Hyksos Research in Egyptology and Egypt’s Public Imagination: A Brief Assessment of Fifty Years of Assessments

This contribution will look at the impact that the discovery of the site of Tell el-Dabʿa (Avaris), the capital of the Hyksos, has had on the discipline of Egyptology—in other words, to assess in what ways the disciplinary and public narrative about the Hyksos Period has (or has not) changed as a consequence of the discovery of Avaris.1 It will become clear that the cultural specifics of Avaris and its historical place have had a varied reception, and that the diverging representations that can be encountered pay tribute to different strategies of acceptance or denial that perpetuate certain traditions of scholarly and public engagement with ancient Egypt.