New Kingdom

Possibly as a result of the foreign govern of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period, the New Kingdom saw Egypt attempt to create a cushion between the Levant and Egypt, and gain its greatest territorial extent. It expanded far south into Nubia and made wide districts in the Near East. Egyptian armies pushed Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria.

Eighteenth Dynasty:


This was a time of great wealthiness and power for Egypt. Some of the most important and best-known Pharaohs ruled at this time. Hatshepsut was a pharaoh at this time. Hatshepsut is different as she was a female pharaoh, a rare occurrence in Egyptian history. She was an hard and competent leader, extending Egyptian trade south into present-day Somalia and northern into the Mediterranean. She ruled for twenty years through a combination of gross propaganda and deft political skill. Her co-regent and heir Thutmose III ("the Napoleon of Egypt") extended Egypt's army and managed it with great winner. Late in his reign he ordered her figure hacked out from her memorials. He fought against Asiatic souls and was the most made of Egyptian pharaohs. Amenhotep III built extensively at the temple of Karnak accepting the Luxor temple which lay of two pylons, a colonnade behind the new temple entrance, and a different temple to the goddess Ma'at.

Nineteenth Dynasty:

Ramses I reigned for two years and was succeeded by his son Seti I. Seti I carried on the work of Horemheb in reconstructing power, control, and honor to Egypt. He likewise was sure for making the temple complex at Abydos. Arguably Ancient Egypt's power as a nation-state upset during the reign of Ramses II (the Great) of the 19th Dynasty. He ruled for 67 years from the years of 18 and carried on his immediate predecessor's work and created many more splendid temples, such as that of Abu Simbel on the Nubian border. He sought to recover territories in the Levant that had been made by 18th Dynasty Egypt. His efforts of reconquest culminated in the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC, where he led Egyptian armies against those of the Hittite king Muwatalli II and was caught in history's first recorded military ambush. Ramses II was famed for the huge number of children he sired by his various wives and concubines; the tomb he built for his sons (many of whom he outlived) in the Valley of the pharaohs has tried to be the largest funerary complex in Egypt. His immediate heirs continued the campaigns, though an progressively careful court complicated matters. Ramses II was succeeded by his son Merneptah and then by Merenptah's son Seti II. Seti II's throne seems to have been disputed by his half-brother Amenmesse, who may have temporarily governed from Thebes. Upon his dying, Seti II son Siptah, who may have been afflicted with poliomyelitis during his life, was appointed to the throne by Chancellor Bay, an Asiatic commoner who served as vizier behind the scenes. At Siptah's early death, the throne was assumed by Twosret, the dowager queen of Seti II (and possibly Amenmesses's sister). A period of anarchy at the close of Twosret's short reign saw a native reaction to foreign control leading to the performance of the chancellor, and placing Setnakhte on the throne, establishing the Dynasty 20.

Twentieth Dynasty:


The last "great" king from the New Kingdom is widely regarded to be Ramses III, the son of Setnakhte who reigned three decenniums after the time of Ramses II. In Year 8 of his rule, the Sea People, invaded Egypt by land and sea. Ramses III sunk them in two great land and sea battles. He claimed that he incorporated them as open people and established them in Southern Canaan, although there is prove that they forced their way into Canaan. Their front in Canaan may have contributed to the formation of new states in this area such as Philistia afterwards the break of the Egyptian Empire. He was also compelled to fight offensive Libyan tribesmen in two leading campaigns in Egypt's Western Delta in his Year 6 and Year 11 respectively. The heavy cost of these battles slowly exhausted Egypt's treasury and put up to the gradual decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. The severity of these difficultness is stressed by the fact that the first known labour strike in recorded history occurred during Year 29 of Ramses III's reign, when the food rations out for the Egypt's favored and elite royal tomb-builders and craftsmen in the village of Deir el Medina could not be purveyed. Something in the air kept much sunlight from reaching the ground and also got global tree development for almost two full decenniums until 1140 BC. One advised cause is the Hekla 3 blast of the Hekla volcano in Iceland, but the dating of that event remains in dispute.

Next Ramses III's last there was endless fuss between his heirs. 3 of his boys would go on to assume power as Ramses IV, Ramses VI and Ramses VIII respectively. However, at this time Egypt was likewise increasingly beset by a series of drouths, below-normal flooding levels of the Nile, famine, civil agitation and official subversion. The power of the last king, Ramses XI, grew so weak that in the south the High Priests of Amun at Thebes got the effective defacto rulers of Upper Egypt, while Smendes controlled Lower Egypt even before the death of Ramses XI. Smendes would finally found the dynasty 21 at Tanis.

Second Intermediate Period and the Hyksos

Second Intermediate Period marks a period when Ancient Egypt erstwhile again fell into disorder between the end of the Middle Kingdom, and the begin of the New Kingdom. This period is greatest known as the time the Hyksos (an Asiatic people) made their appearing in Egypt, the reigns of its kings comprising the Fifteenth and Dynasties 16. The Dynasty 13 proved unable to hold onto the risky land of Egypt, and a rustic governing family located in the marshlands of the west Delta at Xois broke away from the central authority to form the Fourteenth Dynasty. The splintering of the land accelerated after the rule of the Thirteenth Dynasty pharaoh Neferhotep I.

