Ancient Egypt • New Kingdom

The New Kingdom in Ancient Egypt

Around the year 1600 B.C., a semi-autonomous, New Kingdom Theban dynasty under the suzerainty of the Hyksos became determined to drive the Shepherd Kings out of the country and extend its own power.

Ancient Egypt Reaches the Peak of its Power

Ancient Egypt was liberated from the Hyksos and then unified by Pharaoh Ahmose. He was honored by subsequent generations as the founder of a new line, the 18th Dynasty, and as the initiator of a glorious chapter in ancient Egyptian history.

During the ancient Egypt New Kingdom period, Egypt reached the peak of its power, wealth, and territory. The government was reorganized into a military state with an administration centralized in the hands of the pharaoh and his chief minister.

Through the intensive military campaigns of Pharaoh Thutmose III (1490-1436 B.C.), Palestine, Syria, and the northern Euphrates area in Mesopotamia were brought within the ancient Egypt New Kingdom. This territorial expansion involved Egypt in a complicated system of diplomacy, alliances, and treaties.

After Thutmose III established the empire, succeeding pharaohs of ancient Egypt frequently engaged in warfare to defend the state against the pressures of:

• Libyans from the west
• Nubians and Ethiopians from the south
• Hittites from the east
• And Philistines from the Aegean-Mediterranean region of the north

The 3rd Intermediate Period

Toward the end of the 20th Dynasty, Egyptian power declined at home and abroad. The ensuing period is the so-called 3rd Intermediate Period. Egypt was once more separated into its natural divisions of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt.

The pharaoh now ruled from his residence-city in the north, and Memphis remained the hallowed capital where the pharaoh was crowned and his jubilees celebrated. Upper Egypt was governed from Thebes.

During the 21st Dynasty, the pharaohs ruled from Tanis (San al Hajar al Qibliyah), while a virtually autonomous theocracy controlled Thebes. Egyptian control in Nubia and Ethiopia vanished.

The pharaohs of the 22nd and 23rd dynasties were mostly Libyans. Those of the brief 24th Dynasty were Egyptians of the Nile Delta, and those of the 25th were Nubians and Ethiopians.

The 25th dynasty's ventures into Palestine brought about an Assyrian intervention, resulting in the rejection of the Ethiopians and the reestablishment by the Assyrians of Egyptian rulers at Sais (Sa al Hajar), about eighty kilometers southeast of Alexandria on the Rosetta branch of the Nile.

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