Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

Jezreel, mayors, harvest, heavy, element, hill, Egypt, battle, justice, military, Armarna, collapsed, intentions, Amenhotep, labor, coastal, 2nd, fertile, lowlands, Palestinian, troops, 1550, insolence, artistic, hillbillies, Jerusalem, Labayu, complaining, Turkey, depopulation, Napoleon, expansionist, Canaan, Aegyptica

•

Egypt's imperial presence in the late       2nd millennium

•

this is the New Kingdom Period         1550-1077

•

Thutmose III (1479 - 1425 BC)

•

has been called the                 Napoleon of ancient Egypt

•

greatest                 military leader in Egyptian history

•

no record tells of him losing a             battle

•

erected many buildings

•

several obelisks (e.g. those now in Rome and London)

•

conducted tours as far north as Syria

•

made             Canaan into one of his imperial possessions, a province in his vast empire

•

extended kingdom into modern             Turkey, into the Hittites region

•

contemporary superpowers of the day Babylon, the Hittites, Syria send diplomatic gifts to Egypt

•

the region long known as Canaan was now securely in Egyptian hands

•

so Thutmose III initiated the Pax                   Aegyptica

•

a peace that resulted from Egyptian military conquest

•

the burden that Egypt placed on Canaan was extremely           heavy

•

Thutmose taxed the land in two ways:

•

1. produce

•

inhabitants should provide him with a portion of their               harvest

•

this empoverished their cities

•

2. lives

•

demanded bodies for his armies and           labor forces

•

this led to a                         depopulation of Canaan especially where later Israel and Judah would emerge

•

second phase of New Kingdom Period

•

Amarna Period

•

pharoahs during this time

•

                  Amenhotep III (14th century BC)

•

unprecedented prosperity and                 artistic splendor

•

Egypt reached the peak of its artistic and international power

•

Akhenaten

•

introduced monotheistic reforms in Egypt

•

Tutankkhamun

•

King Tut

•

this period is important in Egyptian history because of the discovery of the               Armarna letters

•

these were letters sent by Canaanite minor rulers to the pharaohs in Egypt

•

many are quite poorly preserved, but what remained gives us much knowledge about this era

•

when pharaohs were not looking these mayors would indulge in calling themselves "king"

•

but from the Egyptian perspective they were simply             mayors of cities and areas in Canaan

•

many of the letters consist of                       complaining to the pharaoh

•

begging for various kinds of support

•

what bothers them most of all were the                         expansionist tendencies of neighboring states

•

they "beg to see the pharaohs face"

•

to establish               justice in their area

•

ask for military support

•

one letter is from Shechem

•

complained about             Labayu attempting to expand into the Jezreel Valley to Meggido (town)

•

later Saul in the Bible attempts to do the same thing

•

this is an example of the same kind of actions being reported from the Armana letters and Biblical record

•

in other letters, mayors complain about Abdi-Hepa

•

Abdi-Hepa reigned in URU-salim or                   Jerusalem

•

attempted to expand into other territories

•

King Saul and King David were similar to Abdi-Hepa in their                     intentions of expansion

•

why was it allowed for kings of city states to expand into territorial states, as this was                   insolence vis-a-vis the Egyptian court

•

the reason is that Labayu and Abdi-Hepa inhabited the         hill country, e.g. Judea and Samaria

•

today where the                       Palestinian territories are

•

the pharaohs really didn't care about the hill country which was, in their mind, occupied by "dangerous                       hillbillies"

•

Egyptians felt that it was best to leave that               element to its own devices

•

focuses on the               coastal territories

•

richer and more               fertile

•

better for communication with other superpowers to the north

•

better for transporting             troops

•

however, if disputes in the hill country when unheeded, a power from the north could take advantage of it, move south, and get very close to           Egypt

•

so Egypt was interested in the politics of the highlands, but not as a top priority

•

therefore some troops were sent from time to time

•

we see from the Armarna letters that rules continued to expand from highlands into the                 lowlands

•

especially into the fertile               Jezreel Valley, the bread basket of the southern Levant

•

what happened when the Egyptian empire                   collapsed and no longer able to keep these hill kingdoms at bay?

•

we then witness the development of territorial states:

•

Israel

•

Judah

•

Aram Damascus

•

Ammon

•

Moab

•

Edom

•

this is the political situation as we move into the first millennium, the time of Biblical record