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The Hyksos Period. The Hyksos Period (c. 1650-1550 BC), known to Egyptians as the era of the rulers of foreign lands, was the first time a foreign people ruled a large part of Egypt. During the late Middle Kingdom, communities of western Asiatic settlers had grown up in the eastern Nile Delta, and as central authority collapsed in the Thirteenth Dynasty, their leaders took power. The Hyksos ruled from Avaris, modern Tell el-Dab'a, as the Fifteenth Dynasty, controlling the Delta and much of Lower Egypt while native Egyptian dynasties held on in Thebes.
The Hyksos were not simply destructive invaders. Archaeology at Avaris shows a flourishing city blending Egyptian and Levantine culture, and the Hyksos kings adopted pharaonic titles, administration, and scribal traditions. Their century of rule brought important innovations into wider Egyptian use, including the horse and chariot, new bronze-working techniques, improved weapons such as the composite bow, new crops and olive cultivation, and new musical instruments and styles of dress. Trade connected their kingdom with Cyprus, Crete, and the Levant.
Native Egyptian power recovered in Thebes, where the Seventeenth Dynasty gradually turned from vassalage to resistance. King Seqenenre Tao apparently died fighting, his mummy bearing terrible head wounds, and his son Kamose campaigned north against King Apophis, boasting of the fight on surviving stelae. The final victory fell to Kamose's brother Ahmose I, who besieged and captured Avaris around 1550 BC, drove the Hyksos from Egypt, and pursued them into the southern Levant.
The expulsion of the Hyksos founded the Eighteenth Dynasty and opened the New Kingdom, the age of Egypt's greatest empire. The experience of foreign rule had transformed Egypt: its rulers now built a standing army equipped with chariots, campaigned deep into Asia, and created an empire partly to ensure no foreign power could ever again dominate the Nile Valley. The Hyksos Period, once remembered with shame as a humiliation, thus became the catalyst for the most powerful era in pharaonic history.
World History Encyclopedia: Hyksos
World History Encyclopedia: Second Intermediate Period of Egypt
Archaeology Magazine: The Rulers of Foreign Lands
Egypt Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: Second Intermediate Period