One of his most significant publications is a 1997 book titled "The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c. 1800–1550 B.C." Aidan Dodson, a prominent English Egyptologist, calls Ryholt's book "fundamental" for an understanding of the Second Intermediate Period because it reviews the political history of this period and contains an updated—and more accurate—reconstruction of the Turin Canon since the 1959 publication of Alan Gardiner's "Royal Canon of Egypt." It also contains an extensive catalogue of all the known monuments, inscriptions and seals for the kings of this period.