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Historical person
c. 1590s BCE–1555 BCE
Seqenenre Tao was a Theban king whose death is associated with the opening struggle against the Hyksos. Injuries on his mummy suggest violent death in battle or execution, and later tradition places him at the beginning of the wars completed by Kamose and Ahmose I.
In Pauline Gedge’s The Hippopotamus Marsh, the Theban ruler Seqenenre Tao governs southern Egypt while King Apepi and the Hyksos control the north. Christian Jacq’s The Empire of Darkness places Seqenenre Tao within a narrative shaped by empire, conquest and resistance, court politics and dynastic power, and political ambition and government. Other novels featuring Seqenenre Tao include Christian Jacq’s The Flaming Sword and Christian Jacq’s The War of the Crowns.
Historical context
Series
The Queen of Freedom Trilogy retells the struggle of Ahhotep and the Theban royal house against Hyksos power during Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period. The novels move from occupation and dynastic danger through open war to the reunification of Egypt under the early New Kingdom. The series is centred…
All books in this series
The Lords of the Two Lands trilogy retells the Theban war against Hyksos rule at the end of Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period. The Hippopotamus Marsh centres on Seqenenre Tao’s decision to resist King Apepi, while The Oasis follows Kamose’s increasingly destructive campaign to carry that rebellion north. The…
All books in this series
