The ancient civilizations of the Near East - Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, the Hittites and Canaanites - constituted the first formalized international relations system in world history. Holy wars, peace treaties, border regulations, trade relations and the extradition of refugees were problems for contemporary ambassadors and diplomats as they are today. Mario Liverani reconstructs the procedures of international relations in the period c.1600-1100BC using historical semiotics, communication theory and economic and political anthropology.

Amanda Podany here takes readers on a vivid tour through a thousand years of ancient Near Eastern history, from 2300 to 1300 BCE, paying particular attention to the lively interactions that took place between the great kings of the day. Allowing them to speak in their own words, Podany reveals how these leaders and their ambassadors devised a remarkably sophisticated system of diplomacy and trade. What the kings forged, as they saw it, was a relationship of friends-brothers-across hundreds of miles. Over centuries they worked out ways for their ambassadors to travel safely to one another's capitals, they created formal rules of interaction and ways to work out disagreements, they agreed to treaties and abided by them, and their efforts had paid off with the exchange of luxury goods that each country wanted from the other. Tied to one another through peace treaties and powerful obligations, they were also often bound together as in-laws, as a result of marrying one another's daughters. These rulers had almost never met one another in person, but they felt a strong connection--a real brotherhood--which gradually made wars between them less common. Indeed, any one of the great powers of the time could have tried to take over the others through warfare, but diplomacy usually prevailed and provided a respite from bloodshed. Instead of fighting, the kings learned from one another, and cooperated in peace. A remarkable account of a pivotal moment in world history--the establishment of international diplomacy thousands of years before the United Nations--Brotherhood of Kings offers a vibrantly written history of the region often known as the "cradle of civilization."

This book offers a unique survey of legal practices and ideas relating to international relations in the Ancient Near East between 2500 and 330 BC.

During the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BCE, the kings of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, and Hatti participated in a complex international community. These two hundred years also witnessed the production of luxurious artworks made of gold, ivory, alabaster, and faience--objects that helped to foster good relations among the kingdoms. In fact, as Marian H. Feldman makes clear here, art and international relations during the Late Bronze Age formed an unprecedented symbiosis, in concert with expanded travel and written communications across the Mediterranean. And thus diplomacy was invigorated through the exchange of lavish art objects and luxury goods, which shared a repertoire of imagery that modern scholars have called the first International Style in the history of art. Previous studies have focused almost exclusively on stylistic attribution of these objects at the expense of social contextualization. Feldman's Diplomacy by Design instead examines the profound connection between art produced during this period and its social and political contexts, revealing inanimate objects as catalysts--or even participants--in human dynamics. Feldman's fascinating study shows the ways in which the diplomatic circulation of these works actively mediated and strengthened political relations, intercultural interactions, and economic negotiations and she does so through diverse disciplinary frameworks including art history, anthropology, and social history. Written by a specialist in ancient Near Eastern art and archaeology who has excavated and traveled extensively in this area of the world, Diplomacy by Design considers anew the symbolic power of material culture and its centrality in the construction of human relations.

The essays included in this volume analyze important historical texts from various regions of the Ancient Near East. The distinguished Italian historian Mario Liverani suggests that these historiographical texts were of a "true" historical nature and that their literary forms achieved their intended results. Liverani focuses on two central themes in these texts: myth and politics.There is a close connection, Liverani finds, between the writing of history and the validation of political order and political action. History defines the correct role and behavior of political leaders, especially when they do not possess the validation provided by tradition. Historical texts, he discovers, are more often the tools for supporting change than for supporting stability.Liverani demonstrates that history writing in the Ancient Near East made frequent use of mythical patterns, wisdom motifs, and literary themes in order to fulfill its audience's cultural expectations. The resulting nonhistorical literary forms can mislead interpretation, but an analysis of these forms allows the texts' sociopolitical and communicative frameworks to emerge.

Published in 1992, William L. Moran's definitive English translation, The Amarna Letters, raised as many questions as it answered. How did Pharaoh run his empire? Why did the god-king consent to deal with his fellow, mortal monarchs as equals? Indeed, why did kings engage in diplomacy at all? How did the great powers maintain international peace and order? In Amarna Diplomacy, Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook have brought together a team of specialists, both social scientists and ancient historians, to explore the world of ancient Near Eastern statecraft portrayed in the letters. Subjects discussed include Egyptian imperial and foreign policy, international law and trade, geopolitics and decision making, intelligence, and diplomacy. This book will be of interest to scholars not only of the ancient Near East and the Bible but also of international relations and diplomatic studies. Contributors are Pinhas Artzi, Kevin Avruch, Geoffrey Berridge, Betsy M. Bryan, Raymond Cohen, Steven R. David, Daniel Druckman, Serdar Güner, Alan James, Christer Jönsson, Mario Liverani, Samuel A. Meier, William J. Murnane, Nadav Na'aman, Rodolfo Ragionieri, Raymond Westbrook, and Carlo Zaccagnini.

In this volume, Niels Peter Lemche and Emanuel Pfoh present an anthology of seminal studies by Mario Liverani, a foremost scholar of the Ancient Near East. This collection contains 18 essays, 11 of which have originally been published in Italian and are now published in English for the first time. It represents an important contribution to Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies, exposing the innovative interpretations of Liverani on many historical and ideological aspects of ancient society. Topics range from the Amarna letters and the Ugaritic epic, to the ‘origins’ of Israel. Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel will be an invaluable resource for Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical scholars, as well as graduate and post-graduate students.