Page "Second Intermediate Period of Egypt" Paragraph 6

Around the time Memphis and Itj-tawy fell to the Hyksos, the native Egyptian ruling house in Thebes declared its independence from the vassal dynasty in Itj-tawy and set itself up as the seventeenth dynasty.

This dynasty was to prove the salvation of Ancient Egypt and eventually would lead the war of liberation that drove the Hyksos back into Asia.

The Theban based Seventeenth dynasty was led by ruled from Rahotep to Sobekemsaf I, Sobekemsaf II, Sekhemre-Wepmaat Intef and Nubkheperre Intef who restored numerous temples throughout Upper Egypt while maintaining peaceful trading relations with the Hyksos kingdom in the north.

Indeed, Senakhtenre Ahmose, the first king in the line of Ahmoside kings even imported white limestone from the Hyksos controlled region of Tura in Lower Egypt to make a granary door at the Temple of Karnak.

However, his successors -- the final two last kings of this dynasty -- Seqenenre Tao and Kamose are traditionally credited with initiating the final defeat of the Hyksos since they launched the wars of liberation against the foreign Asiatic Hyksos kings.

With the creation of the eighteenth dynasty around 1550 BC -- with the accession of Ahmose I, the New Kingdom period of Egypt begins.

Ahmose I would succeed in expelling the Hyksos from Egypt and placing the country under a centralised administrative control for the first time since the mid-13th dynasty.