Egypt and the Levant : Networks and Negotiations in the Bronze Age

Beyond the rise and collapse of powerful cities and states were the long-distance connectivities that enabled the movements of people and animals, and the interlinked exchanges of commodities and ideas. These connectivities exhibited markers of globalisation. This Element considers how such markers emerged and developed in the preceding centuries.

Egypt and the Levant witnessed complex transformations across the Bronze Age. Beyond the rise and collapse of powerful cities and states were the long-distance connectivities that enabled the movements of people and animals, and the interlinked exchanges of commodities and ideas. By the Late Bronze Age, these connectivities exhibited markers of globalisation. This Element considers how such markers emerged and developed in the preceding centuries. Focusing on the third to mid-second millennium BCE, it brings together recent research on socio-political developments and cross-cultural interactions to give an overview of the transforming networks linking Old to early New Kingdom Egypt and EB III to LB I Levantine communities. In doing so, the Element incorporates approaches that move away from imperialist structures of exchange to consider how dynamic networks were negotiated and maintained across periods of socio-political change.