A Study On The Evolution Of The Foreign Policies In The New Kingdom Period Of Ancient Egypt

The research on ancient Egypt and the New Kingdom has always been an important problem in the study of Egypt. In the past ten years or so , the New Kingdom's foreign policy has become a hot issue and achieved fruitful results, but as writer sees the research mostly laid emphasis on a specific period and lacks an overall and macroeconomic research on the object. Based on the results from these studies, this text places the research background under the 500--years history of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, then gives a systematic analysis of the causes,effects and consequences of foreign policies in different periods of Egypt, and focus on the historical background of the evolution of foreign policies and gains and losses of the foreign policies.The researching objectives of this paper and the key problem to solve are to reveal the evolution of the New Kingdom's foreign policies. The paper consists of, introduction, body, conclusion and references. The body includes five parts according to the different features of the Kingdom's foreign policies. The first part, the founders and successors of Egypt's 18th Dynasty expanded and established the empire at the guidance of the foreign policy of "supremacy of force". The second part, the Egyptian empire entered the Amarna Period, the main feature is the "peaceful diplomacy" with Babylon, Mitanni, Hittites and other big powers, the thesis focus on the policy mistake on issue of the treatment of Mitanni, that led Egypt to the territories loss in Syria and Palestine, and its far-reaching impact on the Near East situation. The third part, the pharaohs of the 19th dynasty made unremitting efforts in order to recur the past glories of the empire, particularly RamessesII, they battled with the Hittites in Syria and Palestine, but eventually dropped and chose the " Fight with the Weak and Peace with the Strong " foreign policy because of the decline of strength. Part four, the power of Egypt gradually declined, but also facing the joint attacking by Libya and the "sea people", Ramesses III chose the "forced defense" foreign policy and the successfully saved the whole country. Fifth, Egypt is already on the decline, its status is gone, the former allies,dependencies to Egypt now express naked contempt to it, finally the New Kingdom walked to destruction in both aggression from home and abroad. The thesis holds that foreign policies have profound impacts on the development of the New Kingdom, by virtue of a successful foreign policies, in the period of the New kingdom, Egypt saw economic prosperity, social stability, smooth development of the Bronze Age, the slavery development was becoming more mature. It can be said that the new foreign policies played a crucial role in the rise and fall of the New Kingdom.