Asiatics and Levantine(-infuenced) Products in Nubia: Evidence from the Middle Kingdom to the Early Second Intermediate Period

Abstract

The Second Intermediate Period is exemplified by the division of Egypt into several dynasties. As current research proposes, those who held administrative control in the north were of Near Eastern origin, their power likely stemming from commercial ventures initiated in the preceding Middle Kingdom when dynamic trade networks spanned the region. The resulting cultural encounters were complex and multifaceted, with various groups and ideas crossing borders. Yet, shifts in power from the Twelfth Dynasty to the Second Intermediate Period would have feasibly affected such encounters. The evidence examined here focusses on Levantine elements in Nubia: the presence of people of Near Eastern ancestry and products of Levantine influence that crossed the southern borders of Egypt. It concludes with observations on shifts in the nature of these encounters, and how such shifts could be connected to other political and cultural developments associated with the fall of the Middle Kingdom and the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period.