ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Foreign relations of Egypt during the Amarna period

During the Amarna period, which was around 3,300 years ago in ancient Egypt, the country had some important foreign relations with other neighboring kingdoms.
To understand foreign relations, think about how you interact with your friends at school or people you meet when you go on vacation. Foreign relations are like that, but it's how a country interacts with other countries.

Egypt's ruler at that time was Pharaoh Akhenaten and he wanted to change things in his kingdom, including how they interacted with other countries. One of the neighboring kingdoms that Egypt had relations with was the Hittites, who were in modern-day Turkey. They sent letters back and forth with each other, and it was interesting because the letters were written in different languages.

Another important kingdom was the Babylonians in Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq. They also exchanged letters with Egypt, and some of these letters talked about how they wanted to form an alliance or work together to fight against other kingdoms.

Egypt was also in contact with the Kushites, who lived in modern-day Sudan. They were enemies at first but they eventually became friends and signed a peace treaty.

So even back then, countries had important relationships with each other, just like how you have relationships with your friends and family.