Editing Hyksos (section)

==Origins==
===Ancient historians===
[[File:Ring scarab - Pharaoh exhibit - Cleveland Museum of Art (cropped).jpg|thumb|Blue glazed steatite scarab in a gold mount, with the cartouche of Hyksos ruler [[Khyan]]: <hiero>N5:G39-<-x-i-i-A-n->-S34-I10:t:N17</hiero> - "Son of Ra, Khyan, living forever!"]]
In his epitome of [[Manetho]], Josephus connected the Hyksos with the Jews,{{sfn|Assmann|2003|p=198}} but he also calls them Arabs.{{sfn|Mourad|2015|p=9}} In their own epitomes of Manetho, the [[Late antique]] historians [[Sextus Julius Africanus]] and [[Eusebius]] say that the Hyksos came from [[Phoenicia]].{{sfn|Mourad|2015|p=9}} Until the excavation and discovery of [[Tell El-Dab'a]] (the site of the Hyksos capital [[Avaris]]) in 1966, historians relied on these accounts for the Hyksos period.{{sfn|Mourad|2015|p=10}}{{sfn|Flammini|2015|p=236}}

===Modern historians===
Material finds at Tell El-Dab'a indicate that the Hyksos originated in the [[Levant]].{{sfn|Mourad|2015|p=10}} The Hyksos' personal names indicate that they spoke a [[Western Semitic]] language and "may be called for convenience sake [[Canaanites]]."{{sfn|Bietak|2016|pp=267–268}}

[[File:Retjenu, tomb of Sobekhotep 18th Dynasty Thebes.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.7|A ''[[Retjenu]]'', associated with the Hyksos in some Egyptian inscriptions.{{sfn|Ryholt|1997|p=128}}]]
[[Kamose]], the last king of the Theban Seventeenth&nbsp;Dynasty, refers to [[Apepi (pharaoh)|Apepi]] as a "Chieftain of [[Retjenu]]" in a stela that implies a Levantine background for this Hyksos king.{{sfn|Ryholt|1997|p=128}} According to Anna-Latifa Mourad, the Egyptian application of the term {{lang|egy|ꜥꜣmw|italics=yes}} to the Hyksos could indicate a range of backgrounds, including newly arrived Levantines or people of mixed Levantine-Egyptian origin.{{sfn|Mourad|2015|p=216}}

Due to the work of Manfred Bietak, which found similarities in architecture, ceramics and burial practices, scholars currently favor a northern Levantine origin of the Hyksos.{{sfn|Mourad|2015|p=11}} Based particularly on temple architecture, Bietak argues for strong parallels between the religious practices of the Hyksos at Avaris with those of the area around [[Byblos]], [[Ugarit]], [[Alalakh]] and [[Tell Brak]], defining the "spiritual home" of the Hyksos as "in northernmost [[Syria (region)|Syria]] and northern [[Mesopotamia]]".{{sfn|Bietak|2019|p=61}} The connection of the Hyksos to Retjenu also suggests a northern Levantine origin: "Theoretically, it is feasible to deduce that the early Hyksos, as the later Apophis, were of elite ancestry from [[Retjenu|Rṯnw]], a toponym [...] cautiously linked with the Northern Levant and the northern region of the Southern Levant."{{sfn|Mourad|2015|p=216}}

Earlier arguments that the Hyksos names might be [[Hurrian]] have been rejected,{{sfn|Ilin-Tomich|2016|p=6}} while early-twentieth-century proposals that the Hyksos were Indo-Europeans "fitted European dreams of Indo-European supremacy, now discredited."{{sfn|Van de Mieroop|2011|p=166}} Some have suggested that Hyksos or a part of them was of [[Maryannu]] origins as evident by their use and introduction of chariots and horses into Egypt.{{sfn|Woudhuizen|2006|p=30}}{{sfn|Glassman|2017|p=479–480}} However, this theory has also been rejected by modern scholarship.

A study of dental traits by Nina Maaranen and Sonia Zakrzewski in 2021 on 90 people of Avaris indicated that individuals defined as locals and non-locals were not ancestrally different from one another. The results were in line with the archaeological evidence, suggesting Avaris was an important hub in the Middle Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean trade network, welcoming people from beyond its borders.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Stantis |first1=Chris |last2=Maaranen |first2=Nina |date=2021-01-01 |title=The people of Avaris: Intra-regional biodistance analysis using dental non-metric traits |url=https://www.academia.edu/66925960 |journal=Bioarchaeology of the Near East}}</ref>