The first of the great territorial kingdoms of this era arose from the ashes of chaos in Egypt. The long era of prosperity associated with the Old Kingdom had ended when drought brought catastrophe to the area. For several decades, the Nile did not overflow its banks, and Egyptian harvests withered. (See Current Trends in World History: Climate Change and the Collapse of River-Basin Societies.) As the pharaohs lost legitimacy and fell prey to feuding among rivals for the throne, regional notables replaced the authority of the centralized state. Egypt, which had been one of the most stable corners of Afro-Eurasia, would endure more than a century of tumult before a new order emerged. There the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom and, later, the New Kingdom reunified the river valley and expanded to the south and north.
Middle Kingdom Egypt (2055–1650 BCE)
Around 2050 BCE, after a century of drought, the Nile’s floodwaters returned to normal. Crops grew again. But who would restore order and reunite the kingdom? In the centuries that followed, pharaohs at Thebes consolidated power in Upper Egypt and began new state-building activity, ushering in a new phase of stability that historians call the Middle Kingdom. The rulers of this era developed Egypt’s religious and political institutions in ways that increased state power, creating the conditions for greater prosperity and trade.
GODS AND KINGS Spiritual and worldly powers once again reinforced each other in Egypt. Just as rulers of this new phase came from the margins, so too did its gods. The Twelfth Dynasty (1985–1795 BCE), with its long list of kings, dominated the Middle Kingdom partly because its sacred order replaced the chaos that people believed had brought drought and despair. Amenemhet I (1985–1955 BCE), the first pharaoh of this long-lasting dynasty, elevated a formerly insignificant god, Amun, to prominence. The king capitalized on the god’s name, which means “hidden,” to convey a sense of his own invisible omnipresence throughout the realm.
Hypostyle Hall.The precinct of Amun-Re in the Karnak temple complex (near modern-day Luxor) was made up of a series of gates, courts, and temples that were built over time by many pharaohs from the Middle and New Kingdoms. The lofty, inscribed columns of the Great Hypostyle Hall (pictured here), which was built by Ramses II in the thirteenth century BCE, offer stunning evidence of the construction projects that pharaohs built to underscore their power and their relationship to the divine.
CURRENT TRENDS IN WORLD HISTORY
Climate Change and the Collapse of River-Basin Societies Sets the Stage for Second-Millennium Territorial States
The three great river-basin societies discussed in Chapter 2—Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley—collapsed at around the same time. The collapse in Egypt and Mesopotamia was almost simultaneous (roughly between 2200 BCE and 2100 BCE). In contrast, while the collapse was delayed in the Indus Valley for approximately 200 years, when it came, it virtually wiped out the Harappan state and culture. At first, historians focused on political, economic, and social causes, stressing bad rulers, nomadic incursions, political infighting, population migrations, and the decline of long-distance trade. In more recent times, however, a group of scientists that included paleobiologists, climatologists, sedimentationists, and archaeologists has studied these societies and found convincing evidence that a truly radical change in the climate—a 200-year-long drought spreading across the Afro-Eurasian landmass—was a powerful factor in the collapse of these cultures. But how can these researchers know so much about the climate 4,000 years ago? The following table assembles the evidence for their assertions, drawing on their scholarly studies of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley.
River-Basin Society
Date of Collapse
Climatological Evidence
Archaeological Evidence
Literary Evidence
Egypt
The Old Kingdom collapsed and ushered in a period of notable political instability, the First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BCE).
Sedimentation studies reveal markedly lower Nile floods and an invasion of sand dunes into cultivated areas.
Many of the sacred sites of the Old Kingdom and much of their artwork are believed to have been destroyed in this period due to political chaos.
An abundant literary record is full of tales of woe. Poetry and steles call attention to famine, starvation, low Nile floods, and even cannibalism.
Mesopotamia
The last effective ruler of the Kingdom of Akkad (2334–2193 BCE) was Naram Sin (r. 2254–2218 BCE).
Around 2100 BCE, inhabitants abruptly abandoned the Khabur drainage basin, whose soil samples reveal marked aridity as determined by the existence of fewer earthworm holes and wind-blown pellets.
Tell Leilan and other sites indicate that the large cities of this region began to shrink around 2200 BCE and were soon abandoned, and remained unoccupied for 300 years.
Later Ur III scribes described the influx of northern “barbarians” and noted the construction of a wall, known as the Repeller of the Amorites, to keep these northerners out.
