Mursilis I On Babylon Summary

The first part of the book deals with Ebla and the Early Dynastic (ED) period in Mesopotamia. At this time period they saw the first empires in the ancient Near East, and Ebla was usefully founded between coastal Syria and northern Mesopotamian cities. Exploiting on this location, rulers of Ebla created pacts with neighboring towns and placed tariffs on goods arriving to the city. Many of the extravagant goods were meant for the royal household; Podany describes the contents and effects of a discreet letter written to the king of Ebla by the king of Hamazi, discussing the exchange of royal gifts. Podany displays a profound familiarity with military skirmishes and the difference between a promise kept by a defeated enemy and a treaty signed by a rival. Podany does, however, ignored to talk about the remarkable downfalls of understanding the Stele of the Vultures due to its decidedly fragmentary nature (33). Podany is to be highly praised for her addition of Early Minoan Crete in her discussion of the Early Dynastic period; although the island was still largely isolated, it played a key role in later trade, and a brief mention of its earlier history is certainly appropriate. Podany also addresses the important concern of preservation bias; while Ebla was certainly an important city at its peak, its significance may be overblown due to the unique preservation of its records. The second portion of the book focuses on the Old Babylonian period, and Podany’s third chapter centers on the diplomatic relations between Mari and Mesopotamia, Canaan, Egypt, Anatolia, and the Mediterranean. Podany humorously addresses the anxiety with which kings fretted about their status among their peers; a promotion to “brother” was to be celebrated, whereas a demotion to “son” was to be mourned or rebuked. She describes the interactions between cities during this time period well, noting that kings’ sons in addition to messengers often made the journey to neighboring states of interest. She brings up the issue of status again in the outrage of the Mari ambassadors upon being slighted (73) and in the rejection of an insufficient gift from an impoverished lesser king (76). Concluding the chapter on diplomacy, she discusses the process of creating a treaty and the role of diplomatic marriages in securing an alliance. The attack of Mursilis I on Babylon is described in good …show more content…
Particularly intriguing and representative of the recent research covered in the book is the remark that Tell Fakhariyah has been conclusively connected with the Mitannian capital of Washukanni through the analysis of clay tablets; as Podany notes, the discovery of the site would radically change the way historians reconstruct the Late Bronze Age.
Podany includes a discussion of the connection of the Ahhiyawa of Hittite records with Mycenaean Greece, though the description of the political interactions between the two is unfortunately lacking in appropriate detail. [3] Podany then discusses the rise of Hittite imperial power under Suppiluliuma and its effects on the delicate balance of diplomacy.
She describes the role of the important Mitannian messenger Keliya in restoring the ties between Tushratta of Mitanni and Amenhotep III of Egypt, making the perceptive observation that the ancient kings could and did address each other quite harshly at times without disrupting the peaceful brotherhood