Preface

Summary

FOR very different reasons the two kings who lived at the beginning of the period to which this part of the History is devoted have received more attention in modern times than any of their predecessors or successors on the Egyptian throne: Akhenaten, on account of his religious and artistic innovations, and Tutankhamun, on account of the chance survival of his tomb at Thebes with its fabulous contents untouched since antiquity until its discovery in 1922. Neither of them was accepted as having been a legitimate ruler worthy of inclusion in the king-lists of the Nineteenth Dynasty kings Sethos I and Ramesses II, as recorded in their temples at Abydos. While they and their successors until the end of the Twenty-first Dynasty occupied the throne of Egypt, important events were happening in Western Asia, the course of which is traced in this volume. The long Kassite rule in Babylonia came to an end and the rivalry between Assyria and Babylonia began. The Hittite empire reached its peak, declined and fell, as did the Elamite kingdom in Persia. The Phrygians appeared on the scene for the first time. Along the Mediterranean shores, in Phoenicia and in Ugarit new forms of writing were developed. Palestine emerged from its long period of anonymity with the rise of the Hebrew kingdom culminating in the reign of Solomon.