Second split

The Ancient Egypt
Timeline
Prehistory :	before 4000 BC Chr.
Predynastic time :	approx. 4000-3032 BC BC 0. Dynasty
Early Dynastic Period :	approx. 3032-2707 BC Chr. 1st-2nd Dynasty
Old Empire :	approx. 2707-2216 BC Chr. 3rd to 6th Dynasty
First intermediate time :	approx. 2216-2137 BC Chr. 7th to 11th Dynasty
Middle Kingdom :	approx. 2137–1781 BC Chr. 11 to 12th Dynasty
Second split time :	approx. 1648–1550 BC BC 13th to 17th Dynasty
New Kingdom :	approx. 1550-1070 BC Chr. 18 to 20 Dynasty
Third intermediate time :	approx. 1070–664 BC BC 21st to 25th Dynasty
Late period :	approx. 664-332 BC Chr. 26 to 31 Dynasty
Greco-Roman time :	332 BC Chr. To 395 AD
Data based on Stan Hendrickx and Jürgen von Beckerath
Summary
History of Ancient Egypt
Further information
Portal Egyptology

Expansion of the Egyptian Empire

The Second Intermediate Period in ancient Egypt marks the transition from the Middle to the New Kingdom . It ranged from the 13th to the end of the 17th dynasty . The times given vary somewhat, but Egyptologists generally go from around 1648–1550 BC. Chr. From.

13th Dynasty

The 13th Dynasty is still counted by some researchers to the Middle Kingdom, while others assign it to the Second Intermediate Period. Politically, the 13th dynasty marked the beginning of a new period in which many brief rulers succeeded each other, although the country probably remained politically united. Culturally, this period clearly belongs to the Middle Kingdom.

Manetho assigns more than 50 kings to the 13th Dynasty, the center of which was still Itj-taui , today's el-Lisht . Their influence extended to Upper Egypt . The order in which the rulers ruled is well known for the beginning of the period by the Turin Royal Papyrus, even if there are many open questions in detail. However, according to the entry about King Merkaure Sobekhotep , the papyrus is poorly preserved. The ranking of the subsequent rulers is therefore unclear.

The tomb of Hor I , whose reign is still unknown, was found in Dahshur near the pyramid of Amenemhet III. found.

Chendjer , who was probably around 1753–1747 BC. Ruled is one of the best documented kings. The pyramid he built at Saqqara is the only known pyramid of this dynasty that was completed. Under Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV , the country even experienced a small late bloom. These rulers ruled together for about 20 years and are well documented. Shortly after Aja I. the unity of the country seems to have disintegrated.

Especially the kings who are said to have ruled at the end of the 13th dynasty are very controversial. The last king could be Neferhotep III. have been. In his time there are also the first indications of increased military activity.

14th dynasty

Almost nothing is known of this very nebulous dynasty, to which some small kingdoms in the eastern Nile Delta belonged. After Manetho it had its seat in Xois . It emerged parallel to the 13th Dynasty, probably through separation from the weak central government in Itj-taui . Due to their location in the Nile Delta, they may have been the first to come into contact with the Hyksos .

Only the kings Nehesy and Merdjefare are documented by building activity. See also List of Kings of the 14th Dynasty .

15th dynasty

The great Hyksos dynasty in the Nile Delta is founded by the king Salitis (possibly also Schalik or Scharek ), who founded the capital Auaris (Avaris).

With this dynasty in particular, there is still great disagreement among the Egyptologists about the assignment of the individual kings, since these are hardly proven by hieroglyphics . The best documented king is Apopi I. He probably ruled from 1590 to 1549 BC. Chr.

16th dynasty

Temporally determined from approx. 1649 to 1582 BC The 16th dynasty runs parallel to the 15th dynasty. This definition is based largely on Africanus , who in turn was based on Manetho. In it small kings are summarized who were tribute to the Hyksos, but retained a certain independence. Therefore, it is also referred to as the Little Hyksos Dynasty .

Due to the length of the Nile, there were many semi-autonomous domains. Large parts of the 13th dynasty in Itj-taui, the 14th dynasty in the Delta, the 16th dynasty in (according to previous view) Memphis and the 17th dynasty in Thebes partially ran parallel to the rule of Hyksos.

