BOOK REVIEWS 145 temporary and goes back to the man himself. His theism can be de˜ned with “absolute strictness,” even teaching is revealed to us by him alone, with no inter- in antiquity, and indeed the examples of Second mediaries, and it is subject to falsi˜cation only by mod- Isaiah and Islam give clear voice in that direction. ern interpretations” (p. 17). Moreover, since Second Isaiah and Second Temple In a similar vein, Hornung writes, “For the ˜rst Judaism in general precede Christianity by half a mil- time in history, we have a close-up view of how a deity lennium, the reference to the later religion is quite originated. It is as though the suddenly emerged bewildering. from the traditional form of the sun god and then On the topic of Judaism, I agree fully with Hor- quickly shed the last vestiges of his origin” (p. 34). For nung’s statement, “The temporal interval is too great Hornung, Aten is not the solar disk, “but rather the to infer a direct in˘uence from the Period on light that is in the sun and which, radiating from it, the monotheism of the Hebrew Bible. But undercur- calls the world to life and keeps it alive” (p. 54; and rents that remain hidden to us might certainly have note the title of the book). exercised an in˘uence; perhaps the author of Psalm As the above two paragraphs illustrate, Hornung is 104 indeed drew upon the Great Hymn to the Aten” especially eˆective in situating and the (p. 122). new religion within the study of the history of reli- Notwithstanding the slender nature of this volume, gions, often with simply a quick aside that the educated every issue relevant to Akhenaten is touched upon in reader will comprehend. As additional examples: the some fashion. There is an especially excellent treat- founding of a new capital, Akhenaten, “was above all a ment of Amarna art. Hornung’s clear and concise religiously motivated hegira on the part of the reli- style is exempli˜ed by the following: “Everything that gious reformer, one that did not take him to any of had been static, ˜xed in place for eternity, is now the old centers, but to this remote locale” (p. 51); and in motion” (p. 44). Similarly, the coregency and suc- “Akhenaten left no holy scripture, so what he founded cession issues are treated in ˜ne manner. Hornung does not belong to the religions of the book. And a concludes that there is no certain evidence pointing ‘Word of God’ is altogether inconceivable in this new to coregencies, neither with his predecessor Amen- religion, for the newly promulgated god remained hotep III nor with his successor Smenkhkare. The silent. The Aten himself did not speak; rather, his physical appearance of Akhenaten also is discussed, preacher Akhenaten spoke about him” (p. 52). though Hornung dismisses the attempts to associate On the question of monotheism, Hornung notes the king’s condition with speci˜c ailments (epilepsy, that, while Karnak was converted to the worship of premature old age, Fröhlich’s syndrome, etc.). Aten, and the worship of in general was sup- In sum, Hornung has written a very readable mono- pressed, other temples devoted to other gods per- graph on one of ancient Egypt’s most fascinating per- sisted in their traditional manner. Only ˜fteen miles sonalities. Hornung’s book may be recommended to from Akhetaten, for example, , , and anyone, especially to those outside professional Egyp- were worshipped at Neferusi. Furthermore, the tological circles, as a convenient treatment of the divine triad persists, albeit with the royal couple of subject. In addition, a series of black-and-white photo- Akhenaten and Nefertiti as members, accompanying graphs and line drawings enhance the discussion. Fi- Aten (thereby replacing the traditional divine triads nally, note that because the work is essentially an essay, associated with Thebes, Memphis, etc.). it is not encumbered with footnotes; instead, the au- In light of this evidence, Hornung concludes: “Like thor has included a very useful annotated bibliogra- so many concepts, monotheism cannot be de˜ned phy at the end. with absolute strictness or eˆectuated in reality. But with its relentless rigor, this religion of light was the Gary A. Rendsburg simplest and clearest religion that had ever been de- Cornell University vised!” (p. 94). One can agree with the second sen- tence, certainly a truism for the 14th century B.C.E., but one must issue a strong demurral vis-à-vis the Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginnings of International Rela- ˜rst sentence, especially when Hornung adds that tions. By RAYMOND COHEN and RAYMOND WEST- “Akhenaten’s thinking is more radical than that of BROOK (eds.). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Deutero-Isaiah (‘Besides me there is no god,’ Isaiah University Press, 2000. Pp. xvi + 307. 44:6) or that of Islam. . . . Not until Christianity was there a renewed attempt to eliminate the plethora In the one hundred plus years since their discovery of deities in favor of the One!” (ibid). Clearly, mono- in 1887, the Amarna letters have served as a crucial

146 JARCE XXXVIII (2001) resource for scholars of the Semitic languages. As is Cohen and Westbrook provide two jointly written well known, the numerous departures from the norms essays which serve as bookends for the collection: of Akkadian grammar, along with the glosses in the “Introduction: The Amarna System” and “Conclusion: native language of the scribes, provide Semitists with The Beginnings of International Relations.” Between an important window to the Canaanite language of these two articles are sixteen contributions from the the Late Bronze Age. Clearly, this has been the most academics involved in the conference (the editors signi˜cant contribution of the Amarna letters to inform us that the academics bene˜ted greatly from scholarly research. the presence of the two diplomats at the conference, At the same time, the Amarna letters are an im- but that the latter did not contribute articles to the portant source for historical research, though clearly volume), divided into ˜ve categories. They are as they have been underutilized in this regard, espe- follows: cially, I think one may safely say, among Egyptolo- I. The International System: M. Liverani, “The Great gists. The prime reason for this underutilization has Powers’ Club”; Westbrook, “International Law in the been the relative inaccessibility of the material. First, Amarna Age”; R. Ragionieri, “The Amarna Age: An the letters are written in Akkadian, a language that International Society in the Making”; S. R. David, few Egyptologists know. Secondly, the classic edition “Realism, Constructivism, and the Amarna Letters.” of the texts by J. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna Tafeln II. Foreign Policy: B. M. Bryan, “The Egyptian Per- (Leipzig, 1915) has been sorely out-of-date for several spective on Mittani”; Cohen, “Intelligence in the generations. The latter situation is due to two factors: Amarna Letters.” a) our knowledge of Akkadian in general and Amarna III. Imperial Policy: W. J. Murname, “Imperial Egypt Akkadian in particular has advanced by leaps and and the Limits of Power”; A. James, “Egypt and Her bounds in the intervening years, and b) new Amarna Vassals: The Geopolitical Dimension”; N. Na’aman, texts were published in the years since Knudtzon’s “The Egyptian-Canaanite Correspondence.” volume. IV. International Transactions: C. Zaccagnini, “The The wider study of the Amarna letters received a Interdependence of the Great Powers”; K. Avruch, great boost with William L. Moran’s Les Lettres d’El- “Reciprocity, Equality, and Status-Anxiety in the Amarna (Paris, 1987) = The Amarna Letters (Baltimore, Amarna Letters”; S. A. Meier, “Diplomacy and Inter- 1992), exemplary works presenting fresh translations national Marriages”; D. Druckman and S. Güner, “A of all the texts. Raymond Cohen and Raymond West- Social-Psychological Analysis of Amarna Diplomacy.” brook, the editors of the book under review, note this V. Diplomacy: C. Jönsson, “Diplomatic Signaling in fact and inform the reader that Moran’s volume “pro- the Amarna Letters”; P. Artzi, “The Diplomatic Ser- vided the key stimulus to the present project” (p. 1). vice in Action: The Mittani File”; G. Berridge, “Amarna With the Amarna letters now available to a broad Diplomacy: A Full-˘edged Diplomatic System?” audience, the editors conceived of a unique confer- The contributors all recognize that international ence, held at the Bellagio Study and Conference Cen- relations existed for at least a thousand years before ter of the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy, the Amarna Age, especially in Western Asia, from on September 17–19, 1996. In attendance were “eight which we possess two 3rd millennium treaties, one historians of the ancient Near East, eight scholars between Ebla and Abar-SAL, and the other between from the social sciences specializing in contemporary Akkad and Elam. But these are isolated cases, with no international relations, and two working diplomats” long-range (either over time or space) consequences. (p. 2). The primary goal was “to shed new light on By contrast, the re˘ects a full-˘edged in- the documents themselves and on the system of di- ternational system, with great powers (Egypt, Mittani, plomacy they depict, to reconstruct the international Babylonia, Hatti, Assyria), independent states (Ar- relations of the ancient Near East, and to identify uni- zawa, Alashiya), and vassal states (Amurru, Byblos, versal features of international politics (ibid.). The re- Ugarit, etc.) all interacting, covering a vast area and sult is a most successful volume, unique, I believe, in lasting for about two centuries. the annals of ancient Near Eastern scholarship. Read- The main goal of this volume is to explain how and ers of this journal will no doubt be attracted to the why this remarkable system was able to sustain itself. articles by specialists whose names they recognize As Cohen and Westbrook state in their ˜nal essay, (Liverani, Murname, Na’aman, etc.), but the essays by “Despite competition for power and prestige, vigi- the other contributors (professors of foreign policy, lance to potential threats, and the domestic glori˜- con˘ict resolution, security, etc.) are of equal impor- cation of prowess in battle, the Great Powers mostly tance for the numerous insights brought to the sub- succeeded in avoiding war. They negotiated rather ject of Amarna diplomacy. than fought, with rare exceptions, and succeeded in

BOOK REVIEWS 147 accommodating each other’s needs and ambitions dence was and how unfounded and forced the result- while facilitating trade and cultural contact. How did ing interpretations of these putatively visible reliefs they do it?” (p. 234). The key word that repeats again as examples of early Christian art really are. She fur- and again in the form of an answer to this question ther demonstrates how many of those same scholars, is diplomacy. The editors’ ˜nal words summarize the in their ardent desire to maintain the purported volume: “Without it [diplomacy], there could have “Christian” messages of such works of art, manipu- been no brotherhood of Great Kings. Despite its lated the images in their line drawings to reduce their shortcomings, exchanges were conducted, disputes salacious, visual impact. (It might be productive to contained, dynastic ties promoted, and on the whole, consider such manipulations as a whole because they peace preserved. Diplomacy created the conditions appear in other areas of the discipline as well where for international relations to ˘ourish” (p. 236). The they have also contaminated the record [inter alia, various contributors emphasize the diˆerent aspects Malek, in Studies in Honor of William Kelly Simpson 2 of diplomacy (Westbrook on law, treaties, etc.; Bryan [1996], pp. 553–59; and Pinch, Votive Oˆerings to and Meier on international marriages; Liverani and [1993], comments to plate 54.) Artzi on exchanges of gifts; and so on), all of which Nevertheless, Thomas does not deny that there were necessary for the system to operate smoothly. are Christian overtones in some of the works of art The editors are to be congratulated for conceiv- in her corpus. In a tightly argued sequence of chap- ing of the innovative conference and the ensuing vol- ters, she separates those works created for the elite, ume. And all the authors deserve our thanks for their wealthy Hellenes which served Christian needs from input and their stimulating essays. The net result is a those which served pagan needs. These conclusions pioneering project that should serve as a model for are reached after she has divided these works into future endeavors of joint cooperation between - categories and attempted to de˜ne a diachronic de- manists and social scientists. velopment within each. Her discussions are ampli˜ed by appropriate references not only to contemporary Gary A. Rendsburg epigraphical evidence (the text in the Tomb of Isi- Cornell University dora at Hermopolis), but also to citations from an- cient authors (Nonnos of Panopolis) and to relevant Christian sources. Late Antique Egyptian Funerary Sculpture. Images for This A careful reading of her opus reveals that these World and the Next. By THELMAS K. THOMAS. works of art fall within the ambit of the tenets govern- Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Pp. ing pharaonic art in general. The reliefs were pro- xxv + 163, ˜gs. 126. duced for an elite by artisans working within a canonical tradition which deprived them of any in- This surprisingly small book with its 83 pages of dependent authority (so, too, the Theban tomb paint- text is a most signi˜cant contribution to one’s under- ers, see now, Robins in JARCE XXXVI [1999], p. 69). standing of certain classi˜cations of relief sculpture When these works are decidedly Christian, the de- which are traditionally classi˜ed as examples of “Cop- ceased is often not represented, “Christian works tic art” in the discipline’s literature. Well written, easy without portraits,” is her phrase. Here again, the debt to read, and thoroughly documented and illustrated, to pharaonic Egypt appears to be great because the Thomas’s work begins with a preface on the theme of presence of the deceased, who very often is not de- “Leda Christiana,” one of the objectives of which is picted, is nevertheless implicit (see on this subject to trace the development of the historiography of O’Connor, in Studies . . . Simpson 2 [1996], pp. 621– so-called Coptic art in order to expose the unsupport- 33. The cumulative eˆect of this evidence calls into able foundations upon which conclusions about its question the conclusion reached on this matter by universal Christian overtones have been erroneously Roth, in JARCE XXXVI [1999], p. 53.). Furthermore, based. Sifting through excavation reports, which were the boundaries between the living and the dead are apparently only super˜cially consulted by earlier com- extremely ˘uid within her corpus of examples, a con- mentators, Thomas later demonstrates that although clusion which is neatly congruent with that arrived at a frieze depicting “naked nymphs cavorting” was in- in a recent study of the so-called Faiyum portraits deed discovered in a wall of the Memphite Monastery (Corcoran, Portrait Mummies from Roman Egypt [1995], of Apa Jerimias, it was a re-used worked block “not pp. 74–76). meant to be seen or remarked upon” by the faithful. Because the objects in her study are works of art, Her attention to detail reveals how cavalier some of Thomas attempts to validate their aesthetic appeal these earlier presentations of such archaeological evi- by references to their missing polychromy and in so