The foreign conquests brought many immigrants to Egypt and also took many Egyptians for longer or shorter periods to foreign lands. Egyptian customs in dress as well as the Egyptian language changed rapidly during this time. The Asiatic conquests of Thothmes III brought Egypt into relations with Asiatic kings, and in time his successors, Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, had an interesting exchange of letters with kings of Babylon, Assyria, Mitanni, and Alashia (or Cyprus), as well as with Egyptian viceroys in Syria and Palestine. Some of these letters are translated in Part II, p. 344, ff. Amenophis IV made the first attempt known in history to establish a monotheistic religion. Although it was unsuccessful, it produced a beautiful hymn, which is translated in Part II, p. 403, ff. The kings of this period were buried in tombs of a new type. These were excavated out of the solid rock, cut deep into the mountain-side. They were all in the famous Valley of the Tombs of the Kings back of Thebes. The nineteenth dynasty succeeded the eighteenth about 1350 B. C. During a period of weakness between the two, the Asiatic dominions had been lost. These were in large part reconquered by Seti I and Ramses II. The last-mentioned king ruled 67 years, from 1292 to 1225 B. C. He did much building in all parts of Egypt and Nubia. Among his enterprises were the cities of Pithom and Raamses in the Delta. He has long been thought to have been the Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews. Early in his reign he fought with the Hittites, but afterward made a treaty of peace with their king and married his daughter. The text of this treaty has been preserved. It is the earliest extant international treaty, and it contained an extradition clause, though this applied to political offenders only. (For head of Ramses, see Fig. 9.) Merneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II, has been supposed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. His hymn of victory over his enemies is translated in Part II, p. 311. In the reign of Ramses III, of the twentieth dynasty (1198-1167 B. C.), the Philistines and other tribes, coming from across the sea, from Crete and Asia Minor, invaded Egypt. Repulsed by him, they invaded Palestine, where they secured a foothold. Ramses IV, his successor, was the last Pharaoh to work the mines in Sinai. By the reign of Ramses IX (1142-1123 B. C.), Egypt’s Asiatic empire was gone and her prosperity had so declined that the natives of Thebes took to robbing the tombs of kings for a living. The records of the trials of some of these have survived. In the reign of Ramses XII (1118-1090 B. C.), Wenamon made his famous expedition to Phœnicia, a part of which is narrated in Part II, p. 352, ff. The twenty-first dynasty (1090-945 B. C.) was a line of weak monarchs, who simply held Egypt together. During their rule David built up Israel’s empire. One of them, either Siamon or Pesibkhenno II, was the Pharaoh whose daughter Solomon married. (See 1 Kings 3:1, f.; 9:16.)