Semitic settle Nile Delta

From the late 12th Dynasty onward, people from the Levant whom the Egyptians called "Aamu", Asiatics, settled in growing numbers in the eastern Nile Delta. Excavations at Tell el-Dab'a, ancient Avaris, led by Manfred Bietak from 1966, revealed their settlement: houses of a Syrian type, Canaanite pottery and weapons such as duckbill axes, and burials with donkeys laid in front of the tombs. Some came as traders, herders or soldiers, others as servants. Scarabs from the Delta even name a local ruler Yaqub-Har, a name built on the same root as Jacob, though his exact date is debated.

This is the setting the Bible describes for Jacob's family: Joseph settles them in "the land of Goshen" and "the land of Rameses" (Genesis 45:10, 47:11), in the eastern Delta where Avaris lay. It also explains how a Semitic foreigner like Joseph could rise in Egypt before the Hyksos, the "rulers of foreign lands" who grew out of this population, took power over the north of the country and made Avaris their capital.