Author Description

In recent decades, the excavations at Tell el-Dab'a in the Eastern Delta have revealed a more complete picture of Egyptian society. Foreigners have been exposed, and with them questions regarding the origins and rise of the Hyksos, as well as the cultural interactions of the people whom they ruled. Volume II of The Enigma of the Hyksos by Ernest Bumann focusses on acculturation. It investigates whether and how a community of Asiatics at Tell el-Dab?a acculturated to the Egyptian way of life across three main chronological phases ranging from the Middle Kingdom to the Second Intermediate Period. It includes an examination and comparison of different aspects of Egyptian and Asiatic material culture, such as settlement patterns, house and temple architecture, burial customs, and technological elements. By studying the development of this material, it also assesses the different levels and characteristics of acculturation. The results are unexpected yet illuminating. They disclose complex processes that initiated in acculturation and enculturation, but that eventuated in deculturation, in which the Asiatics at Tell el-Dab?a harkened back to their own roots within the Middle Bronze Age culture. They also shed light on the impact of the Asiatic population on the Egyptian culture, signalling at lasting influences of the Asiatics, and the Hyksos, on ancient Egypt.