Hotepibra at Jericho. Interconnections between Egypt and Syria-Palestine during the 13th dynasty

Gabriella Scandone Matthiae recognized and first published one of the most outstanding finds from Middle Bronze Ebla, the club of Pharaoh Hotepibra Harnedjheryotef, retrieved in the “Tomb of the Lord of the Goats”, an Eblaite king called Immeya. Though Hotepibra belongs to a group of rather obscure rulers of the 13th Dynasty, according to Manfred Bietak he reigned in Tell el-Dab‘a/ancient Avaris, bearing the title of “son of the Asiatic”, an epithet which may reflect special relationships established between Egypt and Syria-Palestine during the Second Intermediate Period. The only other attestation of this personage outside Egypt is from Jericho. There, John Garstang retrieved a scarab bearing the same prenomen. This heirloom, together with other two inscribed scarabs possibly looted from the Jericho necropolis, corroborates Bietak’s reconstruction of the role of Hotepibra, including Canaanite Jericho among the Syro-Palestinian city-states playing a role in the advent of a “foreign” Dynasty in Egypt, the Hyksos.