Indus Valley and the Harappan society
Many of the Harappan peoples migrated eastward, beginning around 1900 BCE, leaving this region largely empty of people.
Hydroclimatic reconstructions show that precipitation began to decrease around 3000 BCE, reaching a low in 2000 BCE, at which point the Himalayan rivers stopped incising. Around 1700 BCE, the Ghaggar-Hakra rivers dried up.
Major Harappan urban sites began to shrink in size and lose their urban character between 1900 and 1700 BCE.
There is no literary source material because the Harappan script has still to be deciphered.
QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
How do the different kinds of evidence—climatological, archaeological, and literary—for each river-basin society’s collapse at the end of the third millennium BCE compare with one another, and how do they compare across the different regions?
How might the changes suggested by these different types of evidence have laid the groundwork for the second-millennium BCE development of territorial states described in this chapter?
What additional evidence would you want to see in order to be able to make arguments for a global climate crisis around 2000 BCE?
Explore Further
Behringer, Wolfgang, A Cultural History of Climate (2010).
Bell, Barbara, “The Dark Ages in Ancient History,” American Journal of Archaeology 75 (January 1971): 1–26.
Butzer, Karl W., “Collapse, Environment, and Society,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 109 (March 2012): 3632–39.
Cullen, H. M., et al., “Climate Change and the Collapse of the Akkadian Empire,” Geology 28 (April 2000): 379–82.
Giosan, Liviu, et al., “Fluvial Landscapes of the Harappan Civilization,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 109 (June 2012): E1688–94.
Weiss, Max, et al., “The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization,” Science, New Series, 261 (August 20, 1993): 995–1004.
Because Amun’s attributes of air and breath were largely intangible, believers in other gods were able to embrace his cult. Amun’s cosmic power appealed to those in areas that had recently been impoverished. As the pharaoh elevated the cult of Amun, he unified the disparate parts of his kingdom, further empowering Amun—as well as the god’s worldly sponsor, the pharaoh. In this way, Amun eclipsed all the other gods of Thebes. Merging with the formerly omnipotent sun god Re, the deity now was called Amun-Re: the king of the gods. Because the power of the gods was intertwined with that of the kings, Amun-Re’s earthly champion (the king) enjoyed enhanced legitimacy as the supreme ruler.
While gods and kings allied, Middle Kingdom rulers tapped into their kingdom’s bounty, their subjects’ loyalty, and the work of untold commoners and enslaved people to build the largest, longest-lasting public works project ever undertaken. For more than 12,000 years, Egyptians and the people they enslaved toiled to erect monumental gates, enormous courtyards, and other structures in a massive temple complex at Thebes (present-day Luxor). Dedicated to Amun-Re, it demonstrated the glorious power of the pharaohs and the gods.
Unlike the spiritually perfect and remote rulers of the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom rulers nurtured a cult of the pharaoh as the good shepherd, whose prime responsibility was to fulfill the needs of his human flock. In a building inscription at Heliopolis, a pharaoh named Senusret III from the nineteenth century BCE claims to have been appointed by Amun as “shepherd of the land.” And 500 years later, in the fourteenth century BCE, Amenhotep III’s building inscription at Karnak describes him as “the good shepherd for all people.” By instituting charities, offering homage to gods at the palace to ensure regular floodwaters, and performing ceremonies to honor their own generosity, the pharaohs portrayed themselves as shepherds of their people. In these inscriptions and in imagery (recall the shepherd’s crook as one of the pharaoh’s symbols), pharaohs exploited distinctly pastoralist symbolism. As a result, the cult of Amun-Re was both a tool of political power and a source of spiritual meaning for the different peoples of the blended territorial state of Egypt.
MERCHANTS AND EXPANDING TRADE NETWORKS Prosperity gave rise to an urban class of merchants and professionals who used their wealth and skills to carve out places for their own leisure and pastimes. Indoors they indulged in formal banquets with professional dancers and singers, and outdoors they honed their skills in hunting, fowling, and fishing. What was new was that they did not depend on the kings for such benefits. In a sign of their upward mobility and autonomy, some members of the middle class constructed tombs filled with representations of the material goods they would use in the afterlife as well as the occupations that would engage them for eternity. During the Old Kingdom, in contrast, this privilege had been the exclusive right of the royal family and a few powerful nobles.
