Khamudi (also known as Khamudy) was the last

Hyksos The Hyksos (; Egyptian language, Egyptian ''wikt:ḥqꜣ, ḥqꜣ(w)-wikt:ḫꜣst, ḫꜣswt'', Egyptological pronunciation: ''heqau khasut'', "ruler(s) of foreign lands"), in modern Egyptology, are the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt ( ...

ruler of the

Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt The Fifteenth Dynasty was a foreign dynasty of ancient Egypt. It was founded by Salitis, a Hyksos from West Asia whose people had invaded the country and conquered Lower Egypt. The 15th, 16th, and 17th Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often comb ...

. Khamudi came to power in 1534 BC or 1541 BC, ruling the northern portion of Egypt from his capital

Avaris Avaris (Egyptian: ḥw.t wꜥr.t, sometimes ''hut-waret''; ; ; ) was the Hyksos capital of Egypt located at the modern site of Tell el-Dab'a in the northeastern region of the Nile Delta. As the main course of the Nile migrated eastward, its po ...

. His ultimate defeat at the hands of

Ahmose I Ahmose I (''Amosis'', ''Aahmes''; meaning "Iah (the Moon) is born") was a pharaoh and founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt in the New Kingdom of Egypt, the era in which ancient Egypt achieved the peak of its power. His reign is usually d ...

, after a short reign, marks the end of the Second Intermediate Period.

Attestations

Khamudi is listed on the Turin canon, column 10, line 28 (

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entry 10.20) as the last Hyksos king. Beyond this, only two scarab seals are firmly attributed to him, both from

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. Additionally, a cylinder seal of unknown provenance but possibly from

Byblos Byblos ( ; ), also known as Jebeil, Jbeil or Jubayl (, Lebanese Arabic, locally ), is an ancient city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The area is believed to have been first settled between 8800 and 7000BC and continuously inhabited ...

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Sir Flinders Petrie, was an English people, English Egyptology, Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. ...

: ''Scarabs and cylinders with names : illustrated by the Egyptian collection in University College, London (1917)'
available online
see pl. XIX, seal under the name "Khondy". is inscribed with a cartouche which may read "Khamudi". This reading is contested by the egyptologist Kim Ryholt who proposed that the cartouche reads "Kandy" instead and refers to an hitherto unknown king. In any case, even if the cartouche bears Khamudi's name, it is believed to have been inscribed on the seal simply to fill up space rather than as an explicit reference to Khamudi. The seal is currently housed in the

Petrie Museum The Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology in London is part of University College London Museums and Collections. The museum contains over 80,000 objects, making it one of the world's largest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese ma ...

, catalog number UC 11616.Seal with the cartouche of Khamud
Petrie Museum Online Catalog

Reign

Based on the scarcity of material dating to Khamudi's reign, Ryholt has proposed that his reign must have been short, amounting to no more than a year. In this situation, Khamudi would have inherited little more than the Hyksos throne, being possibly already besieged in Sharuhen, the last Hyksos stronghold in the

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. This is contested by other scholars, such as Manfred Bietak, who points to a ''year 11'' of an unknown king on the

Rhind Mathematical Papyrus The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (RMP; also designated as papyrus British Museum 10057, pBM 10058, and Brooklyn Museum 37.1784Ea-b) is one of the best known examples of ancient Egyptian mathematics. It is one of two well-known mathematical papyri ...

. Bietak and many egyptologists believe that this year 11 belongs to Khamudi since the text of the papyrus refers to Ahmose I, founder of the Egyptian New Kingdom as "He of the South." As Thomas Schneider writes: : Another reign length can be inferred from the note on the verso of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus whereby in the 11th regnal year of the ruling king, Heliopolis has been conquered, and "he of the South" has attacked and taken Sile. Since "he of the South" must denote the Theban ruler Ahmose, the regnal year 11 can only be assigned to the successor of the Hyksos king Apepi: Khamudi. The Hyksos capital

will have fallen to Ahmose not much later. Another date on the papyrus is explicitly dated to Year 33 of Khamudi's predecessor Apepi. It is generally believed that

defeated the Hyksos king by his 18th or 19th regnal year. This is suggested by "a graffito in the quarry at Tura whereby 'oxen from Canaan' were used at the opening of the quarry in Ahmose's regnal year 22." Since the cattle could only have been brought after Ahmose's 3 to 6 years long siege of the South Canaanite town of Sharuhen which followed after the fall of Avaris, this means the reign of Khamudi must have terminated by Year 18 or 19 of Ahmose's 25-year reign at the very latest.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khamudi 16th-century BC pharaohs Pharaohs of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt People from Avaris