The old claims of Egypt to supremacy in Asia had long been suffered to lapse, and the course of time brought many changes.
In the earliest ages, strong and civilised kingdoms (perhaps coeval with the pyramids) had existed at Ur, Larsa, and other cities of Chaldea. But they had fallen and passed away when Thothmes III. entered Mesopotamia. The country was then divided into petty principalities, which were subdued with little difficulty. By the time Rameses II. was on the throne (the fourteenth century B.C.), Nineveh and Babylon had become the capitals of strong and important states, and were constantly engaged in mortal conflict for supremacy. They were absorbed in this mutual strife and in warding off the hostile assaults of the Elamites and other neighbouring nations; neither state was as yet thinking of far-extended conquest and dominion. The Israelites entered Canaan and carried on a war of extermination against its inhabitants, but they only succeeded in establishing themselves in parts of the country, generally in the more hilly districts, as the Canaanites, possessing chariots and horses, were
