Egypt was at the height of its imperial power, controlling Canaan (modern Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon) and conducting elaborate diplomatic relations with the Hittite Empire in Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Aegean palace civilizations of Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece.

These civilizations communicated in cuneiform on clay tablets, many thousands of which survive.

The diplomatic correspondence found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt — the archive of the Pharaoh Akhenaten — is a remarkable snapshot of Late Bronze Age international relations.

In these letters, the kings of Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni, and the Hittites address the Pharaoh as a brother, bicker over diplomatic gifts, negotiate marriages between royal families, and complain about perceived slights.

The economy was equally sophisticated.