Late Bronze Age East Mediterranean trade

This essay analyzes the relationship between the supplies of gold, the inter-states alliances, and the concept of love in the cross-cultural discourse in the Amarna Letters. The Amarna Letters record the exchange of gifts between Great Kings on the occasion of a new coronation, a jubilee, an alliance, and inter-dynastic marriages. In particular, this paper examines the deliveries of gold in connection with the inter-dynastic marriages between Mitanni, Babylon, and Egypt, within the framework of the bonds of brotherhood, friendship and love between Great Kings. Besides the gold involved in the exchange of gifts between courts during the negotiation of inter-dynastic marriages, there are deliveries of gold statues of foreign kings, the kings daughters (as brides), and gods/goddesses. The idioms used in the correspondence, with expressions such as “the abundance of gold”, the “exchange-rate of love”, the “bonds of brotherhood”, and the “deeds of their ancestors”, employed as a means of persuasion and political ideology, reveal various interests which influenced inter-state relations during the Amarna Period.

"A new Ugaritic document, found in the House of Urtenu, mentions the amounts of copper and tin needed for the manufacture of forty wheeled stands. The present article uses relevant biblical and archaeological data to clarify the form and function of these stands. In addition, it discusses the implications of the document for the study of bronzeworking and of the connections between
Ugarit and Cyprus during the Late Bronze Age."