DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55202#0184
164 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM IN THEBES
their place of origin.42 That the Hyksos home land was as far away
from the Nile as the lands where the Kassites seem to have origi-
nated really need not surprise us, nor need we be surprised by the
apparent fact that the Kassite and the Hyksos movements were part
of the same unrest in the Middle East. After all, the two invasions
are separated by a bare century, one from another.
While they were still invaders of Egypt, the Hyksos did not build
anything more than the earthworks about their towns, of which two
have been recognized, one at Tell el Yahudiyeh and the other at
Heliopolis. In both cases there was an earthen revetment surrounded
by a deep moat and laid out in a strictly rectangular form. There is
nothing here of the irregular shape forced on a town in crowded or
hilly spaces, but rather camps laid out as the result of long centuries
of village building in wide, open prairies. These gigantic earthworks
had curved corners and were probably topped by a brick wall. From
the very rare ruins which they have left us, therefore, we gather a
picture of these warlike plainsmen who held and pillaged Egypt for
a century as the Huns, the Tatars, and the Turks held parts of
Europe ages later.
The Egyptian benefited enormously in the arts of war from the
invasion of the Asiatic barbarians, and he gained only a little less
in his peaceful occupations from the same Hyksos peoples. Un-
luckily, though, the arts of peace were affected more or less in iso-
lated patches, for after all the Shepherds did invade the land by
force of arms, and their effect on the peaceful arts was only inci-
dental. In fact, the effects of the invasion on the people of Egypt
were rather scattered over all phases of their lives. Many influences
obviously due to foreigners may have come into the Nile Valley just
after, rather than during, the invasions, but in the present state of
our knowledge we can not always separate them one from another.
Ever since the Hyksos invasion of Egypt the inhabitants of the
land have raised water from the river and from the canals up to
their crops in the fields with the help of the shaduf. The water wheel,
and particularly the Archimedes screw, were not introduced until
the Greeks and the Romans held Egypt.43 We have no pictures of the
shaduf as early as the Shepherds, it is true, and we have to depend
on the Nineteenth Dynasty representations of it and its unshaven
42 Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities, p. 3, Pls. 11—IV; Engberg, Hyksos, pp. 20, 45.
43 Winlock and Crum, E-piphanius, I, pp. 64, 66, 96.
their place of origin.42 That the Hyksos home land was as far away
from the Nile as the lands where the Kassites seem to have origi-
nated really need not surprise us, nor need we be surprised by the
apparent fact that the Kassite and the Hyksos movements were part
of the same unrest in the Middle East. After all, the two invasions
are separated by a bare century, one from another.
While they were still invaders of Egypt, the Hyksos did not build
anything more than the earthworks about their towns, of which two
have been recognized, one at Tell el Yahudiyeh and the other at
Heliopolis. In both cases there was an earthen revetment surrounded
by a deep moat and laid out in a strictly rectangular form. There is
nothing here of the irregular shape forced on a town in crowded or
hilly spaces, but rather camps laid out as the result of long centuries
of village building in wide, open prairies. These gigantic earthworks
had curved corners and were probably topped by a brick wall. From
the very rare ruins which they have left us, therefore, we gather a
picture of these warlike plainsmen who held and pillaged Egypt for
a century as the Huns, the Tatars, and the Turks held parts of
Europe ages later.
The Egyptian benefited enormously in the arts of war from the
invasion of the Asiatic barbarians, and he gained only a little less
in his peaceful occupations from the same Hyksos peoples. Un-
luckily, though, the arts of peace were affected more or less in iso-
lated patches, for after all the Shepherds did invade the land by
force of arms, and their effect on the peaceful arts was only inci-
dental. In fact, the effects of the invasion on the people of Egypt
were rather scattered over all phases of their lives. Many influences
obviously due to foreigners may have come into the Nile Valley just
after, rather than during, the invasions, but in the present state of
our knowledge we can not always separate them one from another.
Ever since the Hyksos invasion of Egypt the inhabitants of the
land have raised water from the river and from the canals up to
their crops in the fields with the help of the shaduf. The water wheel,
and particularly the Archimedes screw, were not introduced until
the Greeks and the Romans held Egypt.43 We have no pictures of the
shaduf as early as the Shepherds, it is true, and we have to depend
on the Nineteenth Dynasty representations of it and its unshaven
42 Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities, p. 3, Pls. 11—IV; Engberg, Hyksos, pp. 20, 45.
43 Winlock and Crum, E-piphanius, I, pp. 64, 66, 96.