nd titles of the native
monarchs were adopted, and, in course of time, even the language also.
The court was filled with native officials, the cities and temples were
restored, and Egyptian learning was patronised. One of the few Egyptian
treatises on mathematics that have come down to us is dedicated to a
Hyksos sovereign. It was only in religion that the new rulers of Egypt
remained foreign.

They continued to worship a form of the Semitic Baal, who was invoked
under the Hittite name of Sutekh. An attempt to impose his worship upon
the native Egyptians led to the war of independence which ended in the
expulsion of the stranger. Apophis III., of the Seventeenth dynasty,
sent messengers to Skenen-Ra, the prince of Thebes, bidding him renounce
Amon of Thebes for the god of his suzerain. Skenen-Ra resisted, and a
long war followed, which, after lasting through five generations,
resulted in the complete triumph of the Egyptians. The Hyksos were
driven back into Asia, and the prince of Thebes was acknowledged the
Pharaoh of an united Egypt (B.C. 1600).

It was while the Hyksos kings were reigning that Abraham visited the
Delta. Their court was held at Zoan, now San, close to the Asiatic
frontier, and on the frontier itself stood their fortress of Avaris,
which served at once to bar the way from Asia and to overawe the
conquered Egyptians. The Pharaoh of Joseph was probably Apophis III. If
so, the Hebrew vizier would have witnessed the outbreak of the war of
independence towards the close of the long reign of the Hyksos king. It
may be that the policy which transferred the soil of Egypt from the
people to the king and the priests gave its first impulse to the
movement.

The Eighteenth dynasty founded an Egyptian empire. Its kings carried the
war into Asia, and planted the boundaries of Egyptian dominion on the
banks of the Euphrates. Thothmes III. (B.C. 1503-1449) made Canaan an
Egyptian province, dividing it into districts, each under a governor or
a vassal prince, who was visited from time to time by a royal
commissioner. Carriage roads were constructed, with posting inns at
intervals along them where food and lodging could be procured. The
country east of the Jordan equally obeyed Egyptian rule. The plateau of
Bashan was governed by a single prefect; Ammon and Moab were tributary;
Edom alone retained its independence, thanks to its barren mountains,
and inaccessible ravines. Thebes, the capital of the dynasty, was
ado