In recent years, Kim Ryholt has redefined the 16th Dynasty. He cites Eusebius , who, after Manetho, describes the 16th dynasty as Theban. In this dynasty he sees the rulers who appear at the end of column 10 and in column 11 (up to line 15) of the Turin Royal Papyrus. Most of the rulers appearing there have so far been assigned to the 13th or 17th dynasty.

17th dynasty

Temporally terminated from approx. 1580 to 1550 BC The Hyksos penetrated as far as Thebes, but it was not possible for them to permanently control areas so far south. The first rulers of the Upper Egyptian 17th dynasty, the Hyksos, had to pay tribute. Due to the great distance to Auaris in the eastern Nile delta, the southern empire strengthened again, and at the end of the 17th dynasty it was again a Theban dynasty that drove the foreign rulers out of the country and founded the New Kingdom.

It is possible that some of the kings of the 14th dynasty only ruled in Thebes, which would then have to be assigned to the 17th dynasty. The order of the kings is not only very uncertain in the first half of the dynasty. The rediscovery of the grave of Nub-cheper-Re Anjotef by the German Archaeological Institute in 2000, always set as Anjotef V. at the beginning of the dynasty, required a complete reorganization of the chronology. Daniel Polz now dates this king to the end of the 17th dynasty near the Senachtenre .

At the end of the 17th dynasty under the rule of the Ahmosids , the Egyptian resistance against the Hyksos began to take shape. This led the Hyksos king Apophis to consider an alliance with the kingdom of Kerma (Nubia). But the alliance failed because of the desert posts of the Egyptians, who intercepted every messenger in the direction of Nubia and thus prevented a two-front war.

The Hyksos incursion

The Asian mercenary leader Schalik (near Manetho Salitis), who may have been lord of a principality in the eastern delta before, occupied around 1648 BC. The residence of the 13th dynasty near Itj-taui and is crowned king of Egypt (throne name maybe Secha'enre). The Egyptians refer to him as Heka-chasut ( ruler of foreign countries , Greek Hyksos ), a title that these kings sometimes also take on themselves.

Hyksos is therefore a ruler title, and not - as the Greek tradition understood it - a popular name. The rulers of the 15th dynasty, like the mass of their followers, seem to have been Canaanites (Amorites) from Palestine ; their names can all be explained in Semitic terms.

Although it cannot be ruled out that their warriors also included Hurrians , who may have already occasionally advanced south from northern Syria , the opinion that the Hyksos came to power was a conquest by means of an essentially Hurrian migration. Rather, it is the result of a Canaanite infiltration that has been going on for two centuries, which led to massive colonization in the eastern delta. Archaeological evidence for the Hurrites in Palestine can only be found for the middle of the 16th century BC. Prove.

Equally questionable is the view that the Hyksos seized Egypt with the help of a hitherto unknown weapon, the horse- drawn two-wheeled war chariot . Knowledge of the horse, which is native to Inner Asia, and the two-wheeled chariot with spoked wheels gradually spread throughout the entire Middle East . The dating of a horse skeleton from between 1700 and 1650 BC The destroyed Nubian fortress Buhen is still controversial; at best, it would prove that horses came to the Nile Delta through trade even before the Hyksos period. Most likely, the horse and cart were not introduced into Egypt until the Hyksos reign.

See also

• History of Ancient Egypt

literature

• Max Pieper : Studies on the history of the XIII. Dynasty . In: Georg Steindorff (Hrsg.): Journal for Egyptian language and antiquity . Fifty-first volume. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1914, p. 94-105 ( digitized version [accessed April 12, 2016]).
• Jürgen von Beckerath : Investigations into the political history of the Second Intermediate Period in Egypt (= Egyptological research. Vol. 23, ISSN  0933-338X ). Augustin, Glückstadt et al. 1964 (at the same time: Munich, Univ., Habil.-Schrift, 1962), (fundamental study on the Second Intermediate Period; the work provides lists of all pharaohs with hieroglyphics).
• Kim Ryholt : The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1800-1550 BC (= The Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications. Vol. 20, ISSN  0902-5499 ). The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern studies, Copenhagen 1997, ISBN 87-7289-421-0 , (more recent study on the Second Intermediate Period, the details of which are very controversial).

Web links

Commons : Second Intermediate Period  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ K. Ryholt: The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. P. 151.
2. ^ Ian Shaw (Ed.): The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000, ISBN 0-19-815034-2 , p. 481.