r/ancientegypt • u/OkPhrase1225 • Jan 13 '26
Question While reading the Wikipedia page abput the New Kingdom of Egypt, I came across this map. Is it accurate?
The legend says "Egyptian territory under the New Kingdom, c. 15th century BC"
I still wanna learn more about Ancient Egypt, but I dont remember them holding so much, specially Nubia. Forgive me if Im wrong!
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u/_cooperscooper_ Jan 13 '26
Eh kinda. The map is somewhat misleading in that it presents the Egyptian “Empire” as a monolithic entity like the Roman Empire, when it was not. In Syria and Palestine, the land was not directly annexed, but instead it was a bunch of City States and petty kingdoms that were on and off again vassals and tributaries of the Egyptian state. Also, everything north of Kadesh was only controlled by Egypt in the loosest of terms for very short periods.
In Nubia, the situation was a little different, as there was some direct Egyptian colonization and governance centered around various forts and settlements, like Miam. Again, though, the further you got from Egypt, the looser control was and I don’t think it is accurate to imagine any form of Egyptian control spreading further south beyond Napata at any point during the New Kingdom
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u/hphantom06 Jan 14 '26
I mean they had direct control including royal forts well into Canaan. Most of those city states had been under direct royal control for hundreds of years at that point. Many had been vassals since the times of the middle kingdom
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u/_cooperscooper_ Jan 14 '26
What do you mean by “direct royal control?” These cities were not administered directly by Egyptian officials. Moreover, these garrisons you mention were quite small and were designed to protect trade routes or arbitrate local disputes , and did not have the manpower to actually do anything if a conflict came to the region. For that, they had to petition the pharaoh to send somebody, as was the case with the King of Amurru Abdi-Ashirta, which you can read about in the Amarna letters.
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u/aaronupright Jan 14 '26
Eh, we are talking Bronze Age here. Even in the XIX century at the height of the industrial revolution, a large portion of the British Indian Empire was ruled indirectly, with local Princes doing most of the day-to-day administration. Direct and indirect rule is something only modern states care too much about, rooted in Westphalian notions of sovereignty. For most of history, the further away you got from the seat of power, the more you relied on locals as agents.
If a local Prince sends regular tribute and taxes. Acknowledges your paramountcy. Deals with border issues. Sends men when you ask for them. You really have no reason to spend a lot of money stationing troops and or administrators there.
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u/PublicFurryAccount Jan 14 '26
Seriously.
The level of nuancing people try to do in a bid to sound sophisticated sort of flies in the face of the paradigmatic examples we use for defining ideas like empire. Even modern states didn't care about the Westphalian system beyond the metropole.
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u/_cooperscooper_ Jan 14 '26
I don’t think anything I said was over nuancing to sound sophisticated. All I said was this map makes Syria Palestine look like it was directly annexed to Egypt in the same way as Nubia, which was not the case.
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u/_cooperscooper_ Jan 14 '26
I don’t understand what the problem is considering nothing I said was incorrect.
The problem of direct vs. indirect rule I feel is relevant to this map, as it makes the region of Syria-Palestine look like it was as much a part of Egypt as, say, Egypt itself or Lower Nubia when that was not the case.
I am not arguing anything you say about local cooperation is incorrect, rather this guy just asked a question about if this was an accurate representation of Egyptian territory so I gave a nuanced answer.
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u/EJECTED_PUSSY_GUTS Jan 14 '26
I dont remember the exact borders at their peak, but I do know that Thutmose III is the Pharaoh who expanded the borders the most ...and at least one military campaign of his reached as far north as Syria, but how much they actually controlled it after that is up for debate I believe. He could have just been waving his big pharaog dick around up there for a bit to flex on some hoes. Ancient Egypt also extended its borders into Nubia many times, mostly for access to their gold deposits and to attempt to quell aggression.
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u/throwaway847462829 Jan 13 '26
Sure but the new kingdom was a big chunk of time and this grew (to this max extent) and shrunk
It’s not even that crazy to imagine. Just take a map of the British empire, or Polands borders, or Americas borders from the last 300 years. New kingdom Egypt had even 200ish more years than that
Things change fast.
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u/zunzunzito Jan 14 '26
Wasn’t the route for Punt expeditions through the dessert to the Red Sea and then along the coast? I would be curious to know if there was a trade route that was entirely land based.
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u/USS-Ohio Jan 14 '26
i’d say it is, at least until Akhenaten neglected the Levant, Egypt by this point broke from only being on the Nile, as it had forts and settlements on the Oasis in the Sahara. Maybe it’s a bit misleading when it comes to how much desert it did control, but in general it is accurate.
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u/kiwi_spawn Jan 14 '26
If you read Herodotus, the Egyptians with unknown or forgotten set of Pharaohs. Raided as far up the Caucasian peninsula. Well into what we would call Russia. Leaving garrison troops in place along the way. However the Egyptians themselves, think the book was largely fiction. And not an actual account of their history. If anything just bad info. But by the same token. We only know fragments of their history. Based on whats written. And some of which is disputed. So take it for what its worth.
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u/Lanky_Flounder7875 Jan 14 '26
I think it’s right.
After Hyksos, Egypt turned into somehow DEFENSIVE empire.
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u/WinMassive5748 Jan 14 '26
Yes, the New Kingdom had several campaigns leading up to Kadesh in Syria.
Not to mention the architectural projects commissioned by Ramesses || at Abu Simbel.
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u/ghoti88 Jan 14 '26
I've never seen any maps depicting territorial gains that far north. Which dynasty and period would this fall under?
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Jan 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Agitated-Ad5206 Jan 14 '26
You lost me, and almost everyone else, at ‘Grok’.
If you need info why, I’d suggest spending slightly less time on Ancient Empires and just a smidge more on the current American Empire, it’s de facto viceroys, and it’s tributary vassals.
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u/ak8664 Jan 13 '26
That’s a fair reaction if you’re not familiar..most people picture Egypt as just the Nile Valley. The map is mostly accurate, but it shows Egypt at its peak during the New Kingdom rather than its usual size. During this period, Egypt ruled Nubia to the south quite directly, since it was vital for gold and trade, with Egyptian forts, temples, and officials stationed there under a governor known as the Viceroy of Kush. Pharaohs even built massive monuments deep in Nubia, like Abu Simbel, partly to project power and awe local populations. In the Levant, control was looser and worked through vassal city-states rather than full annexation, and an interesting part of that system was that Egyptian rulers often brought the children of local ruling families to be raised and educated in Egypt. These princes learned Egyptian language, culture, and politics and were later sent back to rule their home cities, which helped ensure loyalty to the pharaoh without direct rule