Pots and Peoples in the Egyptian Delta

Tel El-Maskhuta and the Hyksos

Authors

  • Carol A. Redmount University of California, Berkeley

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v8i2.61

Keywords:

Tel El-Maskhuta, pots, Hyksos, pottery

Abstract

Occasionally, a fortuitous combination of archaeological discovery, preserved inscriptional data and historical evidence enables scholars to correlate a particular population group with a specific material culture and a precise, or relatively precise, ethnicity. Such is the case with the Hyksos, a once enigmatic people belonging to a period of Egyptian history still generally considered a dark age. Archaeological work in Egypt's eastern Delta has established beyond doubt that the ethnic origins of the Hyksos lie in Middle Bronze Age Syria-Palestine. A key element of Hyksos material culture, the pottery, appears to be a highly sensitive indicator of Hyksos cultural development. This paper focuses on the hybrid character of Hyksos culture as expressed in the Hyksos ceramic corpus excavated at Tell el-Maskhuta and its implications for Hyksos ethnicity.

Author Biography

  • Carol A. Redmount, University of California, Berkeley
    Carol A. Redmount specializes in the archaeology of Egypt and Syria-Palestine in the Near Eastern Studies Department at University of California, Berkeley (UCBerkeley). She holds a PhD from the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department of the University of Chicago, an M.T.S. in Old Testament Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a B.A. in Anthropology and Religious Studies from Oberlin College. Her archaeological fieldwork began in 1971 and she has taken part in field research in Egypt, Cyprus, Israel, Tunisia, Jordan and the United States. She participated in all five excavations seasons at the Wadi Tumilat Project at Tell el-Maskhuta (1978, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1985) and was co-director and field director of the Wadi Tumilat survey in 1983. She is presently co-directing UCBerkeley's Tell el-Muqdam Project in the Egyptian delta. Excavations at Muqdam, a large, first millennium BC urban site, began in 1992.

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Published

1995-12-01

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 2 (1995)

Section

Articles

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

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How to Cite

Redmount, C. A. (1995). Pots and Peoples in the Egyptian Delta: Tel El-Maskhuta and the Hyksos. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 8(2), 61-89. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v8i2.61