Garry J. Shaw - War & Trade with the Pharaohs: An Archaeological Study of Ancient Egypts Foreign Relations

War and Trade with

the Pharaohs

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War and Trade with

the Pharaohs

An Archaeological Study of

Ancient Egypts Foreign Relations

By

Garry J. Shaw

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First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

Pen & Sword Archaeology

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Garry J. Shaw, 2017

ISBN 978 1 78303 046 0

The right of Garry J. Shaw to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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Contents

Maps vi

Acknowledgements xi

Preface: Crossroads xii

Chapter 1: Another World (100002584 BCE)

Chapter 2: Building Foreign Relations (and Pyramids)

(25842117 BCE)

Chapter 3: A Country Divided (21172066 BCE)

Chapter 4: An Expanding World (20661781 BCE)

Chapter 5: The Hyksos and the Kermans: Their Rise and Fall

(17811549 BCE)

Chapter 6: Meeting the Mitanni and Assimilating Kush

(15491388 BCE)

Chapter 7: Heresy and Diplomacy (13881298 BCE)

Chapter 8: The Hittites and the Ramessides

(12981187 BCE)

Chapter 9: Sea Peoples, Libyans, and the End of the New Kingdom (11871064 BCE)

Chapter 10: Libyan Pharaohs, the Kingdom of Kush, and the Assyrian Invasion (1064664 BCE)

Chapter 11: Vive La Resistance (664332 BCE)

Endnotes 179

Bibliography 183

Index 203

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viii War and Trade with the Pharaohs

Map 3: Nubia. Made with Natural Earth.

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Maps ix

Map 4: The Levant. Adapted by the author from a map made with Natural Earth.

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Acknowledgements

Id like to thank Julie Patenaude for reading and commenting on the

initial drafts of my manuscript (and for providing photographs), and

Henning Franzmeier of the Qantir-Piramesse Project, for giving me

permission to include photographs from the teams excavations, as well as one of his own photographs. Im also grateful to everyone at Pen and Sword for giving me the opportunity to write, what I hope, is a readable and useful introduction to Ancient Egypts foreign relations. Finally, many thanks to my students at the Bloomsbury Summer School 2015, who took my course

Pharaohs Friends and Foes: Diplomacy, Trade, Travel, and Warfare your questions and comments helped a great deal during the writing of this book.

This book is dedicated to my brother, Peter Shaw.

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Preface: Crossroads

When we look at a map of Ancient Egypt, its limits create the illu

sion of a country separated from the rest of the world a place of

isolation and borders a thin strip of green in an unforgiving sea

of yellow. Introductions to Ancient Egypt also tend to emphasize the countrys natural barriers: the Mediterranean Sea to the north; the Eastern and Western Deserts; the difficult to navigate Nile Cataracts in the south. But how true is this idea of an isolated Egypt? How connected were the Ancient Egyptians with their neighbours? If they were so isolated, how did they trade? And how did they interact with foreigners in times of war and peace?

Lets start again with a different approach: rather than regarding Egypt as an isolated piece of north-east Africa a fertile anomaly in the desert

what if we view it as a gateway? A hub, connected to the Mediterranean Sea and the world beyond, to Asia via the Sinai, and south along the Nile, the Red Sea, and desert routes further into Africa. Throughout ancient history, boats arrived on Egypts northern coast and sailed along the Deltas tributaries to reach the Nile; traders from all directions crossed desert tracks into the Nile Valley; and Egyptians left their homeland to visit neighbouring cultures, trading goods, sharing knowledge, and sometimes waging war.

Many of the boundaries said to isolate the Egyptians were no such thing: Egypt was, in fact, a crossroads. What follows is a story of interactions: of warfare, trade, immigration, and emigration.

Just as Egypts isolation is a popular misconception, its unchanging

character is too. Throughout Egyptian history, there were political changes, technological advancements, and religious developments. An Old Kingdom