Book dossier

The foreign relations of the "Hyksos"

by Patrick E. McGovern

Patrick McGovern completes the work started by Joan Huntoon on the origins, distribution, and trade of Middle Bronze Canaanite jars or amphoras. After subjecting her compiled NAA data to the standard battery of tests provided by Brookhaven programs, it was discovered that much of the Tell el-Dabʼa pottery of Syro-Palestinian type had been produced in Southern Palestine and exported to the Nile Delta. The statistical results were subjected to more rigorous analysis through the "Hyksos Neutron Activation Analysis Project." In cooperation with other labs, McGovern also expanded the NAA database to include a range of auxiliary NAA projects which enabled local chemical reference groups to be established for numerous other sites of the ancient Near East, including: Amman, Ashkelon, the Baqʼah Valley sites of Jordan, Beth Shan, Kabri, Tell Mardikh/Ebla, Tell Abu al-Kharaz, Tell es-Saʼidiyeh, Thebes and more recently Tell el-Fukhar. Many of these analyses are yet unpublished, (except for Ashkelon, Ebla, Tell el-Fukhar, and Thebes in Appendix 2), but provide the essential framework for evaluating the imports of Tell el-Dabʼa and enter into the discussion of this volume to some extent. cf. Foreword.