Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt

The Seventeenth Dynasty ruled from Thebes during the final part of the Second Intermediate Period. Its kings, including Seqenenre Tao and Kamose, confronted the Hyksos rulers of the north and began the campaigns that led to Egyptian reunification. The dynasty’s power rested on family legitimacy, military mobilisation and control of Upper Egypt.

The dynasty mattered because it formed the bridge between divided Egypt and the New Kingdom. The conflict with the Hyksos gave Theban rulers a programme of liberation and expansion that Ahmose I completed at the opening of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Pauline Gedge’s Lord of the Two Lands trilogy gives this dynasty a family-centred narrative, with the royal household, succession and personal grief tied to the military struggle. The context is useful for books about Thebes, dynastic obligation, queenship and the making of New Kingdom Egypt.