Middle Bronze IIB—C (1800/1750–1550). The later phases of the Middle Bronze Age are characterized by further urban growth throughout Palestine. Cities were massive, and fortified with large walls built atop enormous beaten-earth glacis.

During the Middle Bronze II, Egypt experienced a period of political vulnerability (Second Intermediate Period, 1650–1550 bc), during which the Canaanites settled in Lower Egypt and established a local dynasty. The Egyptians called these people hekau khasut—the “rulers of foreign lands”—better known by their Greek title, the Hyksos. The New Kingdom pharaohs expelled the Hyksos toward the close of the Middle Bronze Age, reestablished Egypt as a world power, and subjugated the Canaanites.