Name of the southern part of Mesopotamia from the time of Hammurabi (beginning of the 18th century BC), situated around the capital Babylon (about 80 km south of Baghdad). In the third millenium BC this area was known as Sumer and Akkad. Tuthmosis III, who crossed the Euphrates with his armies in the middle of the 15th century BC, was the first pharaoh to come into contact with the Babylonians. Other kings from the New Kingdom also had regular contact with them, such as Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten. Letters found in Amarna, among others, bear witness to this. In the 7th century BC, when the empire was expanding westwards, conflict broke out with Egypt concerning interests in Syria-Palestine. This resulted in an Egyptian defeat by the army of Nabopolassar, led by his son Nebuchadnezzar II. In 601 BC, Egypt seized its chance to expel the foreign armies from the Delta. In the years after, when the rising power of Persia became an ever-increasing threat, the Egyptian king Amasis sealed a treaty with Babylonia.