Tutimaios according to Manetho was the pharaoh who lost his country to foreign invaders known by many as the ‘Hyksos’, although the Egyptians themselves would have used the term ‘Aamu’ which roughly translates as ‘Asians’. While we are on the subject of names in those distant days, Egypt would not have been the name that the locals called the country. The occupants of the rich fertile lands of the Nile valley would have called it Kemet, Kem, or the Black Lands (as opposed to the Red Lands of the desert).
In the reign of Tutimaeus According to Manetho, a dark race of invaders from the east (Palestine) overpowered the pharaohs’ army (probably through the use of horse-drawn chariots; the horse was unknown in Kemet before the invasion) swept the land into calls. cities, destroying temples, slaughtering many, and enslaving wives and children.
They appointed one of their own, Salitis, (Saites), (Samu-qenu?), as king. He ruled from Memphis and after establishing garrisons in key positions, he collected tribute from the north and south of the country. He also fortified the eastern borders against any possible future attack from the Assyrians, who were growing stronger. On the east of the Bubastite branch of the Nile, he massively rebuilt and fortified the city of Avaris and garrisoned it with 240,000 armed men to protect the border.
When Salitis invaded, it is likely that the nomadic tribes of the Aamu already resided in the fertile and peaceful delta, having infiltrated gradually over a period of many, many years. Most of them would have been Palestinians happy to escape the conflict-torn eastern lands. Some of them would have been Semitic, since the scarabs of the time bear names of their chiefs, such as Anat-her and Ya’kob-her (Anat was a Semitic goddess, while Ya’kob could have commemorated the patriarch Jacob).
The Aamu ruled the land that stretched from the northern delta to Hermopolis in the south. While the pharaohs of Kemet ruled the rest of the country from Thebes and for more than a hundred years both sides were at peace. Then the southern people rose up, attacked the Aamu and, after a long and terrible war, drove them north into the delta. There they were trapped in the fortress of Averis and besieged within.
Pharaoh Thethmosis with an army of four hundred and eighty thousand tried to take the city by force and failed in the attempt. He then laid siege to the fortress and when that failed he concluded a treaty with them. They were allowed to go in peace and two hundred and forty thousand of them crossed the desert into Syria and built a city in a country, later called Judea.
Josephus Flavious quoting passages from Manethos
“Tutimeo. During his reign, I do not know for what cause, a gust of God hit us; and unexpectedly, from the eastern regions, invaders of the dark race marched confident in victory against our land. By main force the rulers of They burned our cities mercilessly, razed the temples of the gods to the ground, and treated all the natives with cruel hostility, massacring some and enslaving others’ wives and children. of them, whose name was Salitis. He had his seat at Memphis, collecting tribute from Upper and Lower Egypt, and leaving garrisons in the most advantageous positions. Above all, he fortified the district to the east, foreseeing that the Assyrians, as they became stronger, one day they would cover and attack his kingdom.
In the Saite (Sethorite) nome he found a city very favorably situated to the east of the Bubasite branch of the Nile, and called Avaris according to ancient religious tradition. This place he rebuilt and fortified with massive walls, planting there a garrison of up to 240,000 heavily armed men to protect the frontier from him.”
Copyright Fred Watson October 2007