Centralized and reforming kingdoms also expanded their trade networks. Because the floodplains had long since been deforested, the Egyptians needed to import massive quantities of wood by ship. Most prized were the cedars from Byblos (a city in the land soon known as Phoenicia, roughly present-day Lebanon), which artisans crafted into furniture for the living and coffins for the dead. Superb examples remain from the tombs of nobles and pharaohs. Commercial networks extended south through the Red Sea as far as present-day Ethiopia; traders brought back precious metals, ivory, livestock, and exotic animals such as panthers and monkeys to enhance the pharaoh’s palace. They brought enslaved people as well. Expeditions to the Sinai Peninsula searched for copper and turquoise. Egyptians looked south for gold, which they prized for personal and architectural ornamentation. To acquire it, they crossed into Nubia, where they met stiff resistance. One Egyptian official from the reign of Amenemhet II (the third pharaoh of the long-lasting Twelfth Dynasty) bragged about his expeditions into the Sinai and south into Nubia: “I forced the (Nubian) chiefs to wash gold. . . . I went overthrowing by the fear of the Lord of the Two Lands [i.e., the pharaoh].” Eventually, the Egyptians colonized Nubia to broaden their trade routes and secure these coveted resources. As part of their colonization, a series of forts extended as far south as the second cataract of the Nile River, close to the modern-day border between Egypt and Sudan. (See Map 3.2.)
Luxury Imports.This chest amulet from Tutankhamun’s fourteenth-century BCE tomb highlights the use of luxury imports in Egyptian religious and visual culture. Lapis lazuli, turquoise, and carnelian from the east and gold from the south were combined to create uniquely Egyptian symbolism, including a falcon flanked with cobras and topped with an eye of Horus, with papyrus and lotus flowers dangling below. Scientists recently determined that the yellow glass that makes up the scarab forming the falcon’s body contains reidite, a mineral that can be formed only when a meteorite strikes and melts the desert sand.
MAP 3.2 | Territorial States and Trade Routes in Southwest Asia, North Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean, 1500–1350 BCE
Trade in many commodities brought the societies of the Mediterranean Sea and Southwest Asia into increasingly closer contact.
What were the major trade routes and the major trading states in Southwest Asia, North Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean during this time?
What were the major trade goods? Which regions appear to have had more, and more unique, resources than the others?
What did each region need from the others? What did each region have to offer in exchange for the goods it needed?
Migrations and Expanding Frontiers in New Kingdom Egypt (1550–1070 BCE)
The success of the new commercial networks lured pastoral nomads searching for work. Later, chariot-driving Hyksos invaders from Southwest Asia attacked Egypt, setting in motion the events marking the break between what historians call the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt. The invaders brought down the rulers of the Middle Kingdom, but they also inspired a new generation of Egyptian rulers who created the New Kingdom and led the state to unparalleled levels of prosperity and territorial expansion.
HYKSOS INVADERS Sometime around 1640 BCE, a western Semitic-speaking people, whom the Egyptians called the Hyksos (“Rulers of Foreign Lands”), overthrew the unstable Thirteenth Dynasty. The Hyksos had mastered the art of horse chariots. Thundering into battle with their war chariots and their superior bronze axes and composite bows (made of wood, horn, and sinew), they easily defeated the pharaoh’s foot soldiers. Yet the victors did not destroy the conquered land; instead, they ruled over it. Although they attempted to adopt Egyptian ways, they never succeeded in winning the Egyptians’ acceptance. The Hyksos did settle down and ruled as the Fifteenth Dynasty, asserting control over the northern part of the country and transforming the Egyptian military force.
After a century of political conflict, an Egyptian who ruled the southern part of the country, Ahmosis (r. 1550–1525 BCE), successfully used the Hyksos weaponry—horse chariots—against the invaders themselves. This military success marked the beginning of the period known as the New Kingdom. The Egyptian rulers had learned an important lesson from the invasion: they had to monitor their frontiers vigilantly, for they could no longer rely on deserts as buffers. Ahmosis assembled large, mobile armies and drove the “foreigners” back. Diplomats followed in the armies’ path, as the pharaoh initiated a strategy of interference in the affairs of small kingdoms in Southwest Asia. Such policies laid the groundwork for statecraft and an international diplomatic system that future Egyptian kings would use to dominate the eastern Mediterranean world.
The migrants and invaders from the west introduced new techniques that the Egyptians adopted to consolidate their power. These included bronze working (which the Egyptians had not perfected), an improved potter’s wheel, and a vertical loom. In addition, South Asian animals such as humped zebu cattle, as well as vegetable and fruit crops, now appeared on the banks of the Nile for the first time.
