Tanelorn’s Seed
From the Encyclopedia of Heresies
Indeed, let us imagine the catastrophe in detail: the climate in the Indus Valley changes, aided along by earthquakes that shift the course of the rivers, drying up the Saraswati and moving the Indus itself. Following that catastrophe, the outlying cities of the Indus Civilization, now devoid of water, cause a steady stream of refugees to pour into Mohenjodaro and overwhelm the city’s infrastructure, causing the culture to steadily spiral downward. Meanwhile, while Mohenjodaro is declining, Harappa is no longer habitable, being inland miles from the river. For some reason, the people of Harappa decide to make war on their neighbors (we’ll come back to why) instead of taking in refugees or trying to rebuild somewhere else, and from this destructive warfare, from a people who lacked military weapons for most of their culture’s existence, the destruction of the Indus Civilization comes about. In and of itself, that would have been pretty dramatic, a life and death struggle that wipes out one of the most advanced cultures ever to exist in an orgy of fratricidal warfare caused by the ecological collapse of their homeland. But then we remember the wide-ranging trade of the Indus people, their trefoils and sacred beasts and hybrid figures, their trade goods in Ur of the Chaldees, and we begin to wonder about other consequences.
The incursion that finally exposed Egypt’s vulnerability was part of a vast migration touched off around the year 1800 (BCE) by warlike tribes moving from the steppes of Asia into the Middle East. The initial effect of this upheaval on Egypt was innocent enough: exiles from Palestine and more distant parts began to swell the population of the Delta. Some of the new arrivals were slaves who had been sold into bondage or had surrendered their freedom in exchange for economic protection. Then, around 1650, the Delta was engulfed by Asiatic warriors referred to as the Hyksos, or “rulers from foreign lands.” Clad in body armor and wielding scimitars and bows, they rode to war in a revolutionary vehicle unknown to Egypt—a two-wheeled chariot that confounded the efforts of mere foot soldiers.
—Time Life Books, The Age of God-Kings
The question that lies at the heart of the Second Intermediate Period is the nature of the Hyksos. Most histories depend upon written sources, and, with few exceptions (the Rhind Papyrus is one), these emanate from the Egyptian side. There is no Hyksos counterpart to the Kamose texts. What we have instead is evidence from the systematic excavation of their capital, Avaris (Tell el-Dab’a). We now know what their palaces, temples, houses and graves looked like, and we can observe how their culture evolved through time, but the Hyksos were not a single or simple phenomenon.
—Janine Bourriau, “The Second Intermediate Period” as collected in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw
What no one seems to want to talk about, exactly, is who the hell the Hyksos were. I’ve seen them defined as Semitic tribesmen by Josephus the 1st century historian, and they bear a strong resemblance to the Scythians and Cimmerians of Herotodus, the Hittites of Hattusa and, to a lesser extent, the Magyars and Mongols of the steppes, although they were greatly separated by time (the Hyksos invasion took place between 1800 and 1650 BCE, whereas the Magyar horde menaced Europe in the 990s CE and the Mongol Empire in the 12th century CE) and, to some degree, technology. The later hordes did not use the chariot, although it is interesting to note that recent discoveries in Scythian tombs in Russia and other, similar tombs in China point to a possible proto-Celtic origin to the Scythians… and the Celts did use chariots. If you’re thinking about that trefoil clover on the Harappan statuary right about now, I don’t blame you. It’s also interesting to consider the chariot and its introduction into the warfare of the Indus as recorded in the Rig Veda and how that fits into the notion that the Harappans were the Veda, rolling over their own people to the south and east… did they also push west?
