A Study Of Egyptian-West Asian Relations During The Eighteenth Dynasty Of Ancient Egypt

Since the beginning of civilization,Egypt has maintained close contacts with its surrounding civilizations,and West Asia is one of its close contacts.Through the Sinai Peninsula and the sea routes along the Eastern Mediterranean,Egypt was able to exchange material and cultural goods with Mesopotamia and Anatolia,as well as other regions.Prior to the New Kingdom,relations between Egypt and West Asia were mainly commercial and trade oriented,and Egypt had little desire to establish an empire in Asia.But after the expulsion of the Hyksos,Egypt changed its ways and abandoned its tradition of ’isolationism’ and gradually established its own empire in Asia.There are clearly multiple,multidimensional reasons for this shift.Applying the theory of the ’modern world system’ to the study of interactions between states and regions in the ancient world,it is clear that they were essentially relationships driven by economic motivations,i.e.the need for the core regions to have better access to a variety of goods and products from the periphery.In addition to this,in the case of Egypt itself,the desire for control of trade routes and the ideological imperatives of kingship,following the influx and Egyptianisation of Asian populations,together constituted the practical reasons for the shift in foreign policy during the New Kingdom.The policy adopted by Egypt towards West Asia varied at different stages of the Eighteenth Dynasty.In the early years before the rise of the Mitanni,the Near East did not present a major rival to Egypt for spheres of influence.The aim of Egyptian warfare in Asia at this stage was therefore not to acquire land and maintain a permanent military presence there,but to try to force the city-states in the Syrian-Palestinian region to meet Egypt’s needs in terms of trade.The lack of competition from the other great powers allowed Egypt to achieve its aims easily in the early years.In the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty,Egypt fell into a quagmire of war with Mitanni.As many as seventeen of Thutmose III’s Asian wars secured Egypt’s position as a major power in the Near East.But against the backdrop of neither Egypt nor Mitanni being able to defeat the other completely,and the re-emergence of the Hittites,the two sides also made peace under Thutmose IV,from which Egypt gained a geographically crucial vassal state and much of the coast,which was important for the development of its foreign trade and access to goods from beyond its borders.In the early Amarna period,Egypt enjoyed a rare period of prosperity due to the peaceful coexistence between Egypt and the Mitanni,and Amenhotep III no longer had to travel to Asia for the rebellions instigated by the Mitanni behind the scenes.Letters between Egypt and the other great powers also consisted of peaceful exchanges of gifts.However,with the re-emergence of the Hittites under Suppiluliuma I and the subsequent destruction of the Mitanni domination of Syria,Egypt was in danger of losing control of trade again.In particular,with Amurru’s expansion in the northern part of Egypt’s sphere of influence and eventual defection to the Hittite Empire,countries that had previously been subservient to Egypt,such as Qadesh and Ugarit,also switched to the Hittites.Although Egypt fought back against the Hittite encroachment on its territory,the effect was not obvious and the states of Qadesh and Amurru remained in Hittite hands,and the conflicts and disputes between Egypt and the Hittites during the Amarna period eventually led to the final battle between the two sides in the Qadesh region during the reign of the 19 th Dynasty king Ramses II.