Sakir-Har (Śkr-hr; Seker-Har) was a

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 ( ...

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

of the early

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 ...

, ruling over some part of Lower Egypt during the

Second Intermediate Period The Second Intermediate Period dates from 1700 to 1550 BC. It marks a period when ancient Egypt was divided into smaller dynasties for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a Secon ...

, possibly in the early

16th century BC The 16th century BC was a century that lasted from 1600 BC to 1501 BC. Events * 1700 BC – 1500 BC: Hurrian conquests. * 1601 BC: Sharma-Adad II became the King of Assyria. *c. 1600 BC: The creation of one of the oldest surviving astronomi ...

Attestation

Sakir-Har is attested by a single inscription on a doorjamb excavated at Tell el-Dab'a—ancient

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 ...

—by Manfred Bietak in the 1990s.

Doorjamb, Cairo TD-8316

The doorjamb, now in Cairo under the catalog number Cairo TD-8316, bears his partial royal titulary in the manner of the Ancient Egyptian, showing his Nebti and Golden Falcon names, as well as his nomen. The doorjamb reads

Theories

The doorjamb confirms the identity of Sakir-Har as one of the kings of the Hyksos

. His immediate successor could have been the powerful Hyksos ruler, Khyan, if he was the third Hyksos king of this dynasty, although Sakir-Har's precise position within this dynasty has not yet been established firmly. The name Sakir-Har may translate as "Reward of Har", or may alternatively derive from the

Amorite The Amorites () were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking Bronze Age people from the Levant. Initially appearing in Sumerian records c. 2500 BC, they expanded and ruled most of the Levant, Mesopotamia and parts of Egypt from the 21st century BC ...

''Sikru-Haddu'' meaning "The memory of

Hadad Hadad (), Haddad, Adad ( Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur ( Sumerian) was the storm- and rain-god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From ...

", in which case Sakir-Har may have reigned after Khyan and Yanassi and immediately before Apophis. The fact that Sakir-Har bears an Egyptian titulary as well as the title of ''heka-khawaset'' (Hyksos) suggests that the line of kings to which Sakir-Har belongs may have deliberately taken this title for themselves as had been proposed earlier by scholars, including Donald B. Redford. Bietak shared this opinion, writing that "although this new term 'heka-khawaset''perhaps was originally applied by the Egyptians in a disparaging way to the new rulers of the land, the rulers themselves employed ‘Hyksos’ as an official ruler's title". Research has since then refuted the idea that the Egyptians originated the term, further proving that the title of ''heka-khawaset'', "Ruler of Foreign Lands", was invented by the Hyksos rulers possibly to emphasize their origins or, more explicitly, their Amorite affiliation.

Papyrus Carlsberg 642

Schneider (2018) points to a late Hyksos tradition which may refer to Śkrhr in the demotic Papyrus Carlsberg 642 which mentions an impious ruler Saker.Schneider 2018:277

References

Bibliography

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External links

The Sakir-Har doorjamb inscription (slide 12)
{{authority control 17th-century BC pharaohs Pharaohs of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown