The politically fragmented and dependent states of Syria and the Levant experienced modest local developments, but monumental conflicts between the great powers of the time. In this regard, the sixteenth century bc remains poorly documented. In the north, the Mitannians established their control at the expense of the Hatti of Hantili and Ammuna, and developed a network of relations with the states of the area. Some of these were involved in coalitions. This was the case of Aleppo, which at the time of the plot against Idrimi’s father controlled a large portion of northern Syria (from Aleppo to Mukish, Niya, and Ama’u). Qadesh was in a similar situation. Egyptian sources describe its hegemonic position over other important kingdoms in the area, such as Megiddo and Tunip.
This was a transitional phase from a system of medium-sized coalitions led by local kingdoms (Yam-had, Qatna, and Hazor in the Mari Age), to a system of dependency on a single foreign great king. The majority of evidence for this phase comes from the texts found in Level IV at Alalah. Its kings (Idrimi and Niqmepa) sealed alliances with Kizzuwatna and Tunip in order to recover and return some fugitives. Other sources come from Qatna. Apart from the well-known temple inventories from the fifteenth century bc, other texts have been recently discovered, such as the so-called Idanda archive (alongside its rich royal underground cellars and palace). These texts fill the gap in the documentation between the temple inventories and the Amarna period, when Akizzi was king of Qatna. After the destruction of the city by Suppiluliuma, Qatna’s role, which had been important in the Middle Bronze Age, gradually declined. Just like Ebla, the city became a field of ruins in a semi-arid steppe, and its monumental walls ceased to enclose anything anymore.
Around the same time, the first Egyptian kings of the eighteenth dynasty began their first expeditions. These campaigns covered a considerable distance, but failed to establish a solid Egyptian presence in the Near East. These first attempts would turn out to be in vain, due to the lack of foreign expeditions during the reign of Hatshepsut. It is pointless to try to date the expeditions of Tuthmosis I and III so that they do not overlap with the sources from Alalah IV. In actual fact, they can very well overlap, since these expeditions were occasional and did not threaten the Mitannian supremacy in the area. The southern Levant was a different case, since the area was already under Egyptian control from the sixteenth century bc.
In the first half of the fifteenth century bc, the expeditions of Tuthmosis III brought to the consolidation of Egyptian control throughout the Levant and over a large portion of Syria. These systematic and continuous campaigns can be divided into three phases. In the first phase, there was the great campaign of Tuthmosis III’s first regnal year. It culminated in the battle of Megiddo, which ensured Egyptian control in the Levant. In the second phase, there were the campaigns of the fifth to seventh years. These led to the conquest of Qadesh and southern Syria. The remaining campaigns constitute the third phase (eighth year onwards), leading Tuthmosis to the Euphrates, well within Mitannian territories, from which the Egyptian ruler took the entire coast up to Ugarit, and the Orontes Valley (with Tunip and Nuhashe). The following campaigns of Amenhotep II simply consolidated control over these areas, perhaps with some losses. When the border between Egypt and Mitanni was established and the two powers came to an agreement, possibly as a reaction to the Hittite expansion of Tudhaliya II, Mitanni kept Aleppo, Mukish, and Nuhashe, while Egypt kept Ugarit, Tunip, Qadesh and the southernmost states.
The Amarna Age has often been depicted as a period in which Egypt had lost some of its control in the Near East. However, a closer look at the sources, especially the letters from the Amarna archive, shows that Egyptian control in the Near East continued to exist in its usual form (Text 19.2). The latter was considerably frustrating for the small Syro-Levantine kings, who did not receive any support in return for their loyalty to the Egyptian king. They denounced the Egyptian king’s indifference, in the hope of receiving some sort of support. However, these denunciations were more the result of a constant misunderstanding of the nature of Egyptian presence in the Near East. They do not indicate that the Amarna Age was a phase of particular Egyptian indifference for Near Eastern affairs.
World History
