During the second half of the second millennium the Ancient Near East witnessed a prolonged and sometimes hitter contest between the great powers of the day as they vied for control of Syria. During that period the kingdom of Egypt had retained a consistent interest in the region, contending first with the Kingdom of Mitanni and, from the mid 14th century onwards, its Anatolian successor, the Hittite empire. Although driven by more particular national interests, all three kingdoms shared a common desire to control the region in order to exploit its great material wealth and the immensely profitable international trade that turned Syria into the crossroads of the Ancient World. The Nilotic kingdom had always had a major interest in the region and evidence of trade with Byblos extends as far back as the 1st Dynasty. However, the defining feature of Egypt's interest in the Levant during the New Kingdom period (c. 1565-1085) arose in the wake of the expulsion of the Hyksos invaders in the 16th century.
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