Apophis I

King c.1570 BC.

    The *Hyksos king, Auserre, adopted the Egyptian personal name of Apophis, and for the earlier part of his reign he ruled Egypt without facing evident hostility. He used the epithet 'son of Re' and gave his patronage to the learned professions. He later faced opposition from the Theban princes of the Seventeenth Dynasty and fought *Seqenenre and his son *Kamose.

    The *Hyksos first established their rulership in the Delta and then throughout Middle and Upper Egypt; their capital city, Avaris, was situated in the Delta. In the reign of Apophis I, the Thebans drove them first from southern Upper Egypt and then out of Middle Egypt, a feat which was recounted on two large stelae set up by *Kamose in the Temple of Amun at Karnak.

    The start of the conflict is described in Papyrus Sallier I which recounts how, during Apophis' reign, the Theban prince *Seqenenre revived the ritual of harpooning hippopotami in a pool or canal at Thebes. Since this rite was believed to provide a magical safeguard for the native Egyptian kingship and since the hippopotamus was regarded as the embodiment of Seth, the chief *Hyksos deity, this was a provocative action and Apophis ordered *Seqenenre to stop the ritual. This in turn led to the outbreak of fighting between the *Hyksos ruler and the Thebans, and ultimately, the Theban *Amosis I drove the foreign rulers from Egypt and founded the New Kingdom.

BIBL. Winlock, H.E. The rise and fall of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes. New York: 1947; Save-Soderbergh, T. The Hyksos rule in Egypt. JEA 37 (1951) pp 53-71; Save-Soderbergh, T. On Egyptian representation of hippopotamus hunting as a religious motive. Horae Soederblomianae 3. Uppsala: 1953.

Biographical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt by Rosalie and Antony E. David