The Canaanite seaport of Jaffa is mentioned in an Egyptian letter from 1440 BCE, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, whose general, Djehuty had hid armed Egyptian warriors in large baskets and sent the baskets as a present to the city's governor.

Egypt has made the city a provincial capital.

The city is also mentioned in the Amarna letters under its Egyptian name Ya-Pho, (Ya-Pu, EA 296, l.33).

Megiddo has flourished following its conquest by Egypt in 1457; the earlier palace has been greatly enlarged.

Thutmose III, widely considered a military genius by historians, and an active expansionist ruler who is sometimes called Egypt's greatest conqueror or "the Napoleon of Egypt," has personally led several victorious campaigns in Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia in the twenty years since Hatshepsut’s death.

Thutmose reaches as far as the east bank of the Euphrates to temporarily defeat the powerful Mitanni kingdom, Egypt’s chief rival for control of the Near East, but fails in his attempt to wrest domination of Syria from Mitanni.

Having spent the latter part of his half-century-plus kingship creating the largest empire Egypt has ever seen, Thutmose III has consolidated imperial power from north Syria to the fourth cataract of the Nile in Nubia.

The annals of Thutmose III describe the coastal plain of Lebanon, called Djahy, as rich with fruit, wine, and grain.

The chief cities of Phoenicia (excluding colonies) are Tyre, Sidon, and …

…Berot, or Berytus (modern Beirut).

Ports on the Phoenician coast are converted into Egyptian supply bases, and Kadesh and other cities in the Beqaa (al-Biqa') Valley are taken in subsequent campaigns of Thutmose, which are less fully described in his annals.

The reign of Hittite king Tudhaliya, who may have been the grandson of the Middle Kingdom ruler Huzziya II, or the direct successor of Muwatalli I, having overthrown him, inaugurates the Hittite empire (New kingdom) in 1430 BCE.

Shaushtatar is the son of Parshatatar.

By the time he ascends the throne at some time in the fifteenth century BCE, his father has installed Hurrian client kings in a number of cities, making it easier for Shaushtatar to make Mittani a Mesopotamian power.

Now freed from the constant threat undergone by Mitanni of the Egyptians, Shaushtatar turns his attention toward Assyria.

In a treaty made more than a century later, Shaushtatar is told to have sacked Assur, the Assyrian capital.

He is reputed to have brought the golden doors of the palace to his own capital of Washshukanni, making vassal states of Assyria and Arrapha.

After his invasion of Assyria, Shaushtatar turns his army westward across the Euphrates, along the way gathering beneath his sway all the northern Syrian states as he brings his army to the Mediterranean coast.

He is looking to extend Mitanni's power further south, perhaps into Palestine.

However, much of southern Syria still lies within the Egyptian sphere of influence, which has long been a threat to Mitanni.

The Kassite dynasty of Babylonia reorients their temples to face east and adds sculpture in molded bricks, as, for example, in Uruk’s Temple of Karaindash, constructed between about 1440 and 1420 and dedicated to the mother goddess Innana.

Thutmose's reign is a period of great stylistic changes in the sculpture, paintings, and reliefs associated with his construction.

His artisans have achieved new heights of skill in painting, and tombs from his reign are the earliest to be entirely painted, instead of painted reliefs.