UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

The importance of Nubia: a link between Central Africa and the Mediterranean
struggles to unify Upper Egypt and in the war to drive out the Hyksos.
These African soldiers from the Nubian desert were of the same race and
practically the same culture as the sedentary Nehesyu people settled along
the river.
Thus throughout the Second Intermediate Period Nubians were to be
found in Egypt and Egyptians in Nubia - and this certainly aided both
commercial and cultural exchanges. Gradually the Nubian Corridor
became a melting-pot in which African and Mediterranean elements intermingled
and produced a mixed culture. Yet these very close contacts had
dramatic repercussions on the development of the first kingdom of Kush at
Kerma.
The Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty, the Thutmosids, the heirs and
descendants of those who had reunified Egypt and expelled the Hyksos
invaders, realized that a united African kingdom on the other side of its
southern border could be dangerous for Egypt: a Hyksos-Kushite alliance
had almost reduced Theban ambitions to nothing. Besides, the Asian
threat was still real, even after the Hyksos had retreated to Palestine. To
protect itself, Egypt embarked on a policy of systematically intervening in
the Near East.
Egypt's own resources - both of manpower and raw materials - were
inferior to the potential strength of Asia Minor, as subsequent history
made clear. The Theban Pharaohs knew that Africa south of Semna was
richly endowed with the raw materials and manpower Egypt lacked, and
they would not rest until they had complete control of the Nubian
Corridor, the sole means of reaching that part of Africa whose resources
were so essential to their Asian policy.
It has often been held that the Egyptian armies had little difficulty in
gaining control of the Nubian Corridor. This is not so. Campaign followed
campaign, under each Pharaoh of the New Kingdom, from Ahmosis to
Seti I and Ramses II, before they achieved success.
Nubian resistance seems to have taken two forms: revolts against the
Egyptian control of their country, and also a more or less general
abandonment of their land as they fled towards the south. The country
gradually became depopulated, as we can see by the decreasing number of
tombs in both Upper and Lower Nubia. This obliged the Pharaohs to
push on farther and farther towards the south in order to obtain the
African supplies which were vital to their policy of dominating the Near
East.
By the time of Thutmosis I the entire region between the Second and
Fourth Cataracts had been conquered. The Egyptians now had direct
control of the desert roads to Darfur, Kordofan and Chad, either from
Sinai by way of Selima and Wadi Huwar or from present-day Debba
via Wadi al-Malik. But they could also advance towards the Great Lake
region of Africa, either by simply following the Nile from Abu Hamad -
stone inscriptions including cartouches of Thutmose I and Thutmose III
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