[9] Seal impressions of Khyan and a stela of his eldest son, prince Yanassi,[10][11] were found in two areas of the city during excavations, confirming his presence onsite.

[9] This palace seems to have been abandoned c. 1600 BC, at which point an enormous ritual feast was orchestrated, filling several 5 m (16 ft) wide pits with animal bones and thousands of pottery fragments in consequence.

[19] In this view, Khyan directly ruled over Lower and Middle Egypt up to Cusae and indirectly dominated the Nile Valley as far south as Thebes,[20] forcing native Egyptian kingdoms including those of the 16th and Abydos Dynasty into vassal states.

For Alexander Ilin-Tomich, the territory directly ruled by the Hyksos kings of Avaris was likely confined to the eastern Delta and the nature and extent of their control over Middle Egypt remains unclear.

[23] Khyan is identified with king Iannas in the works of Josephus whose knowledge of the Hyksos Pharaohs was derived from a history of Egypt written by Manetho.

However, in Sextus Julius Africanus' version of Manetho's Epitome, Khyan (whose name is transcribed there as Staan) is listed after a king Pachnan, perhaps Yaqub-Har.

As Moeller and Marouard write: "These finds come from a secure and sealed archaeological context and open up new questions about the cultural and chronological evolution of the late Middle Kingdom and early Second Intermediate Period.

"[30] These conclusions are rejected by Robert Porter who argues that Khyan ruled much later than Sobekhotep IV and that the seals of a pharaoh were used even long after his death.

[31] Nearly all carbon-14 analyses of materials related to the Second Intermediate Period yield dates on average 120 years earlier than was expected from the prevailing chronological reconstruction of the 15th Dynasty.