The scarab beetle was an exceedingly popular symbol in the art of Ancient Egypt, thought to represent the sun god, Ra. The Ancient Egyptians believed that the scarab beetle rolling its ball of dung across the dessert mirrored the journey of the sun god, Ra, across the sky from day to night. As the beetle laid its eggs within the dung, it became a symbol of rebirth and regeneration. Accordingly, the sun god Ra was often depicted as a scarab beetle, or as a man with a scarab head, and the insect was believed to be lucky and protective.
The term ‘Hyksos’ can be traced back to the Egyptian expression ‘heka khasewet’, which means, “rulers of foreign lands”. The Hyksos of the fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt, ruling during the Second Intermediate Period, were thus of non-Egyptian origin. They were probably Canaanite, though the Hyksos Kingdom was centred in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt. It was limited in size, never extending south into Upper Egypt, and it had Memphis as its capital.