 |
| A group of people labelled Asiatics |
Egypt gradually became more engaged with Near Eastern peoples during the later Middle Kingdom, through the establishment of a major point of immigration at Tell ed-Dab'a in the eastern Nile Delta. This site has all the hallmarks of a trade diaspora, an expatriate settlement serving as an interface between the two trading partners. Excavations document a gradual increase in the numbers and influence of Syrian-Palestinians at Dab'a over the course of the thirteenth dynasty. By the late thirteenth dynasty, Middle Bronze Age pottery makes up 40 percent of the assemblage, "warrior" tombs with typical weaponry and associated equid burials appear with great frequency, and monumental temples in the standard Middle Bronze Age layout rival those of sites in Syria-Palestine. A complex settlement hierarchy developed in Palestine during this period, anchored by major trade "gateways" at Tell ed-Dab'a in the south and Hazor in the north. At the end of the thirteenth dynasty, Tell ed-Dab'a became the capital of the Syrian-Palestinian fifteenth dynasty, the Hyksos, which established direct control over the northern half of Egypt and forced the Upper Egyptian seventeenth dynasty to accept a role as a vassal state. The Hyksos only partly assimilated to Egyptian culture, although it is likely that many of their descendants remained in the Delta after Egypt's "expulsion" of the early eighteenth dynasty, thereby becoming part of Egyptian New Kingdom society.
Substantial numbers of Near Eastern peoples, mostly Syrian- Palestinians but including individuals from Mitanni (Syria) and Hatti (Anatolia), were captured during the great military campaigns of the New Kingdom, which ranged as far as northern Syria. Others came as tribute from vassal states controlled by Egypt or as free traders, craftsmen, and scribes. Most prisoners were assigned to various royal and temple estates to provide labor in the fields, although some were parceled out as rewards to val- orous warriors. Skilled Near Eastern craftsmen were employed in Egyptian workshops, and others were employed as servants in elite and royal households. Literate elites from the Near East were often employed in the Egyptian bureaucracy, where their linguistic skills proved valuable to the conduct of international trade and diplomacy; the ambitious might rise to high positions. The Canaanite Ben-ozen became chief of the department of alimentation and beverage and chief royal herald under Ramesses II. The chief draftsman in the temple of Amun, Pas-Ba'al, was possibly taken prisoner under Thutmose III, and his descendants occupied his office for six generations. An individual with the Canaanite name Aper-E] became vizier under King Amenhotep III (1382-1344), and Chancellor Bey became a virtual kingmaker at the end of the nineteenth dynasty. Egyptians intermarried with Near Easterners, and slaves were sometimes adopted into Egyptian families. Although most Near Easterners assimilated to some degree, the cultural influence was not unidirectional. Levantine mythical and literary motifs, loan words, and deities such as Ba'al, Astarte, and Reshep all entered into the Egyptian cultural sphere during the New Kingdom.
Recent Pages: