Abstrakt
This book investigates ancient Egyptian imperialism in the northern Levant and its evolution into diplomacy at the time of the 18th Dynasty (ca. 1550-1295 BC), during the earliest phase of globalization in world history, the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1150 BC). Contrary to Egyptological consensus, an analysis of Egyptian sources, the Amarna letters, and the other cuneiform sources, such as the archival documents from Kumidi (Lebanon) and Qatna (Syria), particularly in cities such as Qadesh, Qatna, Tunip, Niya, and Ugarti, while Egypt may have exerted greater influence over a city network consisting of Damascus, Kumidi, and Byblos.
In order to attain a more realistic understanding of 18th-Dynasty Egypt within the context of Late Bronze Age globalization, this Egyptological study builds on theories and current debates in the fields of Global History, international relations, and political science, and includes comparanda from Classics as well as modern and contemporary history. It debunks a conception of New Kingdom Egypt steeped in Egyptian and Egyptological exceptionalism, and outlines a new approach to the Amarna diplomacy that moves beyond an unjustified emphasis on great powers, royal rhetoric, and patronage, and focuses on the paramount agency of cities in shaping international relations and diplomacy.
Therefore, this study argues for a deterritorialization of Egyptian imperialism based on contemporary approaches to territoriality, and suggests that many Levantine cities display behaviors and characteristics which are remarkably similar to those of contemporary global cities: they created networks among cities, actively engaged in diplomacy, and participated in the global political and economic networks much more successfully than territorial states with imperialist ambitions such as the pharaonic monarchy. Thus, diplomacy was much more urban than royal as a practice, and the adoption of the Amarna letters as a diplomatic instrument by the pharaonic monarchy indicates that Egypt needed to entertain productive relation with the urban centers that sustained Late Bronze Age globalization and that it was much more peripheral than has hitherto been assumed.
Therefore, the study of Egyptian imperialism during the 18th Dynasty contributes to Global History by indicating that globalization constrains imperialism and eventually determines its failure, while diplomacy may be a manifestation of these limits that globalization imposes onto imperialism, as connectivities create alternative political relations and configurations of power and make military and territorial expansionism impossible, obsolete, or undesirable. In conclusion, pharaonic Egypt epitomizes the inherent paradox that has been recognized in the nexus between imperialism and globalization: it contributed to creating Late Bronze Age globalization, but it was also diminished by it.