chapter seven

KERMA DOMINATION IN LOWER NUBIA IN THE SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD (1650–1550BC)

[The official Ka] says: “I was a valiant servant of the ruler (hq. A) of Kush. I washed my feet in the waters of Kush in the following of the ruler Nedjeh. I returned safe and sound (and) my family (too)”.1 The c. 120 years of the Thirteenth Dynasty (1173-after 1650BC) saw the fragmentation of rule in .2 Kemp classifies thus the some 175 reigns occurring in the Turin king-list3 between the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty:4 (1) kings following the Twelfth Dynasty whose authority was, for political reasons which may at times have been quite complex, recognized in and who continued for the most part, but not necessarily in every case, to rule from and be buried near Memphis, and who may have also exercised a general overlordship, if not total rule, over parts or all of northern Egypt; (2) a line of kings ruling Upper Egypt in succession to them, but now centred at Thebes, and buried there; (3) six ‘foreign kings’, i.e., , who replaced group (1) in the north and who ruled at the same time as group (2);

1 Stela from Buhen, Philadelphia 10984, trans. W.V. Davies in: Welsby–Anderson (eds) 2004 100 Cat. 73. Cf. T. Säve-Söderbergh: A Buhen Stela (Khartoum No. 18). JEA 35 (1949) 50–58 52; Smith 1976 55f.; S.T. Smith 1995 110; D. Redford: Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period. in: Oren (ed.) 1997 1–44 5 No. 15; Valbelle 2004a 177. 2 Beckerath 1965; Kemp 1983 149ff.; D. Franke: Zur Chronologie des Mittleren Reiches Teil II: Die sogenannte “Zweite Zwischenzeit” Altägyptens. Or 57 (1988) 245– 274. 3 For the Ramesside papyrus called Turin Canon, see A.H. Gardiner: The Royal Canon of Turin. Oxford 1959; Beckerath 1965 20ff.; D.B. Redford: Pharaonic King-Lists, Annals and Day-Books. A Contribution to the Study of the Egyptian Sense of History. Mississauga 1986 1ff.; Beckerath 1997 19ff., 207ff. 4 Kemp 1983 153f. 104 chapter seven

(4) an uncertain number of client kings, presumably of city states, mostly in the north of Egypt and including some with the title ‘foreign king’, distributed uncertainly in time vis-à-vis the other groups.5 Still quoting Barry Kemp, the Second Intermediate Period emerges as one of great significance in the ’s relationships with her neighbours. A time of inter- nal governmental weakness coincided with a period of prosperity and political growth in Palestine and Nubia so that, for once, the Egyptians found themselves the victims of both the political initiative and cultural momentum of others.6 During the Twelfth Dynasty immigrants from Syria-Palestine settled in great numbers in the eastern Delta. By the middle of the seven- teenth century BC the Delta and was ruled by kings of a dynasty of Canaanite origin known as Hyksos7 (Fifteenth Dynasty, 1650–1550BC). They presented themselves as legitimate pharaohs just like the Theban kings who ruled over Middle and Upper Egypt (Six- teenth Dynasty, 1650–1580BC; Seventeenth Dynasty, 1580–1550BC). The frontier between the Hyksos and the Theban kingdom ran at Cusae about 40km south of , modern el-Ashmunein. The southern frontier of the Theban kingdom was at Elephantine. The area south of Elephantine also changed masters. In the advanced Thir- teenth Dynasty Egypt withdrew from Lower Nubia. The withdrawal was determined partly by the decline of the centralized rule in Egypt and partly by the northern advance of the Kerman kingdom which suc- ceeded apparently without much armed conflict.8 Archaeological evi- dence from the neighbouring cemeteries shows that Kerman garrisons were now stationed in the forts of Buhen and Mirgissa.9 The situation

5 For the reconstruction of the Turin king-list, see K. Ryholt: The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c. 1800–1500 B.C. Copenhagen 1997, but cf. D. Ben-Tor–S. Allen–J. Allen: Seals and Kings. BASOR 315 (1999) 47–74; Warburton 2001 318. 6 Kemp 1983 172f. 7 Hyksos is the Greek rendering of hq. Aw hAswt, “rulers of the foreign [lit. mountain- ous] countries”.—For the Hyksos, see J. van˘ Seters: The Hyksos: A New Investigation. New Haven 1966; Kemp 1983 149ff.; Redford 1992 101ff.; Oren (ed.) 1997; Bourriau 2000 186ff., all with further literature; for their capital, Avaris (Tell el-Dab#a), see M. Bietak: Avaris: The Capital of the Hyksos. 1996 and preliminary reports on the excavations at Tell el-Dab#a published in the periodical Ägypten und Levante. 8 For a history of the Second Intermediate Period, see Bourriau 2000. 9 S.T. Smith 1995 90; for the Kerma cemetery at Mirgissa, see A. Vila: Le cimetière Kerma. in: Vercoutter et al. 1970 223–305; B. Gratien et al. in: Gratien–Le Saout (eds) 149–153.