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Mesopotamian Politics

Notes

Notes to Chapter 17. International Equilibrium

Giorgio Buccellati – August 2023

17.1 The New Ecumene: The World as a City
17.2 The End of Syro-Mesopotamia
17.3 The Super-Urban Dimension of the Territory
17.4 The New Geo-Political Constructs
17.5 The Imperial Model of Limited Sovereignty
17.6 Internationalism as a System
17.7 The Integrative Dynamic
17.8 New Modifications of Natural Resources
17.9 The Role of War
17.10 The Collapse of the Cosmopolis


ERRORS in databases:
  • "Boson1918Assiriologia.d": duplicate bibliography "Boson1918Assiriologia" for site "Akk-lg".
  • "Bottero1992Reasoning.d": duplicate bibliography "Bottero1992Reasoning" for site "Mes-rel".
  • "Buccellati1972Teodicea.d": duplicate bibliography "Buccellati1972Teodicea" for site "Mes-lit".
  • "Cauvin2000Birth.d": duplicate bibliography "Cauvin2000Birth" for site "Mes-rel".
  • "DMB.d": duplicate bibliography "DMB" for site "Mes-rel".
  • "Edzard2003Sumerian.d": duplicate bibliography "Edzard2003Sumerian" for site "Mes-rel".
  • "Oshima2014Sufferers.d": duplicate bibliography "Oshima2014Sufferers" for site "Mes-rel".
  • "Trinkaus1983Shanidar.d": duplicate bibliography "Trinkaus1983Shanidar" for site "Mes-rel".

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17.1 The New Ecumene: The World as a City

  1. On the definition of cosmopolis, see Buccellati, Origins, p. 206 fn. 11: “I adopt the term ‘cosmopolis’ in the sense of the ‘world as a city,’ deriving it from the common sense use of the adjective ‘cosmopolitan’ meaning ‘citizen of the world’”.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, April 2024]

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17.5 The Imperial Model of Limited Sovereignty

  1. On Karkemish (Jarablus), see the dedicated website, with also the possibility of a 3D virtual tour of the ancient site.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, April 2024]

  2. Piyassili/Sharri-kushukh, Shuppiluliuma I’s son, was set as viceroy in Karkemish (Jarablus); another son of Shuppiluliuma I, Telipinu, was instead appointed as viceroy in Aleppo.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, April 2024]

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17.6 Internationalism as a System

  1. Treaties are usually divided into two: 1) paritetical treaties (between equal rank states) and 2) subordination treaties (when they were issued by a macro-region and one of its vassal states). An edition of many ancient Near Eastern treaties can be found in Kitchen & Lawrence 2012 Treaty.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, April 2024]

  2. The editio princeps of the Egyptian-Hittite treaty (ca. 1595 BC), with transliteration of both the Egyptian and Hittite version, German translation and commentary can be found in Edel 1997 Vertrag; for another transliteration and English translation, see Kitchen & Lawrence 2012 Treaty, Vol. 1, pp. 573-594 (texts 71A-B).

    – [ Marco De Pietri, April 2024]

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17.7 The Integrative Dynamic

  1. A notable exception to the rule that usually Egyptian princess did not marry foreign kings is that of the so-called daḫamunzu (literally, the cuneiform rendering of the Egyptian term t3 ḥm.t nsw, i.e. ‘the wife of the king’); according to the most reliable historicalreconstruction of Egyptologists and Hittitologists, the widowed wife of Tutankhamun, the queen Ankhesenamun, wrote a letter (or better, two, in fact) to the Hittite king Shuppiluliuma I while he was sieging the city of Karkemish, asking to send her a son of him to be installed as new pharaoh in Egypt; after many doubts, the Hittite king sent his son Zannanza (which, very likely, is just a calque of the Egyptian s3 n nsw, ‘the son of the king’) who, unfortunately never reached Egypt, being killed on the way; even if this narrative could be very fictitional, it is, nevertheless, a clear exemplification of the international relationships of that time.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, May 2024]

  2. For the el-Amarna letters, see e.g. the recent edition in Schniedewind & Cochavi- Rainey 2015 Amarna.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, May 2024]

  3. See Liverani 1998 Amarna for an Italian translation and commentary of the e-Amarna letters between the ‘Small Kings’.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, May 2024]

  4. See Liverani 1999 Amarna for an Italian translation and commentary of the e-Amarna letters between the ‘Great Kings’.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, May 2024]

  5. About war and diplomacy in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, see, e.g. Liverani 1994 Guerra.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, May 2024]

  6. On the ‘collapse’ of the cosmopolis and its aftermath, see mostly Cline 2021 Year; cf. also Drews 1993 End. On the aftermath of the ‘collapse’, see recently Cline 2024 Year.

    – [ Marco De Pietri, May 2024]