© AP Photo/Supreme Council of AntiquitiesThis undated combination map overlay image released by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities on Sunday, June 20, 2010, displays a color satellite image with radar imaging in monochrome showing the outlines of streets, houses and temples underneath the green farm fields and modern town of Tel al-Dabaa, in Egypt. An Austrian archaeological team has used radar imaging to determine the size of the 3,500-year-old capital of Egypt's foreign occupiers, the Hyksos warrior people from Asia, the antiquities department said Sunday.
Egypt was ruled for a century from 1664-1569 B.C. by the Hyksos, a warrior people from Asia, possibly Semitic in origin, whose summer capital was in the northern Delta area.
Irene Mueller, the head of the Austrian team, said the main purpose of the project is to determine how far the underground city extends.
The radar imaging showed the outlines of streets, houses and temples underneath the green farm fields and modern town of Tel al-Dabaa.
Archaeology chief Zahi Hawass said in the statement that such noninvasive techniques are the best way define the extent of the site. Egypt's Delta is densely populated and heavily farmed, making extensive excavation difficult, unlike in southern Egypt with its more famous desert tombs and temples.
The Austrian team of archaelogists has been working on the site since 1975.
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From Wikipedia, no less:
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"The Hyksos continued to play a role in Egyptian literature as a synonym for "Asiatic" down to Hellenistic times. The term was frequently evoked against such groups as the Semites settled in Aswan or the Delta, and this may have led the Egyptian priest and historian Manetho to identify the coming of the Hyksos with the sojourn in Egypt of Joseph and his brothers, and helped modern historians identify the expulsion of the Hyksos with the Exodus. Significant in this identification is the fact that some Hyksos pharaohs had names familiar from Israelite traditions, such as Jacobaam of the 16th dynasty. It may also indicate that the "expulsion" of the Hyksos reported in the Egyptian records mainly refers to the expulsion of the Semitic rulers and military/political elite and does not indicate a mass expulsion of the lower classes who, in the Ancient World, were traditionally exploited by their conquerors rather than expelled or massacred."
Apparently, the takeover was through peaceful means, and the main advantages of the foreign Hyksos overlords were skill in mathematics and administrative efficiency. Sound familiar?