The Nile Valley and the state of Egypt

South of Egypt lay Nubia, to the west Libya, and to the north-east the Sinai Peninsula (where copper was mined), Palestine and Syria. From Nubia the Egyptians obtained gold, ivory and precious wood. Pharaohs of the Old and Middle Kingdoms campaigned in Sinai, Nubia and Libya. At the end of the 18th century BCE nomadic Hyksos conquered Lower Egypt on horse-drawn war chariots; Egypt was then split into small nomes. Only the rulers of Thebes did not submit. Pharaoh Ahmose (mid-16th century BCE) drove the Hyksos out and began the New Kingdom. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom — Thutmose I and especially Thutmose III — conquered Palestine, Syria and Nubia and spread Egyptian rule into Western Asia. Conquered peoples resisted, and the wars weakened Egypt. In the 7th century BCE Egypt was united again, but in 525 BCE the Persian king Cambyses II conquered it.