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First Age of
Empires
Chapter 4
The Empires of
Egypt and Nubia
Collide
Chapter 4 Section 1
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During Egypt’s Middle Kingdom period (about 2080
– 1640 B.C.E.), trade with Mesopotamia and the
Indus Valley enriched Egypt.
Meanwhile, up
the Nile river,
less than 600
miles south of
the Egyptian
city of
Thebes, a
major kingdom
had developed
in the region
of Nubia.
Nubia was
located in
located in
northeastern
Africa
For centuries, the Nubian kingdom of
Kush traded with Egypt. The two
kingdoms influenced each other.
After the prosperity of the Middle Kingdom, Egypt descended
into war and violence. This was caused by a succession of weak
pharaohs and power struggles among rival nobles.
The weakened country fell to invaders who swept across the Isthmus of
Suez in chariots, a weapon of war unknown to the Egyptians. These
invaders, nomads called Hyksos, ruled Egypt from 1640 to 1570 B.C.
The New Kingdom of
Egypt
The Egyptians were
forced to retreat south
as the Hyksos took
control of Lower Egypt.
The Egyptians were
forced to pay tribute to
the Hyksos.
Around
1600 B.C.E.,
a series of
warlike
rulers
began to
restore
Egypt’s
power.
Then they
began some
conquests
of their
own.
The Egyptians
were
sandwiched
between two
hostile enemies.
They had the
Hyksos to the
north and the
Nubians to the
south.
Hyksos
Egyptians
Nubians
The Egyptians pharaoh, Seqenenre Tao II (the Brave) decided
to go after the Nubians first. Once he defeated them, he
would turn his sites on Lower Egypt and the Hyksos.
While fighting the Hyksos, Seqenenre Tao II was killed. His
wife, Queen Ahhotep (ah HOH tehp) rallied the troops and
maintained the pressure on the Hyksos to help drive them out
of Egypt. Her son’s would eventually finish the job.
After overthrowing the
Hyksos rulers, the
pharaohs of the New
Kingdom (about 1570 –
1075 B.C.E) sought to
strengthen Egypt by
building an Empire. Egypt
now entered its third
period of glory in the New
Kingdom.
Equipped with
bronze weapons
and two wheeled
chariots, the
Egyptians became
conquerors. The
pharaohs of the
Eighteenth
Dynasty (1570 –
1365 B.C.) set up
an army.
As the army began
conquering its
enemies, they
counted how many
people they killed
by counting their
hands.
The symbols of royal power had always been the red
crown and the white crown. Now the pharaohs added a
new piece of royal headgear – the blue crown, a war
crown shaped like a battle helmet.
Among the rulers of the New
Kingdom was Hatshepsut (hat
SHEHP soot), she boldly
declared herself pharaoh around
1472 B.C., This was unique. She
took over because her stepson,
the male heir to the throne, was
a young child at the time.
Unlike other New Kingdom rulers, Hatshepsut spent her reign
encouraging trade rather than just waging war.
Hatshepsut
was an excellent ruler of outstanding achievement who made
Egypt more prosperous.
As pharaoh, she sent traders down the Red Sea to bring
back gold, ebony, baboons, and myrrh trees. As male
pharaohs had done, Hatshepsut planned a tomb for herself
in the Valley of the Kings.
Carved reliefs on the walls of the
temple reveal the glories of her
reign. The inscription from
Hatshepsut’s obelisk (tall stone
shaft) at Karnak trumpets her
glory and her feeling about
herself:
Hatshepsut’s
stepson,
Thutmose
III, proved
to be a much
more warlike
ruler. In
fact, in his
eagerness to
ascend to
the throne,
Thutmose
III may even
have
murdered his
stepmother,
Hatshepsut.
Between the time he took power and his death around 1425
B.C., Thutmose III led a number of victorious invasions into
Canaan and Syria. Under Thutmose’s rule, Egyptian armies
also pushed farther south into Nubia, a region of Africa
that straddled the upper Nile River.
The Egyptians and
the Hittites
By about 1400
B.C., Egyptian
armies had
crossed the Sinai
Peninsula and
conquered parts
of Syria and
Palestine. These
conquests
brought the
Egyptians into
conflict with the
Hittite empire.
The Hittites (from Anatolia) had moved into Asia Minor around 1900
B.C. and later expanded southward.
After several battles, the Egyptian and Hittite
armies met at the Battle of Qadesh around 1285
B.C. There the two armies fought each other to a
standstill.
Like the Old Kingdom with its towering Pyramids, rulers of the
New Kingdom erected magnificent palaces, temples, and tombs.
In search of security in the afterlife, they hid their splendid
tombs beneath desert cliffs.
The Age
of
Builders
In this way, the tombs of the pharaohs would not be
plundered by grave robbers and looters. The site they chose
was the remote Valley of the Kings near Thebes.
Ramses II, whose reign
extended from
approximately 1290 to
1224 B.C., stood out among
the great builders of the
New Kingdom. He lived to
the age of 99 and was the
father of 150 children.
At Karnak, he added to a monumental temple to Amon (AH
muhn), Egypt’s chief god.
Ramses also ordered a temple to be carved into the
red sandstone cliffs above the Nile River at Abu
Simbel (AH boo SIHM buhl).

