Egypt, 1802 to 1213 and Rameses II

Eventually the Twelfth Dynasty fell. So too did the Thirteenth, and the Fourteenth fell with what was by now an old phenomenon: invasion by a foreign army. Numerous migrants and traders had begun moving through Canaan to Egypt, and improved transport with the horse made Egypt more vulnerable to the kind of invasions that had been taking place in Mesopotamia. in the mid-1700s, a literate people with a Semitic language, horses and lightweight chariots, moved through Canaan and took control of some cities there. Then conquered northern Egypt. It is not known who they were, except that the Egyptians called them Hyksos (hyk khwsht), which identifies them only as foreigners. They introduced Egyptians to the wheel and to new weapons of war. They introduced the Egyptians to new musical instruments, new techniques in making bronze and pottery, new animals, new kinds of crops, and new gods.

More than a century after the Hyksos invaded Egypt, protracted struggles between the Egyptians and Hyksos resulted in a new pharaoh, Ahmose, uniting Egypt and driving the Hyksos across the Red Sea. Egypt's elite was wounded in pride by what had been the Hyksos conquest, and Ahmose's successor, Thutmose I (reign approx.1493-1482), pursed the Hyksos through Canaan and into Syria, with the Egyptians supporting themselves by booty as they went. The Egyptians believed they were on a holy crusade and that they were protected by their gods. The Egyptians had leaned from the Hyksos. They now had the wheel and horses and a light-weight chariot they had perfected. The chariot was fast in that neither of the two horses doing the pulling was weighed down by a rider. The chariot could turn sharply, give a smooth ride, and from it the rider could comfortably shoot arrows. It allowed an army to move quickly into battle and to withdraw before much injury could be done to it. Chariots frightened the enemy. They were the tanks of antiquity.

Thutmose expanded Egypt's empire southward into Nubia, and he boasted that he had made Egypt superior to every other land.

Egypt's advance on its northern front in Syria was halted by the Hurrians. In the mid-1400s, Egypt allied itself with the enemy of the Hurrians, the Hittites, and continued to clash with the Hurrians. Egypt gained wealth from booty, but it failed to push the Hurrians out of Syria. Eventually the Pharaoh Thutmose III, negotiated peace with the Hurrians. And two successive Hurrian kings married their daughters to the Egyptian kings Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III.

In the mid-1300s, Egypt withdrew from Syria and Canaan, as the pharaoh Amenhotep IV – also known as Akhenaten – tried to force his subjects to worship the god Aton, whom he believed was the god of the universe. After 1300 BCE, the pharaoh Ramses I and his son Seti I revived Egyptian imperialism. Seti went with his army into Canaan and re-established Egypt's imperial administration there.

Seti clashed with the Hittites over control of Syria, and during the reign of Seti's son and successor, Ramses II (r.1279-13), the Hittites pushed south and retook the city of Kadesh, seventy-five miles north of Damascus. Ramses tried to retake Kadesh but failed. The Hittites had chariots also, and they outnumbered the Egyptians close to 2 to 1. The Battle of Kadesh, generally dated to 1274 BCE (more a couple of centuries before the Hebrew King David was born) has been described as involving perhaps five or six thousand chariots – the largest war with chariots ever. Both side claimed victory, and the war between Ramses and the Hittites dragged on until the 21st year of Ramses' reign, when the Hittites saw a growing danger from other enemies. Ramses and the Hittites signed a treaty that they called an "everlasting peace." Egypt was to control lands as far north as Lebanon, and the Hittites were to control lands north of there.

The Hittities gave Ramses a Hittite bride, and Ramses returned to Egypt. There he explained his exploits in Syria as a great victory – as he was supposed to be divine and incapable of failure. To celebrate his victory and to create symbols of his glory, he put slaves to work on the creation of buildings and monuments across Egypt. Art work from this period depicts a tall and threatening Ramses holding a Semite, an Asian and a black man by their hair – three slaves feeling the sternness of Ramses' rule. It was to be described as the time of Moses and enslavement of Hebrews in Egypt.

Conquest by Hyksos and Egyptian Expansion to Ramses II