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The 17th Dynasty: Theban kings against the Hyksos
17 October 2026
The 17th Dynasty was a line of kings who ruled Upper Egypt from Thebes, roughly 1580 to 1550 BC, while the Hyksos kings of the 15th Dynasty held the north from their capital at Avaris in the eastern Delta. Its last two kings, Seqenenre Tao and Kamose, went to war against the Hyksos.
Ahmose I, probably Kamose's younger brother, finished the war, took Avaris and reunited Egypt. Later historians made him the founder of a new dynasty, the 18th, and with him the New Kingdom begins.
Avaris and Thebes split Egypt between them
The early kings of the dynasty are hard to place. Several were called Intef or Sobekemsaf, and their order is disputed. Even the dynasty's dates rest on very little. Most of them were buried at Dra Abu el-Naga, on the Theban west bank, in small tombs with mud-brick pyramids.
The Hyksos at Avaris were kings of Near Eastern origin who ruled in Egyptian style. Their best-known king, Apepi, took Egyptian throne names and wrote them in cartouches, and a famous mathematical text, the Rhind Papyrus, is dated to his 33rd year. Relations with Thebes seem to have stayed mostly peaceful until Seqenenre's time.
Seqenenre Tao's skull carries axe wounds
Seqenenre's throne name is sqnn-rꜥ, often translated "he whom Ra makes brave", with the sun disc (N5) for Ra. A New Kingdom tale, the Quarrel of Apophis and Seqenenre, has the Hyksos king complain that the hippopotamuses in a pool at Thebes keep him awake in Avaris, hundreds of kilometres away. The papyrus breaks off before any war, but its author placed the start of the conflict in his reign.
His mummy was found in 1881 in the royal cache at Deir el-Bahari, with deep wounds to the face and skull. A CT study published in 2021 matched them to Hyksos axes and daggers and suggested he died at about forty, probably captured in battle and killed with his hands tied. It is now in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.
Kamose and Ahmose share a name ending
Kamose's birth name is kꜣ-ms, said Kamose. The raised arms of the ka (D28) write kꜣ, here usually taken in its other sense, "bull". The three fox skins (F31) write ms, "to be born", and the folded cloth (S29) adds its s to complete the spelling: "the bull is born". His throne name, wꜣḏ-ḫpr-rꜥ, Wadjkheperre, uses the papyrus stem (M13) for wꜣḏ, "to flourish", and the scarab (L1) for ḫpr, "to come into being".
His brother's name, iꜥḥ-ms, Ahmose, takes the crescent moon (N12) for iꜥḥ, "moon", then the same fox skins and folded cloth: "the moon is born".
Ahmose-Nefertari, daughter of Seqenenre and his queen Ahhotep, married her brother Ahmose and became his Great Royal Wife. Her name starts with the same three signs.
Kamose told his war on two stelae
Kamose set up two large stelae at Karnak telling one continuous story of his campaign north. The second, found in 1954 buried in the base of a colossal statue of Ramesses II, is now in the Luxor Museum. The start of the story also survives on the Carnarvon Tablet, a scribe's writing board of the early 18th Dynasty.
Kamose's men stopped a messenger on the desert road carrying a message from Apepi to the ruler of Kush, in Nubia, asking for his help against Kamose. The stela quotes it at length. How far north his army got is debated: the stela speaks of plunder from Avaris, and some scholars doubt he ever reached the city.
Kamose ruled only about three to five years. Ahmose came to the throne young, with his mother Ahhotep as regent, and took Avaris by his 18th or 19th year at the latest, then besieged Sharuhen near Gaza for three years.
Dynasty lines cut through families
Ahmose was Seqenenre's son and probably Kamose's brother, yet he is counted in the 18th Dynasty. The split comes from Manetho's later history and from the war's end.
Rival dynasties overlap. The 15th Dynasty at Avaris and the 17th at Thebes ruled at the same time, and the 16th, a group of minor kings, may have been Theban or vassals of the Hyksos.
Hyksos kings used cartouches and Egyptian names too, so read which god and which words a name holds before you place it.
Questions
Who were the Hyksos?
Rulers of Near Eastern origin who took power in the northern Nile Delta and formed the 15th Dynasty, c. 1650–1550 BC. The name comes from the Egyptian ḥqꜣw ḫꜣswt, "rulers of foreign lands".
How did Seqenenre Tao die?
Violently, from blows to the head and face by axes and other weapons. Whether he fell in battle or was killed after capture is still argued.
Who was the last king of the 17th dynasty?
Kamose, probably Seqenenre's son. He died after a short reign and was followed by Ahmose I, probably his brother, the first king of the 18th Dynasty.
Where can you see the 17th dynasty today?
Seqenenre's mummy, and the one thought to be Ahmose-Nefertari's, are in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, and Kamose's second stela is in the Luxor Museum. The tombs at Dra Abu el-Naga are mostly ruined, with little left to see above ground.
Glossary
- birth name
- The name a king was given at birth, written in the second cartouche after the title "son of Ra". Egyptologists also call it the nomen.
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- dynasty
- A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
- mummy
- A body dried and wrapped in linen so that it would last. Egyptians believed the spirit needed it in the afterlife.
- New Kingdom
- Egypt's age of empire, about 1550 to 1069 BC, the time of Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II.
- papyrus
- A writing sheet made from strips of the papyrus reed laid in two crossing layers and pressed. Sheets were glued into long rolls.
- pyramid
- A royal tomb with four sloping sides meeting at a point, built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza is the largest.
- scarab
- The dung beetle, sign of the rising sun and of the word ḫpr, "to come into being". Carved scarabs were used as seals and amulets.
- stela
- An upright stone slab carved with words and pictures, set up in tombs and temples or to mark a border.
- throne name
- The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
- Upper Egypt
- The south of Egypt, the narrow Nile valley from around Memphis to Aswan. It is called upper because it is upstream.
People in this article
Where to see it
Sources
- Seqenenre Tao (Wikipedia)
- Saleem and Hawass, Computed Tomography Study of the Mummy of King Seqenenre Taa II, Frontiers in Medicine (2021)
- Kamose (Wikipedia)
- Kamose in hieroglyphs, Pharaoh.se
- Flammini, Beyond the Narrative: the Second Stela of Kamose, Trabajos de Egiptología 11 (2020)
- Ahmose I (Wikipedia)
More to read
- The 20th Dynasty: the last Ramesses kings The 20th dynasty of Egypt (c. 1186–1069 BC): Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, eight more kings named Ramesses, a workers' strike and the tomb robbery trials.
- What is a serekh? The royal frame before the cartouche What is a serekh? The palace-front frame topped by the Horus falcon that held the first kings' names, read sign by sign from Narmer to Khufu.
- How many pharaohs were there? How many pharaohs were there? About 170 known by name, over 200 counting every king in the lists. Why the count is uncertain, and who came first and last.