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I NTRODUCTION 1 The nature of the interactions between Egypt and western Asia throughout the late fourth to the late second millennia BCE is one of the most discussed issues in the current literature on Egyptian archaeology. The ongoing excavations at Te ll el-Dab c a, the site of ancient Avaris, have put forward these discussions and the understanding of the entire sequence from the 12 th dynasty Middle Kingdom (MK), through the 15 th dynasty (Second Intermediate Period [SIP]), to the middle of the 18 th dynasty (beginning of the New Kingdom [NK]) (BIETAK 1986; 1991a,b; 1996. The rich archaeological record from Egypt and the Levant coupled together with valuable, yet limited contemporary documents, provide evidences for Egypt's commercial and cultural contacts with the Levant throughout the entire sequence. However, they leave open many questions regarding the detailed social and economic aspects of Egypt's interests in various parts of the Levant. The evidence for imports of foreign goods, mainly Canaanite and Cypriote ceramic wares (and presumably their contents) are especially important since they enable good chrono-stratigraphical correlations between sites in Egypt and western Asia. Provenance studies of pottery assemblages have been used in the past in order to examine the nature of the Egyptian-Levantine interactions (

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