The transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age was affected by the gradual reduction of the urbanised and settled areas of the Middle Euphrates, Upper Mesopotamia and the Syrian and Transjordan plateaus. This had been a long-term phenomenon following the one already described for the beginning of the second millennium bc. Semi-arid areas, where the great cities of the Early and Middle Bronze Age had flourished, were now abandoned. Their cities were reduced to settlements mainly based on semi-nomadic farming. In the Middle Euphrates, Mari, Tuttul and Terqa experienced a similar decline, alongside Shu-bat-Enlil and other centres of the Khabur, as well as Ebla and Qatna in Central Syria. In comparison, this decline was not experienced by cities located in areas characterised by high rainfall levels, near rivers, or the sea.
Overall, this phenomenon led to a depopulation of the Near East, though the extent of this differed from area to area. Central and Lower Mesopotamia also experienced a demographic concentration. This was due to the decline of the urban settlements in the Middle Euphrates and the crisis of the area around the Persian Gulf. Consequently, the total amount of inhabitants significantly decreased from the Old Babylonian period to the Kassite period. In the irrigated and urbanised areas, however, agriculture seems to have survived the overall decline. The same can be said regarding Middle Elamite Susiana and maybe even for some of the regions of southern Iran, although these areas must still have suffered from the demographic and power vacuum in the Iranian plateau. In Upper Mesopotamia, depopulation did not affect some areas, in particular the Assyrian Triangle, where the majority of the population was concentrated and managed to grow even further. Also in the Levant, the depopulation of the semi-arid plateaus was opposed by an increased concentration of people in the cities of the valleys and the coast. Consequently, the development of these settlements reached the highest peak of their history.
In Anatolia, only a few cities in the valleys managed to grow significantly, while the remaining mountainous territories remained largely depopulated. Some of these valley settlements, however, experienced a period of crisis compared to the early second millennium bc. The regions surrounding the Near East also experienced considerable changes. Both the Aegean and Egypt saw a demographic and urban growth, while Central Asia and the Indus Valley declined, due to the implications of those movements of people that had begun further west a couple of centuries earlier. Overall, the situation led sedentary states and pastoral groups alike to reinforce their respective political structures. This was a process of differentiation and contraposition that was lacking those former interactions characteristic of the Middle Bronze Age. The reciprocal hostilities between palaces and tribes, then, peaked in the Late Bronze Age.
Another local, yet significant, change was the isolation of Babylonia from long-distance contacts with Syria and Anatolia, as well as Iran and the Persian Gulf. Babylonia thus experienced a significant demographic, economic and military decline, as well as in terms of production, compared to other developing areas. The former central position of Babylonia, which had been a constant from the first urbanisation of the Uruk phase to the reign of Hammurabi, had by now disappeared. The centre of political and commercial activities shifted to the west, along an axis extending from Upper Mesopotamia to the Levant. This area was the focus of the expansionistic interests of the Hittites in the north and the Egyptians of the New Kingdom in the south. Commercial networks with the Mycenaean and Cypriot cultures also began to appear at the expense of interactions with Assyria, Babylonia and Elam.
The former central role of Mesopotamia, then, was substituted by a more balanced distribution of power in the Near East (Figure 16.2), a move that was characteristic of the Late Bronze Age as a whole. This new balance was made of a mosaic of medium-sized states, which held a hegemonic role over the smaller states in their sphere of influence. This process formed a two-level structure. Regional powers remained relatively stable in time (from 1600 to 1200 bc). Starting east, there was Elam, which controlled a large part of the Iranian plateau. Beyond the plateau, the regions located alongside the Gulf and the Indus Valley ceased to be
Figure 16.2 Fluctuations in the Near Eastern ‘regional system’ of the Late Bronze Age. Above, left: The formation period, c. 1600 bc; Below, left: The hegemony of Egypt and Mitanni, ca. 1450 bc; Above, right: The hegemony of Egypt and Hatti, ca. 1350 bc; Below, right: The final stage, ca. 1220 bc.
Involved with the Near East, whose interaction with the area had been fundamental up until the first quarter of the second millennium bc. Then, there was Kassite Babylonia and its unstable control of the Sealand. In Upper Mesopotamia, the supremacy of the Mitannian kingdom was taken over by the Middle-Assyrian kingdom around 1350 bc. The Hittites continued to rule in Anatolia and still held control of the regions in western Anatolia and northern Syria. Finally, in this phase we catch a first glimpse of the regional power of the Mycenaeans, though mainly for commercial purposes; of the island of Cyprus, an important source for copper; and of New Kingdom Egypt, which held control of several Syro-Palestinian states.
This regional system had its original roots in the Amorite Age, when there already were regional states controlling minor states. However, there were two fundamental differences. First, the Late Bronze Age system was more specific in the formalisation of its political interactions and more stable compared to the fleeting hegemonies of the Middle Bronze Age. Second, the system was now enlarged to include formerly marginal regions, such as western Anatolia, Egypt and the Aegean. There were two types of formalisation of political relations: ‘horizontal’ ones established between powers of equal status; and ‘vertical’ ones, namely, relations of subordination. Kings of regional states held the title of ‘great king’ {sarru rabu), which technically designated independent rulers who controlled other rulers. The latter held the title of ‘small king’ (sarru sihru), which defined autonomous but not independent rulers, ‘servants’ of their ‘masters’, the great kings. The role of small kings is better understood in the Levant, Upper Mesopotamia and Anatolia. In areas where there had been an established centralisation for centuries these local states were more like administrative units without political autonomy.
Among kings of equal status, especially the great kings, political relations were centred on equality. Despite their demographic, political, military and economic status, which varied in time and space, great kings saw themselves as equals. They defined this equality using a language of ‘brotherhood’ (ahhutu), ‘friendship’ (ra’amutu) and ‘goodness’ (tdbutu). These characteristics responded to an ideology of kinship that owed a great deal to the practice of establishing family relations through a complex network of interdynastic marriages. Reciprocity and equality were particularly important features of commercial and diplomatic relations (Text 16.3). Late Bronze Age palaces expressed this sense of reciprocity through gift-exchange and hospitality. Therefore, what had to be done by one party, also had to be done by the other party, just like ‘brothers’ had to provide for one another, rather than acting selfishly.
World History
