A news release published in the Austrian Times is reporting that “Austrian archaeologists have found a Babylonian seal in Egypt that confirms contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos during the second millennium B.C.”
The report says that “Irene Forstner-Müller, the head of the Austrian Archaeological Institute’s (ÖAI) branch office in Cairo, said today (Thurs) the find had occurred at the site of the ancient town of Avaris near what is today the city of Tell el-Dab’a in the eastern Nile delta.” She said a recently-discovered cuneiform tablet had led archaeologists to suspect there had been contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos.
This discovery is important because the Hyksos were a Semitic people who conquered Egypt, probably at the time when Israel entered Egypt, and established their own dynasty there for almost two centuries. Many Hyksos’s names come from West Semitic languages. Thus, this archaeological discovery, which shows contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos, is significant because it may provide additional information that will help scholar develop a better understanding of Hyksos’s history and culture.
HT: Jim West
Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
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Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 