The leader of the Aamu in the painting is a man described as "Abisha the Hyksos" (𓋾𓈎𓈉 ḥḳꜣ-ḫꜣswt, Heqa-kasut for "Hyksos"). Tomb of Khnumhotep II, circa 1900 BCE.[1]
Contemporary Egyptian sources from the time of the wars against the Hyksos also refer to the latter as ꜥꜣmw. Although they have left no inscriptions in their own language, some of their personal names have turned up in Egyptian records, which are a syntactical and lexical match for West Semitic dialects.[6] An ancient Egyptian painting in the tomb of 12th Dynasty official Khnumhotep II, at Beni Hasan (c. 1900 BCE), shows a group of West Asiatic foreigners, possibly Canaanites, labelled as Aamu (ꜥꜣmw), including the leading man with a Nubian ibex labelled "Abisha the Hyksos" (𓋾𓈎𓈉ḥḳꜣ-ḫꜣsw, Heqa-kasut for "Hyksos").[1][2][3][4] The Aamu from this relief are further labeled as being from the area of Shu, which may be identified, with some uncertainty, with the area of Moab in southern Palestine around the Jordan River, or generally the southern Levant, just east of the Jordan and the Red Sea.[7]
An Egyptian glazed steatite profile head of an Asiatic 1540-1190 BCE[8]
Word "Aamu" (from right to left) in two Egyptian scripts, in the
A more recent description of the word (left to right, 1898)
Aamu people ('𓂝𓄿𓅓𓅱' characters spread alongside each individual) in the Book of Gates (rendering)
^ abKamrin, Janice (2009). "The Aamu of Shu in the Tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hassan". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections. 1 (3). S2CID199601200.
^Redford, Donald B. (1992). Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (1st ed.). Princeton University Press. p. 100. ISBN0-691-03606-3.
^Kamrin, Janice (2009). "The Aamu of Shu in the Tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hassan". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections. 1 (3): 25. S2CID199601200.