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Egypt’s last
great pharaoh
ordered these
temples
decorated
with enormous
statues if
himself.
The ears alone
measured over
three feet.
The Empire Declines

The empire that
Thutmose III had
built and Ramses II
had ruled came apart
slowly 1200 B.C. as
other strong
civilizations rose to
challenge Egypt’s
power.
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Shortly after
Ramses died, the
entire eastern
Mediterranean
suffered a wave of
invasions around
1200 B.C.
These invasions
destroyed many
kingdoms.
“The People of the Sea.” A group of unknown
invaders attacked both the Egyptian empire and
the Hittite kingdom. Scholars have not conclusively
identified these invaders, although they may well
have been the Philistine often mentioned in the
Bible. Whoever they were, the People of the Sea
caused great destruction.
Invasions by Land and Sea
Egypt’s Empire Fades

After these invasions, Egypt never recovered its previous
power. Egypt broke apart into regional units. Isolated rural
populations erected their own walled defenses.

In Egypt’s former
empire numerous
small kingdoms
arose. Each was
eager to protect its
independence. As
the empire faded
to a distant
memory, princes of
these small
kingdoms treated
Egyptian officials
with contempt.

Powerless at home and abroad, Egypt fell to it’s neighbors’
invasions. Libyans crossed the desert to the Nile delta.
There they established independent dynasties.

From 950 to 730 B.C.E., Libyan pharaohs ruled Egypt
and erected cities. Far from imposing their own
culture, the Libyans embraced the Egyptian way of
life.

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In 751 B.C., a Kushite king
named Piankhi led an army
down the Nile and overthrew
the Libyan dynasty that had
ruled Egypt for over 200
years.
He united the entire Nile
Valley from the delta in the
north to Napata in the south.
Known as the “Black Pharaoh”
because of his darker skin.
Piankhi Captures the Egyptian
throne
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Piankhi and his descendants became Egypt’s twenty fifth
Dynasty. After his victory, Piankhi erected a monument in his
homeland of Kush. It tells the story of his military triumph,
which he viewed as the restoration of Egypt’s glory.
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However, Piankhi’s dynasty proved short lived.
In 671 B.C., the Assyrians, a warlike people from
Southwest Asia, conquered Egypt.

After their defeat by the
Assyrians, the Kushite
royal family eventually
moved south to Meroë
(MEHR oh EE). Far enough
away from Egypt to
provide security. Meroë
lay closer to the Red Sea
than Napata did. This
Kush city became active in
the booming trade
between Africa, Arabia,
and India.
The Golden Age
of Meroë

It was here that Kush made use of rich natural resources to
thrive independently of Egypt for several hundred years.
Unlike Egyptian cities along the Nile, Meroë boasted
abundant supplies of iron ore.
The
Wealth
of
Kush
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Meroë became a major center for the manufacture
of iron weapons and tools. In Meroë, ambitious
merchants loaded iron bars, tools, and spearheads
onto their donkeys.

They then transported the goods to the Red Sea, where
they exchanged these goods for jewelry, fine cotton cloth,
silver lamps, and glass bottles. As the mineral wealth of the
central Nile valley flowed out of Meroë, luxury goods from
India and Arabia flowed in.

The Kushite kings lived like pharaohs, ruling from
palaces, and spending the afterlife in splendid
stone faced pyramids. Unlike the Egyptian
pharaohs, their succession was determined by the
agreement of the leaders and nobles.

After four centuries of prosperity, from about 250 B.C.
to 150 A.D., Monroe began to decline. The rise of Aksum,
a rival power located 400 miles southeast, contributed to
Meroë’s fall.

With a
seaport
along the
Red Sea,
Aksum now
dominated
North
African
trade.
Aksum
defeated
Meroë
around A.D.
350.