Egyptian came into the New Kingdom wanting to maintain two things: Security and their Economy. I guess after their near take over experience with the Hyksos they had their guards up. They were aggressive and offensive to foreigners. Their plan to insulate Egypt would lower their chance of an invasion. While doing my own research on mortuary practices I read that there were images of Egyptians smiting foreigners who were bound. In the New Kingdom they only were offensive toward those foreigners who didn’t accept their way of living, which is interesting because the Hyksos adopted their methods but they still drove them out their land. The Egyptians were ethnocentric and believed that their gods were the most powerful, so anyone who Egyptians believed threatened their culture they would eliminate. The lecture said Egyptians military was stable. It’s interesting to me that they would invade territories, defeat those powers, get fealty, and not take the land. Why wouldn’t they take the land? I don’t think they were financially stable to take on new land because they were in the process of rebuilding their economy.  I think they should have took the land and sold it to other groups. They wanted to maintain the stability that the Hyksos aided them in getting. I believe that’s where maintaining the economy comes into play. Egyptians were on hard times where people would have to steal from graves. The robbings of the valley graves would lead to a decline of the New Kingdom.  So to maintain the economy the Egyptians had to get capital by trading. There were Amarna Letters found that proves that security and maintaining the economy was Egyptians main focus. The letters included mutual defense pacts and discussions on economic matters. There are also images in the graves of trade expeditions.