Foreign Relations

Introduction

Even though Egypt, because of its natural borders and cultural temperament, developed an exclusive, superior, self-sufficient and relatively isolationist attitude relative to its neighbors, at least until the New Kingdom, in fact there was continuous foreign contact of different type. This varies from trading expeditions to actual commercial establishment, from frontier raiding to military conquest. Moreover, in one important historic event- the 2^nd Intermediate Period - foreign invaders the Hyksos invaded and actually conquered much of Egypt for a brief period. Thus Egypt cannot be seen as totally isolated.

Predynastic

1. Mesopotamian contact in Upper Egypt in Naqada II/III was part of the formative process. The Sumerian and Elamite artistic motifs on the Upper Egyptian palettes, the “palace facade” and the adoption of cylinder seals show close and important impact during the formative period contemporary with the Sumerian Uruk Expansion. Contact may well have been via the Red Sea Hills to the coast and across or around Arabia although the land route through the Levant is also a possibility.

2. There is good evidence for trading contact between Omari/ Maadi and the southern Levant and in the later Naqada III period Levantine commercial storage vessels appeared in Adydos tombs in Upper Egypt. It is also possible that Lower Egyptian communities were exploiting the mines of Sinai or at least had access by means of nomadic middlemen to the copper resources of the area.

Unification Period and Early Dynastic Period

1. The emergent centers of Upper Egyptian political power (Hierakonpolis, Naqada, Abydos) that created the foundation for later unification possessed a counterpart in Nubia with the town of Qustul. Qustul was the center of the Nubia A-Group Culture and appeared to rival its Egyptian neighbors in terms of its complexity, military power, and commercial influence. Qustul was a large town with elaborate royal tombs that showed cultural similarities with the Upper Egyptian towns - also cattle burials similar to those found at Hierakonpolis. Probably this area was an important trading partner for such commodities as gold, ebony, ostrich eggs, and incense. The Nubia A-Group appears to have been conquered by Egypt around the time of unification.

2. Regular commercial relationships were established with southern Palestine and the Levant during this period as a continuation if the later predynastic patter. Abundant southern Palestinian pottery appears in Lower Egyptian context and to a lesser extent in the royal tombs of Upper Egypt. Wood and oil were among the chief traded commodities.

3. Long distance trading, probably by middlemen is evident in Afghanistan lapis lazuli and Anatolian obsidian and silver.

Old Kingdom

1. With the Old Kingdom the long-standing economic relations with Palestine were disrupted and replaced by formal maritime traffic with the Lebanese Coast with the port of Byblos and its hinterland being the chief partner. There may even have been an Egyptian commercial colony at Byblos during this period. Levantine cedar and oil from coniferous tress replaced the earlier trade with the south. The appearance of larger ships allowed more intensive and direct traffic than the earlier donkey caravans across the northern Sinai.

2. The other chief Old Kingdom foreign relationship was the formal exploitation of the Southern Sinai Peninsula copper mines and turquoise deposits. This lead to the appointment of actual officials reporting to the vizier as administrator of the foreign settlements.

3. Otherwise temporary military expeditions or raids across the frontiers were meant rather to control trade through Nubia and the east and to safeguard the west than to impose permanent settlement and dominion.

Middle Kingdom

1. This period of renewed expansion to the south was supported by permanent fortification south of the First Cataract, the traditional southern border of Egypt with major fort “towns” like Behun established as the centers of a new southern administrative province.

2. It seems that the Egyptian kings of the Middle Kingdom were no longer content to act as trading partners with their southern neighbors but now asserted political/military control over the Nubian routes to the south.

3. The trade relationships with Palestine and the Levant and the Sinai mining continued during this period in what seems to have been a generally peaceful context.

2nd Intermediate Period

1. At the end of the Middle Kingdom northern Egypt was invaded and occupied by Asiatic people known as the Hyksos who probably came from the Levant and Syria and were Semetic speaking.

This invasion may well have been facilitated by Asiatic migration into Lower Egypt during the earlier period.

2. This invasion was the westernmost part of the process of disruption that encompassed the entire Middle East during the 17^th - 16^th centuries BC. This period saw the end of the Indus Valley and BMAC civilizations and the fall of the Old Babylonian Kingdom with the intrusion of new Indo- European people in the east with horse drawn chariots. The Mittani invaders of northern Mesopotamian and Syria were western counterparts of this movement. The Hyksos adoption of the horse enabled them to successfully overcome Egyptian resistance.

3. Hyksos domination was enhanced by their alliance with Nubians from the south, the two foreign forces sandwiching native resistance in Upper Egypt and essentially controlling it for 150 years after which the foreign forces were evicted under the first kings of the New Kingdom.

New Kingdom (18^th -20^th Dynasties)

1. After the successful Hyksos invasion, subsequent Egyptian policy no longer ignored its neighbors but changed to “defense in depth” with foreign invasion and conquest as the central feature of foreign policy and the establishment of an Empire in the east and south with a formal network of administrators to oversee vassal states. However, there was little permanent settlement.

2. Chief foreign powers of the time were the Kushite state of Nubia, the Hittites of Anatolia, the Mittani of Syria, the Old Assyrian Kingdom of Northern Mesopotamia and the Kassites of Babylon. The Egyptian kings of the New Kingdom regularly battled with the Hittites and Mittani for domination of the Levant, Palestine and Syria, but also engaged in intensive diplomatic activity of a more peaceful nature.

3. In the south the Egyptians conquered much of the northern part of the Kushite state and held it as an administrative province as far as the fifth cataract at its greatest extent.

4. 18^th dynasty kings also sent long-distance commercial expeditions far to the south to the “Land of Punt”- probably the Horn of Africa and adjacent Arabia for incense, gold and exotic animals.

5. Later in the New Kingdom (20^th Dynasty) foreign forces again advanced toward Egypt with the intrusions of the “Sea People” who were successfully resisted. However, the “Sea People” but destroyed the Hittite state that had separated Egypt from the rising Assyrian power that was ultimately to defeat her.