, who ruled Egypt for 40 or more years. This is also supported by the fact that this king employed a third prenomen during his reign: Nebkhepeshre. Apepi likely employed several different prenomina throughout various periods of his reign. This scenario is not unprecedented, as later kings, including the famous Ramesses II and Seti II, are known to have used two different prenomina in their reigns.
16th Dynasty
The 16th Dynasty ruled the Theban region in Upper Egypt for 70 years.
Of the two chief versions of Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, Dynasty XVI is described by the more reliable Africanus (supported by Syncellus) as “shepherd [hyksos] kings” but by Eusebius as Theban.
Ryholt (1997), followed by Bourriau (2003), in reconstructing the Turin canon, interpreted a list of Thebes-based kings to constitute Manetho’s Dynasty XVI. However, this is one of Ryholt’s “most debatable and far-reaching” conclusions. For this reason, other scholars do not follow Ryholt and see only insufficient evidence for interpreting the 16th Dynasty as Theban.
The continuing war against Dynasty XV dominated the short-lived 16th Dynasty. The armies of the 15th Dynasty, winning town after town from their southern enemies, continually encroached on the 16th dynasty territory, eventually threatening and conquering Thebes itself. In his study of the second intermediate period, Egyptologist Kim Ryholt suggested that Dedumose I sued for a truce in the latter years of the Dynasty. Still, one of his predecessors, Nebiryraw I, may have been more successful and seems to have enjoyed peace in his reign.
Famine, which had plagued Upper Egypt during the late 13th and 14th dynasties, also blighted the 16th Dynasty, most evidently during and after the reign of Neferhotep III.
From Ryholt’s reconstruction of the Turin canon, 15 kings of this Dynasty can now be named, five appearing in contemporary sources. While they were most likely rulers based in Thebes, some may have been local rulers from other important Upper Egyptian towns, including Abydos, El Kab and Edfu. By the reign of Nebiriau I, the realm controlled by the 16th Dynasty extended at least as far north as Hu and south to Edfu. Not listed in the Turin canon (after Ryholt) is Wepwawetemsaf, who left a stele at Abydos and was likely a local kinglet of the Abydos Dynasty.
Abydos dynasty of the Second Intermediate Period
The Abydos Dynasty may have been a short-lived local dynasty ruling over part of Upper Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period in Ancient Egypt and was contemporary with the 15th and 16th Dynasties, approximately from 1650 to 1600 BC. Detlef Franke first proposed the existence of an Abydos Dynasty, which was later elaborated on by Egyptologist Kim Ryholt in 1997. The Dynasty’s presence may have been vindicated in January 2014, when the tomb of the previously unknown pharaoh Seneb Kay was discovered in Abydos. The Dynasty tentatively includes four rulers: Wepwawetemsaf, Pantjeny, Snaaib, and Seneb Kay.
The royal necropolis of the Abydos Dynasty was found in the southern part of Abydos, in an area called Anubis Mountain, in ancient times. The rulers of the Abydos Dynasty placed their burial ground adjacent to the tombs of the Middle Kingdom rulers.
17th Dynasty
Around the time Memphis and Itj-tawy fell to the Hyksos, the native Egyptian ruling house in Thebes declared its independence from Itj-tawy, becoming the 17th Dynasty. This Dynasty would eventually lead to the war of liberation that drove the Hyksos back into Asia. The Theban-based 17th Dynasty restored numerous temples throughout Upper Egypt while maintaining peaceful trading relations with the Hyksos kingdom in the north. Indeed, Senakhtenre Ahmose, the first king in the line of Ahmoside kings, even imported white limestone from the Hyksos-controlled region of Tura to make a granary door at the Temple of Karnak. However, his successors — the final two kings of this Dynasty — Seqenenre Tao and Kamose, are traditionally credited with defeating the Hyksos during the wars of liberation. With the creation of the 18th Dynasty around 1550 BC, the New Kingdom period of Egyptian history began with Ahmose I, its first pharaoh, completing the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt and placing the country, once again, under centralised administrative control.
