International Politics and Local Change at Emar in the Late Bronze Age

Abstract

This article considers the administrative changes that occurred in the city of Emar in the early 13th century BCE—including the beginning of the now well-known bifurcation in scribal practices between the Conventional Middle Euphrates Format (also known as the “Syrian” system) and the Free Format (also known as the “Syro-Hittite” system)—in the context of international political currents. In order to position my understanding of Emarite history with respect to the ongoing chronology debate, I offer new chronological considerations using internal data from the Emarite legal documents that affirm the substantial overlap of the two scribal systems at Emar (most recently argued for by Daniel Fleming and Sophie Démare-Lafont), while also adjusting the dating of some important synchronisms. Following the establishment of the chronological position, the article poses the question of why the material changes at Emar were executed by the Hittite empire exactly when they were, despite a previous policy of non-intervention. I argue that the increasing threat posed by expansionist activity of the Middle Assyrian state to Hittite hegemony over the Syrian territories—of which Emar was the farthest south-easterly border state—is a contributing factor to administrative changes in Emar.

Administrative Practices and Political Control in Anatolian and Syro-Anatolian Polities in the 2nd and 1st Millennium BCE

“…Here, cultic paraphernalia with Hittite imagery and cultic inventories hinting at the celebration of Hittite gods in town implies the establishment of a direct contact of the core of the empire with this remote urban centre on the Middle Euphrates through the organisation of the cult. The diviner of Emar became the most relevant representative of Hittite interests in town, first directly for the Great Kings of Hattusa, and from the mid-13th century for the Syrian secundogeniture of Karkemiš Cohen, d'Alfonso 2008;Cohen 2010;Thames 2020;Strosahl 2022). Now looking at the temples, it is worth noting that neither in the centres in which local rulers kept control of political authority, nor in centres in which members of the Hittite royal family had been installed as local rulers, the organisation of the architectural space resembles the one of the temples in Hittite Anatolia.…”

Rulership and the Gods: The Role of Cultic Institutions in the Late Bronze to Iron Age Transition in Anatolia and Northern Syria

“…Here, cultic paraphernalia with Hittite imagery and cultic inventories hinting at the celebration of Hittite gods in town implies the establishment of a direct contact of the core of the empire with this remote urban centre on the Middle Euphrates through the organisation of the cult. The diviner of Emar became the most relevant representative of Hittite interests in town, first directly for the Great Kings of Hattusa, and from the mid-13th century for the Syrian secundogeniture of Karkemiš (Fleming 2000;Cohen, d'Alfonso 2008;Cohen 2010;Archi 2014;Thames 2020;Strosahl 2022). Now looking at the temples, it is worth noting that neither in the centres in which local rulers kept control of political authority, nor in centres in which members of the Hittite royal family had been installed as local rulers, the organisation of the architectural space resembles the one of the temples in Hittite Anatolia.…”