The earliest states and civilizations came into being in West Asia and North Africa respectively at the end of the fourth millennium B.C., and had been proceeding in different directions from then on. As a result, two kinds of cultures and societies were formed in these two earliest civilized areas during the course of development for about 3000 years. Undoubtedly, there existed the contact and communication between ancient West Asia and North Africa from beginning to end according to existing sources. However, it was just in the Hellenistic Period (332 B.C. - 30 B. C.) that the relation between them was furthered in many facets.
In the Hellenistic Period, two great kingdoms, the Ptolemaic Egypt (323B.C.-30B.C.) and Seleucids (323B.C.-164B.C.), on both of which I am focusing in my research project, were built by Greek-Macedonian in North Africa and West Asia respectively where they had conquered under Alexander the Great at the end of the forth century B.C. They were engaged in the continuous conflict for a long time seeking for hegemony around Mediterranean and Syria, which has been studied by many scholars in recent years. Judged by the documentation available, however, we know that the relation between them is not limited to conflict, but also involved peaceful contact and friendly exchange in some fields such as politics, economy and culture in some times. With the diffusion of Greek culture, the peaceful relation laid foundation for the formation of a cultural circle of West Asia and North Africa, and foretold the coming of regional integration, and even showed some characteristics of the modern society and politics in this territory. Not all researchers have paid full attention to this point.
Therefore, I plan to conduct a comprehensive study on it through reading some works and analyzing the materials available.