Salitis

In the Manethonian tradition, Salitis (Greek Σάλιτις, also Salatis or Saites) was the first Hyksos king, the one who subdued and ruled Lower Egypt and founded the 15th Dynasty.

Biography Salitis is mainly known from a few passages of Flavius Josephus' work Contra Apionem; for these passages, Josephus claimed to have reported Manetho's original words. It seems that during the reign of an Egyptian pharaoh called Timaios or Tutimaios, an army of foreigners suddenly came from the Near East and took over the Nile Delta without a fight. After conquering Memphis and likely deposing Timaios, the invaders committed several atrocities such as destroying cities and temples and killing or capturing the native Egyptians. After that, they

made one of their number, whose name was Salitis, king. He resided in Memphis and exacted tribute from both the upper and lower country, leaving fortresses in the most strategic places. — Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, I: 77. German Egyptologist Jürgen von Beckerath believed that Salitis could be associated with Yakbim, another Second Intermediate Period ruler. William F. Albright suggested that Salitis may have been the same person as the Umman Manda king, Zaluti. Albright assigns "Za-a-lu-ti" an Indo-Iranian etymology. At the current state of knowledge, Salitis remains unidentified.