THE second volume of this History begins with events which occurred at a time when the Amorite dynasties in Western Asia were vying with each other for supremacy, making and breaking alliances but nevertheless maintaining the great Sumero-Akkadian culture which they had inherited from the conquered populations. It was the era of the Western Semites and, in particular, of the most outstanding of the Semitic dynasties, that of Hammurabi, the 'lawgiver'. The Semites were, however, not destined to remain in control for long. Foreigners from the north-east, the Kassites, soon took possession of Babylonia and held it under their sway for five centuries, thereby establishing the longest dynastic succession in the history of the land. Meanwhile, in Anatolia, the rise of the Hittites marked the beginning of the first Indo-European empire which was eventually to deal a death blow to Amorite rule in Babylon.

Disturbances in Western Asia soon began to affect life in the Nile Valley. Asiatic elements moved southwards until they occupied most of the Delta and penetrated into Middle and Upper Egypt, asserting their authority as they went. Manetho called these Asiatic settlers the Hyksos, and he claimed that they achieved their domination 'without a battle'. While there is nothing in contemporary evidence to suggest that they established their position by any other way than by a process of gradual infiltration, they were certainly helped by the possession of superior weapons, notably the horse-drawn chariot, and by Egypt's political and military weakness at the time.