Hyksos and the House of Cadmus: Historicity of Greek Myths II

PG Cavalcanti

Hyksos and the House of Cadmus: Historicity of Greek Myths II

2025, ISBN: 9798316953837

Abstract

This book invites readers to explore bold correlations between the Hyksos dynasty and the House of Cadmus, and between archaeological scarabs and mythological genealogies, proposing that Greek, Egyptian, and Israelite traditions preserve shared memories of Middle Bronze Age events. Note to Readers and Publishers: I am currently seeking publishers and collaborative partners interested in helping me with publications and supporting the ongoing Historicity of Greek Myths series, including the present volume and upcoming titles: Book I: Pre-Minoans and the Age of Kronos, Book II: Hyksos and the House of Cadmus Book III: New Kingdom and the Dynasty of Perseus Book IV: Bronze Collapse and Age of Hercules, Book V: Iron Age and the Return of the Heraclids. These works aim to bridge myth and archaeology through fresh chronological synthesis and cross-cultural analysis.

The defeat of Avaris and the return of the Hyksos to their Canaanite homeland could have been crafted through propaganda to be seen as a victory of the last Hyksos ruler: Khamudi. According to Greek tradition, the hero Cadmus actually rescued the power of syncretized Baal-Zeus so that the god could leave his hiding place in Egypt. The roman poet Nonnus recounts the tradition about the rescue of Zeus power, his sinews, when Cadmus enchanted the monster who took it using music. After restoring his power, the idea was that Zeus left Egypt voluntarily to battle his enemies in other parts of the world. The defeat of Avaris and Sharuhen being caused because the god Baal-Zeus had already left these cities is actually a common motif in ancient times. It was a way to blame the believers for the defeat rather than the god himself. After all, it was the Hyksos fault not to follow their god in his fight against the monstrous Typhon and later follow their deity to the better location in Boeotian Greece. This becomes an even more powerful propaganda when rather than going back to Phoenicia, the mythological hero Cadmus aimless wandered before settling in Mycenean land, near Mount Olympus. It was an excuse to keep his subjects following not only him, but his deity. And there are strong suggestions in archeology that indeed an Egyptian colony was settled in the European country after the fall of the Hyksos. It was exactly during the transition between the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age period, after the fall of the Hyksos, that a new writing system was introduced in the Greek Islands and mainland. Until the Middle Bronze Age period of the Hyksos, the writing system in Helladic Greece was based on hieroglyphs known as "Linear A". The next period known as Late Bronze Age progressively developed a writing system based on Syllables known as "Linear B" very similar to the one Egyptians and Babylonians had been using for centuries. More specifically, it had strong similarities to the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet found in the site "Serabit el-Khadim". Even the reasons for the leaving Canaan can be reconciled by both the historical context of the Hyksos and the Greek tradition. The hero from Greek tradition left his homeland because “King Agenor sent out his sons in search of his daughter, telling them not to return until they had found Europa”. (Apollodorus, Library. Book 3, chapter 1, paragraph 1) In the context of the fall of Hyksos, the reason for Agenor to send Cadmus and his brothers to find their sister Europa was not to find out about her whereabouts, but he needed military support against Ahmose from a powerful queen of Crete and from other countries in Asia.

ISBN 978 1 78491 200 0 ISBN 978 1 78491 201 7 (e-Pdf) The Founder of GACUK Matti Egon with the 'unusual bouquet' offered by the scholars. i Contents Foreword �� v The value of digital recordings and reconstructions for the understanding of three-dimensional archaeological features �� 1 Constantinos Papadopoulos The contribution of systematic zooarchaeological analysis in understanding the complexity of prehistoric societies: The example of late Neolithic Toumba Kremastis-Koiladas in northern Greece �� 17 Vasiliki Tzevelekidi The Heraion of Samos under the microscope: A preliminary technological and provenance assessment of the Early Bronze Age II late to III (c. 2500-2000 BC) pottery �� 25 Sergios Menelaou Time past and time present: the emergence of the Minoan palaces as a transformation of temporality �� 35 Giorgos Vavouranakis Palaepaphos during the Late Bronze Age: characterizing the urban landscape of a late Cypriot polity �� 45 Artemis Georgiou 'What would the world be to us if the children were no more?': the archaeology of children and death in LH IIIC Greece �� 57 Chrysanthi Gallou-Minopetrou The Late Helladic IIIC period in coastal Thessaly �� 69 Eleni Karouzou The Bronze Age on Karpathos and Kythera �� 85 Mercourios Georgiadis East Phokis revisited: its development in the transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age in the light of the latest finds �� 93 Antonia Livieratou Early Iron Age Greece, ancient Pherae and the archaeometallurgy of copper �� 107 Vana Orfanou Representations of western Phoenician eschatology: funerary art, ritual and the belief in an after-life �� 117 Eleftheria Pappa Piraeus: beyond 'known unknowns' �� 131 Florentia Fragkopoulou The casting technique of the bronze Antikythera ephebe �� 137 Kosmas Dafas A brief, phenomenological reading of the Arkteia �� 147 Chryssanthi Papadopoulou Cylindrical altars and post-funerary ritual in the south-eastern Aegean during the Hellenistic period: 3rd to 2nd centuries BC �� 155 Vasiliki Brouma Lamps, symbolism and ritual in Hellenistic Greece �� 165 Nikolas Dimakis In search of the garden-peristyle in Hellenistic palaces: a reappraisal of the evidence �� 173 Maria Kopsacheili ii Damophon in Olympia: some remarks on his date �� 185 Eleni Poimenidou Entering the monastic cell in the Byzantine world: archaeology and texts �� 191 Giorgos Makris Discovering the Byzantine countryside: the evidence from archaeological field survey in the Peloponnese �� 201 Maria Papadaki On a Fāṭimid Kursī in the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai �� 211 George Manginis The discovery of ancient Cyprus: archaeological sponsorship from the 19th century to the present day �� 221 Anastasia Leriou Showcasing new Trojan wars: archaeological exhibitions and the politics of appropriation of ancient Troy �� 235 Antonis Kotsonas

