Agypten - Munster: Kulturwissenschaftliche Studien zu Agypten, dem Vorderen Orient und verwandten Gebieten, Donum natalicium viro doctissimo Erharto Graefe sexagenario ab amicus collegis discipulis ex aedibus Schlaunstrasse 2/Rosenstrasse 9 oblatum.

• Author: Spalinger, Anthony
• Position: Book Review

Agypten--Munster; Kulturwissenschaftliche Studien zu Agypten, dem Vorderen Orient und verwandten Gebieten: Donum natalicium viro doctissimo Erharto Graefe sexagenario ab amicus collegis discipulis ex aedibus Schlaunstrasse 2/Rosenstrasse 9 oblatum. Edited by ANKE ILONA BLOBAUM, JOACHIM KAHL, and SIMON D. SCHWEITZER. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2003. Pp. xviii + 287, plates.

The bloated title of this Festschrift, surely too complicated and recherche, may unfortunately obscure the significance of the studies included within. This is unfortunate, especially because of the presence of Manfried L. G. Dietrich's important analysis of the famous Akkadian "Letter to the General" on pp. 45-74 ("Der Ugariter Sumiyanu an der sudsyrischen Front gegen den Pharaoh"). It is fair to state that Dietrich's redating of the cuneiform tablet, should it be accepted, will give scholars another way of understanding international relations in the Late Bronze Age. Therefore, although slighting the other worthwhile chapters in this volume, I think that thorough discussion of this document is warranted.

The missive, found at Ugarit, has been a bone of contention for many years because of its relevance to Egyptian-Hittite conflicts in Syria. In the past, serious and often vitriolic attempts have been made to date this letter securely. The various proposals include setting it in the Kadesh campaign of the fifth regnal year of Ramesses II and, with greater consequences, integrating it into the events of the Amarna Period of late Dynasty XVIII. Notwithstanding the frequent apodictic statements of cuneiform scholars, most of whom are philologists rather than historians, the problems of interpretation result from the paucity of extant data about Egyptian military activity in central Syria during the Late Bronze Age, not from a lack of appreciation of the intricacies of dialectal Akkadian. To put it in absolute terms: the historical texts are too few for unalterable geopolitical reconstructions; neither can history be interpreted from linguistic phenomena alone.

It is difficult to draw conclusions from this letter, let alone to date it, because Egyptian aims and strategies in Syria did not change to any significant degree from mid-Dynasty XVIII through the first phase of Dynasty XIX. The writer, Sumiyanu, was an army commander in Amurru who had received news through a captive of an impending Egyptian military attack. The commander had already secured the roads and...