Late Bronze Age Internationalism Mitanni State (1500– 1360

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Late Bronze Age Internationalism Mitanni State (1500– 1360

Map of the Middle East during the Late Bronze Age Late Bronze Age Internationalism While Egypt dominated the southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age, other great powers ruled in Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Aegean, as indicated on the map above. This age of internationalism lasted until the collapse of the Bronze Age in the twelfth century BC. Hundreds of royal letters excavated at Amarna, the capital under the pharaoh Akhenaten, record elaborate royal gift exchanges and international trade networks. Mitanni State (1500– 1360 BC) The Mitanni State was located in northern Mesopotamia, encompassing present day north- eastern Syria, south-eastern Turkey, and northern Iraq. In the early years, Mitanni and Egypt fought over control of the region of Syria, but were able to make peace during the rule of the Egyptian king, Thutmose IV (who reigned from 1425–1417 BC). Amarna Letters The nearly 400 cuneiform tablets known as the Amarna Letters were written to Egyptian pharaohs in the middle of the fourteenth century BC. Although many letters were sent by the great powers of the Late Bronze Age—Kassite Babylonia, Assyria, Hittite Anatolia, Mitanni, and Arzawa—the majority of the correspondence is from local rulers in northern Syria and the Levant. This fragmentary letter was sent to queen Tiye of Egypt by king Tushratta of Mitanni, who complains that statues sent to him by the queen’s son Akhenaten were not solid gold, as had been promised by Queen Tiye’s late husband Amenhotep III, but were made only of wood overlaid with gold. Many of the Amarna Letters record gift exchange—in addition to acknowledging and praising the gifts, the receiver sometimes expressed disappointment in them and even asked for replacements. Amarna Letter Baked clay Egypt Late Bronze II (1400–1200 BC) E9356.

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