Although the involvement of 18th Dynasty Egypt in the southern Levant is a well-researched topic, the focus is rarely laid on the people themselves, who were sent to the region on behalf of the Egyptian state organization. This paper examines those who represented the Egyptian military and administration in the southern Levant and who came into contact with the local population during the mid-to-late 18th Dynasty. To conduct this study, remains of Egyptian material culture that were excavated in the southern Levant were chosen by a selection process based on hypotheses derived from the theories of object itinerary and cultural appropriation. This corpus was analyzed by applying Gibson’s affordance concept. Further, the available textual record was analyzed by a critical reading. All texts—in Egyptian and Akkadian—were written during the mid-to- late 18th Dynasty and refer to the activities of Egyptian functionaries in the region, as well as mention sites that can be identified in the studied region. It will be shown that only a good dozen Egyptian functionaries can be identified by name and that their tasks included participating in military campaigns, collecting tribute, trading, and interacting with southern Levantine rulers.
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