Of course, the most significant innovations pertained to war: the horse and chariot, the composite bow, the scimitar (a sword with a curved blade), and other weapons from western Afro-Eurasia. These weapons transformed the Egyptian army from a standing infantry to a high-speed, mobile, and deadly fighting force. As Egyptian troops extended the military frontier as far south as the fourth cataract of the Nile River, the kingdom now stretched from the Mediterranean shores to Ethiopia.
EXPANDING FRONTIERS By the beginning of the New Kingdom, Egypt was projecting its interests outward: it defined itself as a superior, cosmopolitan society with an efficient bureaucracy run by competent and socially mobile individuals. Paintings on the walls of Vizier Rekhmire’s tomb from the mid-fifteenth century BCE record the wide-ranging tribute from distant lands that he received on behalf of the pharaoh, including a veritable menagerie: cattle, a giraffe, an elephant, a panther, baboons, and monkeys. The collected taxes that are enumerated in the accompanying inscriptions included offerings of gold, silver, linen, bows, grain, and honey. Rekhmire’s tomb, with its paintings, tax lists, and instructions for how to rule, offers a prime example of how the bureaucracy managed the expanding Egyptian frontiers. (See Global Themes and Sources: Primary Source 3.2.) Pushing the transnational connectivity even further, it has been argued that inscriptions and paintings from Rekhmire’s tomb, together with other tomb paintings, show that Keftiu (people from Minoan Crete), along with Hittites from Asia Minor, Syrians from the Levant, and Nubians from the south, may have gathered for some major multinational event in Egypt, like a Sed festival (Cline, 1177 B.C., pp. 22–26).
Exotic Tribute.From the sumptuously painted tomb of the vizier Rekhmire (Theban Tomb 110), this scene depicts a range of tribute goods brought to Thutmosis III. Tribute from Nubia included oxen, dogs, and a giraffe (with a monkey clinging to its neck) and, from Syria, a baby elephant, a brown bear, horses, and a chariot. Other gifts not pictured here were gold and silver vessels from the Keftiu (of Minoan Crete) as well as incense and exotic animals from Punt (a region to the south of Egypt that scholars have not yet positively identified, likely located on the African coast of the Red Sea in modern Ethiopia and Somalia).
As in the Middle Kingdom period, Egypt continued to expand its control southward into Nubia, a source of gold, exotic raw materials, and labor. Historians identify Egyptian expansion most strongly with the reign of Egypt’s most powerful woman ruler, Hatshepsut. She served as regent for her young stepson, Thutmosis III, who came to the throne in 1479 BCE, when his father—Hatshepsut’s half brother and husband—Thutmosis II died. When her stepson was seven years old, she proclaimed herself “king,” ruling as co-regent until she died two decades later. During her reign, there was little military activity, but trade with the eastern Mediterranean and southward into Nubia flourished. When he ultimately came to power, Thutmosis III (r. 1479–1425 BCE) launched another expansionist phase that lasted for 200 years. Spreading northeastward into Southwest Asia, Egypt under his rule collided with the Mitanni and the Hittite kingdoms. At the Battle of Megiddo (1469 BCE), the first recorded chariot battle in history, Thutmosis III, whose army employed nearly 1,000 war chariots, defeated his adversaries and established an Egyptian presence in Palestine. Two centuries later, in 1274 BCE, Egypt’s most notable pharaoh, Ramses II (r. 1279–1213 BCE), engaged in what historians regard as the greatest chariot battle in world history. More than 6,000 chariots fought to a draw on the plains of what is present-day Syria for control of the Fertile Crescent. Having evolved into a strong, expansionist territorial state, Egypt was now poised to engage in commercial, political, and cultural exchange with the rest of the region.
Hatshepsut.The only powerful queen of Egyptian pharaonic history was Hatshepsut, seen here in two portraits created during her reign (1479–1458 BCE). In the earlier statue (left), a young, feminine Hatshepsut wears a masculine headdress and kilt but is labeled in the accompanying inscription as a “perfect goddess” and “daughter of Re.” Because a woman on the throne of Egypt would offend the basic principles of order (ma’at), Hatshepsut usually portrayed herself as a man, especially late in her reign, as in the later image here (right). This masculine portrayal was reinforced by the use of male determinatives in the hieroglyphic renditions of her name.
Chariot-driving, axe- and composite-bow-wielding, Semitic-speaking people (their name means “rulers of foreign lands”) who invaded Egypt, overthrew the Thirteenth Dynasty, set up their own rule over Egypt, and were expelled by Ahmosis to begin the period known as New Kingdom Egypt.
