Page 358 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1300-123° B-c-l The Exodus 3°5

of military expenditure and the withdrawal of a large part of the
Egyptian forces. And the great coast road began again to be
crowded with merchants and tourists.
One result of the war effort of the Hittites had been an over­
production of iron armaments, and now with the opening of the
frontier this new metal was available for sale to the south. The
princes of south Canaan hastened to equip their private armies
with this new tactical weapon, and could soon look with pride

on regiments bearing iron swords and chariot squadrons with
iron-tired wheels.
The next year news came with the caravans from the north
that Hattusilis had marched against Assyria, and had recon­
quered the old territory of the Mitanni kingdom, re-establishing
it as a buffer state between Assyria and the Hittite-colonized
kingdoms of Carchemish and north Syria.

Peace was a novelty in Palestine. Not since their early teens
had the now middle-aged men of Ascalon known a time when
the roads and the seas were open in every direction. Now the
world came to them, and they went out into the world. The Ca­
naanite merchants and craftsmen traveled in these years the
caravan routes of the Middle East ever more widely, seeking
markets and raw materials.
More than one of them during the next fifteen years visited

the camps of the Israelis in the Negeb, in south Palestine. These
nomad shepherds were often on the move between their grazing
grounds, but they were most frequently to be found in the
neighborhood of Cadesh on the edge of the Sinai desert (not, of
course, to be confused with the famous Cadesh of the battle), a
region which they had long ago conquered from the Amalekites.
Though they were received hospitably enough, and found a

ready market for their manufactured goods in exchange for wool
and mutton on the hoof, the Canaanite commercial travelers
were disturbed by the Israelis. Here was clearly a nation or­
ganized for war. They were divided into tribes, and each tribe
encamped around its standard in military order like regiments
around the headquarters camp where the tent temple was
erected. Raiding and scouting parties were continually out on the
flanks, under their two renowned generals, Joshua and Caleb.