Yanassi

In spite of his status as the royal son of the long-reigning Khyan, Yanassi is not attested by any scarab seals but only by a damaged stela (Cairo TD-8422 [176]) found at Tell el-Dab'a, site of the ancient Hyksos capital, Avaris.[3][4] On the stela – which was probably dedicated to the god Seth, lord of Avaris – he is called the eldest king's son of Khyan.[1]

If Yanassi became king, he might have ruled between Khyan and Apophis. On the Turin canon, the entry before that attributed to Apophis, on column 10 line 26, is damaged and the name of the king is lost while his reign length may be read as 10 or 20 or 30 plus a number of years.[2]

A further—though non-contemporary—attestation may be found in Josephus' polemic, Contra Apionem where Josephus claims to directly quote the Aegyptiaca (Αἰγυπτιακά). This is a history of Egypt written in the 3rd century BC during the reign of Ptolemy II (283 – 246 BC) by the Egyptian priest Manetho. No copies of the Aegyptiaca have survived and it is now known only through later writings by Sextus Julius Africanus, Josephus and Eusebius. According to Josephus, Manetho's reconstruction of the Fifteenth Dynasty was Salitis → Bnon → Apachnan → Iannas → Archles/Assis → Apophis. Apachnan is understood to be the Hellenized name of Khyan, while Iannas (Ancient Greek: Iαννας) would best be understood as a corruption of that of Yanassi, confirming that he ascended the Hyksos throne. Josephus further reports that Manethod credited Iannas with an improbably long reign of 50 years and one month.[5][6][7] In any case, this means that Manetho might have considered Yanassi a king. Until the 2010s, this statement was rejected by modern consensus in Egyptology, which considered Apophis as Khyan's direct successor as proposed by Ryholt. In this understanding, it appeared more likely that, in a Manethonian passage mentioning both Iannas/Yanassi and Khyan, Josephus erroneously chose the former instead of the latter.[6] This view was challenged by archaeological discoveries which implied that Khyan may have reigned up to 80 years earlier than thought hitherto, necessitating for one or more kings to reign between him and Apophis.[8]

Aston, David A. (2018). "How Early (and How Late) Can Khyan Really Be. An Essay Based on "Conventional Archaeological Methods"". In Moeller, Nadine; Forstner-Müller, Irene (eds.). The Hyksos ruler Khyan and the Early Second Intermediate Period in Egypt: Problems and Priorities of Current Research. Proceedings of the Workshop of the Austrian Archaeological Institute and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Vienna, July 4 – 5, 2014. Leberstraße 122 A-1110 Wien: Verlag Holzhausen GmbH. pp. 15–56. ISBN 978-3-902976-83-3.CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Bietak, Manfred (1981). "Eine Stele des ältesten Königssohnes des Hyksos Chajan". Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo (MDAIK). 37: 63–73.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Gardiner, Alan (1961). Egypt of the Pharaohs: an introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 156.

Ryholt, Kim (1997). The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1800–1550 B.C. CNI publications, 20. Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, University of Copenhagen : Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 978-87-7289-421-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)