Geographical area to the east of the sixvi peninsula and the Red Sea, comprising Mesopotamia, Arabia, Anatolia and the Levant. At least as early as the Prcdynastic period, Egvpt was alrcadv trading with these areas in order to obtain such raw materials as wood, copper, silver and certain semi-precious stones that were not available in Egypt. The Egyptians' principal export to western Asia appears to have been gold, obtained from mines in the Eastern Desert and Nubia.
The relationship between the two regions was not alwavs an amicable one, and the fertility of the Nile valley made Egypt constantly attractive to settlers from the less prosperous lands of western Asia. The Egyptians’ generally contemptuous view of the Asiatics is exemplified by the Instruction for King Merikara dating to the First Intermediate Period: ‘Lo, the miserable Asiatic, he is wretched because of the place he is in; short of water, bare of wood, its paths are many and painful because of mountains.’ The 'miserable Asiatics’ comprised not merely the nomadic i3i:i)Our (Shasu) but also the more settled peoples of Syria-Palestine, and although Egyptian paintings and sculptures gcnerallv portrayed
Fragment ofivalTpainting from the tomb of Sohekholep at Thebes, showing Asiatic envoys bringing gifts to J'hiitmosc ir. I8lh Dynasty, c.1400 BC. painted plaster, H. LI4tn. (i:i3799!0)
The Asiatic as a tribute-bearer or bound captive, the real relationship must have been a more complex amalgam of diplomatic and economic links.
The 18th-Dvnastv pharaohs extended the Egyptian 'empire’ (perhaps better described as 'sphere of influence’) in western Asia as far as the Euphrates, leading to the inllux of many foreign materials, goods and ideas, from the introduction of glass to the use of the c. LNKifOR. M scrip! in diplomatic correspondence (sec A. MARXA LKETERs). Gradually, however, the Asiatic territories broke awav from Egvpt and new powers arose such as the in r-•m'E,.s, A. ssvRi. vx. s and Persians, the two latter powers eventually conquering not only the Levant but Egypt itsell'. il. Ro. AE, Cultural atlas ofAIesopolamia and the ancient Near East (Oxford, 1990).
World History
