diplomacy in antiquity

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dynasties were sourced mainly from Oman, Bahrain, and even the Indus Valley. Trade betweenMesopotamia and Iran was in stones, metals, timber, and horses in return for foodstuffs, textiles,and luxury items. This trade played an essential role in state formation in early Mesopotamia. TheGulf corridor between Mesopotamia and the Sush area in southern Iraq also helped develop asystem of writing to deal with the administration & calculations. Summer even extended her realminto Iran proper on the premise that it could deliver Sush security against Elamtu highlanders livingin the Zagros mountains. Babylonian ascendency spelled a high civilization and Assyria turbulencein the Near East system. The contributions the Mesopotamians had made to mankind by then werealready impressive. The writing was invented in Mesopotamia. The Babylonian Hammurabiundertook the codification of law. It conceived the bi-cameral system combining aristocratic andpopular elements under a chief ruler in Sumer by a fusion of the office of the High Priest and King.Taxes or tributes were imposed, and a social purpose was first invented in Mesopotamia. A delugeoccurred in ancient times, so man created not only Noah but also Humanity’s first hero.Mesopotamia is the bosom of the first Moshe, the first legend of resurrection was crafted inMesopotamia, and songs of lamentations were put together and proverbs instituted to make sense ofeveryday life. These heritages have been diffused to Persia and the West to Greece via Semiticpeoples. The reception, adaptation, and transformation of this heritage as conditioned by material,social and cultural factors are not only what make us what we are today but also betray the commonheritage of Europe and the Middle East. Thomson (2004) captures the dynamics in terms of a worldsystem proper that existed in Mesopotamia and takes pain to factor in the political-economic crisis,climate deterioration, urban population, centralization-decentralization, and center-peripheryrelations in explaining the burst and boom of diplomacy among the city-states of the Mesopotamianplain and the attendant shift be-tween power centers in the south, middle, and north of theMesopotamia. In the end, he contends, a pattern of fragmentation of the state system occurred not2
so much due to the priority given to opportunity and the loss of power but the failure to addressinternal and external challenges within a coherent policy framework. The perception of thecomplexity this entailed led to a diminished margin of return given to the decision-makers, which iswhy the endeavor of unity continuously failed.Egypt, the first and most important of the Middle East’s classical empires next to Persia, is thestore-keeper of the Amarna letters, discovered in 1887 during an excavation. The letters testified tothe development of a fully-fledged diplomatic system in the Late Bronze Age from 1500-1100 B.C.The great power of this age: were Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Mittani, and the Hittites. Amarnaentered this club due to successful military campaigns on the Syro-Palestinean plains, Tri-politaniasuppression, and Sudan's occupation. Egypt was the sole source of gold, ivory, ebony, and alabasterwhich it traded in return for supplies of silver, lapis lazuli, and copper, and, as we have seen, horses,which Babylonia could deliver thanks to its relationship with the Elamites of Iran. The diplomaticlanguage was Akkadian, and if the Egyptian sanctuary differed from the religions of the neareastern plain, the shared polytheism helped underpin the identification of several gods underdifferent names, homologous with the nature of the international system, Amarna fostered. ThePharaohs were mostly the object of divination. Egypt nurtured close diplomatic relations withMittani, a former foe. It had to off-set the Hittites, a serious contender for influence in the Near Eastwith that of Assyria ruled out of Ashur, a power in steady ascendance with the relationship of thatof Babylonia, a trusted ally of old. Egypt maintained training links with the Cypriote rulers. It stoodin close contact with the Arzawa in Western Turkey to safeguard against Hittite inroads into theEgyp-tian sphere of influence, a policy deemed the more urgent following a devastating long war offifty years essentially over rulership of vassals and control over strategic nodal points on the Syrianplain. This provoked the signing of the Peace Treaty after the final battle at Qadesh. “Relations with3
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