The first hypothesis is supported by Egyptologists such as Nicolas Grimal, William C. Hayes, and Donald B. Redford, who believe that he should be identified with Salitis, founder of the 15th Dynasty according to historical sources and king of the Hyksos during their invasion of Egypt.

The second hypothesis is supported by Egyptologist William Ayres Ward and the archaeologist Daphna Ben-Tor, who propose that Sheshi was a Hyksos king and belongs to the second half of the 15th Dynasty, reigning between Khyan and Apophis.

The final hypothesis says Sheshi could be a ruler of the early 14th Dynasty, a line of kings of Canaanite descent ruling over of the Eastern Nile Delta immediately before the arrival of the Hyksos.

[7] Based on the close stylistic similarities between both groups of scarabs as well as their otherwise unmatched numbers,[10] the consensus among Egyptologists is that Maaibre was the prenomen of Sheshi.

[note 5][14] In addition to these seals, Manfred Bietak has suggested that a scarab discovered in Avaris and inscribed with the name of a king "Shenshek" should probably be attributed to Sheshi.

[36] Finally, Aharon Kempinski and Donald B. Redford have proposed that Sheshi is the historical figure who gave rise to the Biblical Sheshai, one of the Anakim living in Hebron at the time of the conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews according to Numbers 13:22.

[45] Alternatively, Bietak and Janine Bourriau have proposed that Salitis should be identified with Sakir-Har,[46] a poorly known ruler of the Second Intermediate Period who, in contrast to Sheshi,[47] is known to have borne the title of "Hyksos".

According to Manetho as reported by Josephus in Against Apion,[49] Salitis reigned from Memphis,[8][50] and fortified the existing town of Avaris,[51] which was to become the Hyksos' seat of power.

[56] For Manfred Bietak, the large number of attestations of Sheshi suggests that he was an important Hyksos ruler,[8] yet his inclusion in the 15th Dynasty may be doubtful given the total absence of monuments attributable to him.

[57] Thus, Bietak concludes that Sheshi should be placed in a group of West Semitic rulers who coexisted with the 15th Dynasty, possibly as vassals or partly independently from it, and some of whom even bore the title of "Hyksos".

[59] Ryholt has shown that a statement in Eusebius' epitome of the Aegyptiaca indicating that the Hyksos had vassals contains a corruption of Manetho's original text.

[63] Yet, for both Redford[64] and Bietak "without doubt, there were, under the umbrella of the fifteenth dynasty rulers, a series of vassals in southern and coastal Palestine, in Middle Egypt, and in Thebes. ...

[73] Based on a seriation of the scarab seals of the Second Intermediate Period available in 1900 AD, George Willoughby Fraser was able to date Sheshi's reign to "a short dynasty before the Hyksos invasion".

More recently, Ryholt obtained a similar result using his own seriation[74] and places Sheshi before Yaqub-Har and the great Hyksos rulers Khyan and Apophis and after Yakbim Sekhaenre, Ya'ammu Nubwoserre, Qareh Khawoserre and 'Ammu Ahotepre.

His main argument is the presence of seals of Sheshi and of two kings of the mid 13th Dynasty Sekhemrekhutawy Khabaw and Djedkheperew in the Egyptian fort of Uronarti in Nubia.

The fort of Uronarti was abandoned at some point in the 13th Dynasty, an event which Ryholt dates to the reign of Djedkheperew given the lack of seals attributable to subsequent kings.

[note 12][83][87] If Sheshi is to be identified with Salitis, the founder of the 15th Dynasty, according to Manetho, then he would have lived around 1650 BC, the date agreed upon by most Egyptologists, including Ryholt, for the arrival of the Hyksos in Egypt.

[98] Ryholt reached this conclusion on noting that scarabs of queen Tati and Princes Ipqu and Nehesy bear stylistic markers which are found on those of Sheshi and thus that they must have been contemporaries.

In 2005 a stele of Nehesy was discovered in the fortress city of Tjaru, the starting point of the Way of Horus, the major road leading out of Egypt into Canaan.