Hyksos Expulsion and Founding of the New Kingdom
Around 1550 BCE the Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose I stormed and captured Avaris, the fortified capital of the Hyksos in the eastern Nile Delta, ending more than a century of foreign rule over Lower Egypt and inaugurating the period historians call the New Kingdom — Egypt's imperial zenith. The Hyksos ('rulers of foreign lands') were West Asian migrants who had settled in the Delta from the late Middle Kingdom period onwards. By around 1650 BCE the Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty controlled Lower Egypt from Avaris while Egyptian rulers at Thebes retained only a reduced Upper Egypt. The Hyksos introduced horse-drawn chariots, composite bows, and bronze weapons — technologies Egyptian forces then had to master to compete. The expulsion was the culmination of a three-generation campaign. Ahmose's grandfather Senakhtenre Ahmose and father Seqenenre Tao initiated the reconquest; Seqenenre Tao apparently died in battle (his mummy shows severe skull wounds). His son Kamose pressed north deep into Hyksos territory before Ahmose I delivered the decisive blow, besieging Avaris for months and finally taking the city around 1550 BCE. Having expelled the Hyksos into Canaan, Ahmose pursued them as far as the fortress of Sharuhen in southern Palestine, eliminating the threat of return. He then suppressed Nubian and domestic revolts, reorganised the Egyptian administration under direct royal control, and launched an ambitious programme of temple construction throughout Egypt. The New Kingdom that followed — encompassing dynasties Eighteen through Twenty — became Egypt's most powerful era. Thutmose III would create an empire stretching from the Euphrates to the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. The military innovations adopted from and against the Hyksos — chariotry, composite bows, bronze armour — became the bedrock of this imperial project.
- Year: 1550 BCE
- Category: Military