Hyksos first seem during the rule of the Dynasty 13 pharaoh Sobekhotep IV, and by 1720 BC took hold of the town of Avaris. The schemes of the established account of the "invasion" of the land by the Hyksos is kept in the Aegyptiaca of Manetho, who records that during this time the Hyksos overran Egypt, led by Salitis, the founder of the Dynasty 15. In the last decades, however, the thought of a simple migration, with little or no force involved, has got some support. Under this theory, the Egyptian swayer of Dynasty 13 were unable to stop these new migrants from travelling to Egypt from Asia because they were standard kings who were struggling to cope with various domestic troubles including possibly famine. The Hyksos princes and chieftains ruled in the east Delta with their local Egyptian vassals. The Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty rulers showed their capital and seat of government at Memphis and their summertime residence at Avaris. The Hyksos kingdom was cantered in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt and was limited in size, never passing south into Upper Egypt, which was under hold by Theban-based swayer. Hyksos telling with the south seem to have been primarily of a commercial nature, although Theban princes appear to have knew the Hyksos rulers and may perhaps have provided them with protection for a period.

About the time Memphis fell to the Hyksos, the native Egyptian ruling house in Thebes held its independence from the vassal dynasty in Itj-tawy and set itself up as the Dynasty 17. This dynasty was to prove the salvation of Egypt and would eventually lead the war of liberation that drove the Hyksos back into Asia. The two close kings of this dynasty were Tao II the Brave and Kamose. Ahmose I completed the conquering and expulsion of the Hyksos from the delta region, restored Theban rule over the whole of Egypt and successfully confirmed Egyptian power in its once subject districts of Nubia and Canaan. His reign marks this beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the New Kingdom.

Middle Kingdom

Middle Kingdom is the period in the ancient Egypt chronology stretching from the establishment of the Dynasty 11 to the end of the Dynasty 14, roughly between 2030 BC and 1640 BC nearly.

The period being two phases, the 11th Dynasty, which governed from Thebes and the 12th Dynasty onwards which was cantered around el-Lisht. These 2 dynasties were primitively considered to be the full extent of this unified kingdom, but historians now consider the 13th Dynasty to leastways partly belong the Middle Kingdom. The latest pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom observed their line to a nomarch of Thebes, (Intef the Great, son of Iku), who is referred in a figure of contemporary letterings. However, his immediate successor Mentuhotep II is advised the first pharaoh of this dynasty. An inscription carved during the reign of Wahankh Intef II pictures that he was the first of this dynasty to claim to govern over the whole of Egypt, a take which brought the Thebeans into fight with the swayer of Herakleopolis Magna, the Dynasty 10. Intef undertook several campaigns north, and caught the important nome of Abydos.

Warfare continued intermittently between the Thebean and Heracleapolitan dynasts to the 14th regnal year of pharaoh Nebhetepra Mentuhotep II, when the Herakleopolitans were sunk, and the Theban dynasty started to consolidate their rule. Mentuhotep II is knew to have commanded campaigns south into Nubia, which had gained its independency on the First Intermediate Period. There is as well evidence for military actions against Palestine. The king reorganized the country and located a vizier at the head of civil governing for the country. Mentuhotep IV was the final pharaoh of this dynasty, and despite being free from various numbers of pharaohs, his reign is attested from a few inscriptions in Wadi Hammamat that record excursions to the Red Sea coast and to quarry stone for the royal repositories. The leader of this outing was his vizier Amenemhat, who is wide assumed to be the future pharaoh Amenemhet I, the first pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty. Amenemhet is wide assumed by some Egyptologists to have either seized the throne or taken power after Mentuhotep IV died unsuccessful.

Amenemhat I built a new capital for Egypt, knew as Itjtawy, thought to be located near the present-day el-Lisht, although the chronicler Manetho takes the capital continued at Thebes. Amenemhat forcibly pacified home unrest, curtailed the rights of the nomarchs, and is known to have at founded at least one effort into Nubia. His son Senusret I continued the policy of his father to retake Nubia and other territories lost during the First Intermediate Period. The Libyans were close under his forty-five year rule and Egypt's successfulness and security were assured. Senusret III (1878 BC – 1839 BC) was a warrior-king, leading his troops deep into Nubia, and built a series of massive forts throughout the country to establish Egypt's formal boundaries with the victorious areas of its territory. Amenemhat III (1860 BC – 1815 BC) is considered the last great pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom. Egypt's population started to exceed food production levels during the rule of Amenemhat III, who then ordered the exploitation of the Faiyum and increased mining operations in the Sinaï forsake. He also invited Asiatic settlers to Egypt to labour on Egypt's monuments. Last in his reign the annual floods along the Nile began to fail, further straining the resources of the government. The Thirteenth Dynasty and Fourteenth Dynasty witnessed the slow decline of Egypt into the Second Intermediate Period in which about of the Asiatic settlers of Amenemhat III would savvy power over Egypt as the Hyksos.

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