Workshop Cohen/Adams

Movement and Mobility between Egypt and the Levant in the Second Millennium BC

Organizers: Susan Cohen (Montana State University) / Matthew J. Adams (W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research)

Abstract

Egyptian-Levantine interactions and connections, encompassing the movement of peoples, objects, and ideas, existed throughout the history of both regions, varying in scope and intensity in different eras. New material from excavation, new interpretative and analytical methods, and especially changing chronological considerations, have resulted in ongoing discussion and debate regarding these connections, and their significance for understanding the historical development of both regions, and particularly so for these relationships in the late second millennium BCE.
This workshop will explore the means, methods, and motives for mobility of peoples, animals, objects, and ideas between the Levant and Egypt in the late second millennium BCE, corresponding roughly to the Egyptian New Kingdom and the Middle Bronze Age – Late Bronze Age transition in the Levant. Papers will present evidence for these movements, and will examine these data to evaluate both the short and long term consequences of them for indigenous social and economic structure and organization, settlement, and other aspects of Levantine development. Together, these papers will address the need to evaluate connections and movements between Egypt and the Levant in light of new chronology that changes previously understood synchronisms and links between archaeological strata and historical events in both Egypt and the Levant, to gain better understanding of the histories and developments of both regions.

Participants

Matthew J. Adams (W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research)
Vanessa Becker (University of Vienna)
Aaron A. Burke (University of California, Los Angeles)
Susan Cohen (Montana State University)
Felix Höflmayer (Austrian Academy)
Ann-Kathrin Jeske (University of Vienna)
Katharina Streit (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Lyndelle Webster (Austrian Academy)

Programme

9:00 Susan Cohen: Introduction to Movement and Mobility
9:30 Felix Höflmayer: Assessing the Egyptian Activity in the Southern Levant during the Early 18th Dynasty: A Minimalist View
10:00 Lyndelle Webster: Levantine Late Bronze Age Chronology and Egyptian interactions from a Radiocarbon Perspective
10:30 Vanessa Becker: A Re-evaluation of Scarabs during the MB-LB Transition in the Levant: A new approach
11:00 Coffee break
11:30 Ann-Kathrin Jeske: Can the archeological record reveal the nature of Egyptian soldier and official activity?
12:00 Katharina Streit: Assessing the Egyptian influence and the potential of Egyptian presence at Tel Lachish during the Late Bronze Age
12:30 Aaron A. Burke: Amorites in the Eastern Delta: Reconstructing Interactions in the Early Middle Bronze Age
13:00 Lunch break
14:00 Matthew J. Adams: Thutmose III’s Battle of Megiddo: History, Chronology, and the Landscape of Movement