This e-book contains a careful selection of excerpts (along with commentary) from Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris treatise – particularly excerpts of some relevance to the question of the religious beliefs of the Amu (the "Proto-Israelites") and their “Hyksos” monarchs, the “Expulsion” or “Exodus” of the Amu from Avaris (the fortified city in Lower Egypt; in the eastern part of the Nile Delta), the identity of “Moses”, the founding of the City of Jerusalem, etc. It also includes parts of book 16, chapter 2 of Strabo’s Geography – the chapter describing Phoenicia (the Levant), Judea, Moses and “the Jews”. Those researching the so-called "Enigma of the Hyksos"/"The Hyksos Enigma" will find this collection of quotes and considerations to be of significant interest. Plutarch was a Greek/Hellenic priest of Apollo at Delphi, a significant Platonic philosopher and the author some of the most interesting and well-written biographies that have come down to us from ancient times. In his Isis and Osiris work, this priest of the Sun goes into great detail regarding what he believed or had heard was the nature of the Cult of Set or Seth in Egypt, and in one of the paragraphs, he (indirectly) provides what I strongly suspect to be the explanation for and the rationale behind the ritual sacrifice of the red heifer (a young, virgin cow) instituted by YHWH in the Book of Numbers. (If this suspicion, which was also articulated by certain European writers back in the 1800s, be correct, Plutarch's reports are now of greater relevance than they have been for a long time, since there is talk of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, and of reviving the sacrifice of red heifers.) Plutarch also mentions the fact that the donkey or ass was one of the animals associated with Seth, a notion which could very well be the reason for the strange veneration of donkeys hinted at in both the Book of Exodus and the Book of Numbers. A third example of the amazing contents of Isis and Osiris is Plutarch's mention of Smu as one of the alternatives names for Seth/Typhon, a name which might be the precursor to the later "Hebrew" name of Shimoon/Shimawn (Simon), and which has probably been found on an amphora from the Levant in the ruins of Avaris, in the form of Shimoo. This is the second version of this e-book. E.S.

The first foreign dynasty which ruled Egypt between c. 1640 and 1530 BC was seen by Egyptologists and historians alike for a long time through a filter of scanty contemporary and posthumous Egyptian as well as antique texts. They rendered the tradition about these rulers in an absolutely biased and distorted way. It is the methods of modern archaeology, which enable to elucidate aspects and parts of history, prehistory and the aftermath of the Hyksos rule in a new light. We want to know from where and when the elite and the people behind the Hyksos rule came from, how they arrived in Egypt and how they settled there and were able to build up their power. We also want to know what the backbone of their economy had been and how they interacted with the rest of Egypt and with whom they entertained their commercial and political contacts. Finally, the question arises, why the Hyksos rule failed in Egypt. Within this workshop you will hear some of the answers to these questions. We are able to offer evidence that the Western Asiatic population, on which the Hyksos rule rested, came from a different region in the Levant - at least parts of their elite. Temple architecture and burial customs show that the religious inspirations and the concepts of afterlife in the eastern Nile Delta originated from northernmost Syria and northern Mesopotamia. The same can be also concluded from the introduction of the artificial irrigation systems for which new evidence could be collected from Tell el-Dab‘a, a harbour town which became the capital of the Hyksos. It is the site on which excavations between 1966-2011 under the supervision of the speaker produced with more than 80 field- and working-up-campaigns an enormous quantity of evidence on settlement, tombs, palaces, temples and a hoard of material culture which was partly published in 24 volumes but would still need the same amount of publications in the future if circumstances would allow it. Other excavations in the Delta and in the Wadi Tumilat such as Tell el-Retaba, Tell el Maskhuta and Tell el Khilgan contribute to the cultural phenomenon of the Hyksos. This ERC project was able to draw from these excavations but also produced conclusions, which place these archaeological results with the help of international colleagues into a much wider perspective. Our studies in relationship with the Hyksos lead us not only to the Levant but also to the wider cultural background of Mesopotamia and also to Asia minor, and concerning trade also to Cyprus and the Aegean. It seems clear now that the flourishing trading network built up by a Western Asiatic community before the Hyksos Period broke down during their reign, as they were cut off from the resources of Upper Egypt and Nubia and could not offer a barter for their trade with the Levant.

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