At the dawn of the Late Bronze Age ‘globalization’, the (re)-circulation of Egyptian artefacts in Nubia and the Northern Levant in the MB II–mid MB III (c. 1710–1550 BC)

Abstract

The article analyses the circulation of late Middle Kingdom (mid MB I–MB I/II) Egyptian artefacts in the Northern Levant and Upper Nubia in the MB II–mid MB III (c. 1710–1550 BC). Three case studies have been selected: the royal tombs of Byblos, the tomb of the Goats at Ebla, and the Egyptian Cemetery at Kerma. Although the two regions were politically disconnected, their populations appropriated, reused, and occasionally reinterpreted Egyptian artefacts in a similar manner. These artifacts, although found in Second Intermediate Period contexts, generally dated to the mid MB I-MB I/II (late Middle Kingdom). It is suggested that the collapse of Egyptian central power at the end of the Middle Kingdom could have led to the recirculation of older Egyptian objects. The recirculation suggests that the ‘globalisation’, noted in archaeology and text during the Late Bronze Age (1500-1200 BC) in fact started in the first half of the Second millennium BC.