Amarna in Global History and as a Global City

Abstract

This article reconsiders the city and society of Amarna in a Global Historical and comparative perspective, not only as an instrument of Akhenaten’s monotheistic agenda, but also as a necessary development of Late Bronze Age globalization within Egypt. It is argued, in particular, that Amarna may have been designed not only as a religious capital, but also as a competitive ‘global city’ aimed at connecting its host country to the networks of globalization. Thus, Amarna represents a primary case-study in how globalization stimulates the rise of global cities, as well as how institutional authorities have to relate to political and economic networks at the global level through strategic reconfigurations of power at the local level. This study concludes with a brief note on a comparison between the use of Late Egyptian in inscriptions at Amarna and the emergence of alphabetic Ugaritic in the Syrian port-city of Ugarit.

Introduction

This study sets out to reconsider the city and society of Amarna ¹ in a Global Historical and comparative perspective. In particular, Akhenaten’s Amarna ‘revolution’ is here interpreted as another iteration of a political and economic disjuncture that had characterized Egypt for the past two to three centuries, whereby global networks and their local repercussions left little space for the pharaonic monarchy to exert its power both domestically and globally. This article will investigate how the foundation of the city of Amarna was a response to this two-fold erosion of pharaonic power, and, in particular, an experiment to found a new type of city that would be better-suited to compete and network with other, comparable global cities of the Late Bronze Age.

First, some theoretical considerations will be made concerning the Late Bronze Age as a phase of globalization, the functioning of cities within global connectivity, the field of Global History, and comparativism as one of its main methodologies. Subsequently, the article will address a contradiction between the cuneiform documents of the Amarna archive and the notion of the ‘Horizon of the Aten’ as expressed by Akhenaten’s Boundary Stelae. Following a review of the evidence for global connectivity at Amarna, the city will be analysed both as a result of political and religious developments within Egypt, and as a product of Late Bronze Age globalization which altered the established territoriality of the pharaonic state. Finally, the adoption of the vernacular language (Late Egyptian) in inscriptions at Amarna will be compared with the use of alphabetic Ugaritic in the Syrian port city of Ugarit.

Globalization and Cities

It has now been the scholarly consensus at least for the past two decades that the Late Bronze Age (c. sixteenth–twelfth centuries BC) represents an early form of globalization across the Near East and the Mediterranean, ² and compelling arguments have been made to identify global processes at work throughout much of the Bronze Age world. ³ Although globalization has prompted much debate both across scholarship and among society, its definition is far less controversial, and it has been understood in a remarkably consistent way as a process of increasing connectivity, interdependence, and awareness across the world. ⁴ These three traits are self-evident in the Late Bronze Age, as is demonstrated by a wide range of textual and archaeological evidence from across the Middle East, North Africa, the Mediterranean, Europe, Central Asia, and beyond.

Globalization demands the existence of cities that function as nodes in the political and economic networks. This has been recognized in studies on contemporary globalization since John Friedmann’s ‘world city hypothesis’, which was intended to elucidate the connections between specific cities and the global economy. ⁵ These initial theories were then developed primarily by Saskia Sassen, with her seminal study on New York City, London, and Tokyo, and her theory of the ‘global city’. ⁶ These global cities may be succinctly defined as ‘where the work of globalization gets done’, ⁷ and their main characteristics are relatively easy to comprehend to anybody who has familiarity with any such city across the world. Generally, global cities are characterized by political and economic connectivities; they are hubs of trade of high economic significance; they are centres of culture, education, and learning; they prosper thanks to accumulation of wealth and human capital. ⁸ As a consequence, global cities pursue more pragmatic, independent policies aimed at specific targets by creating networks and practicing diplomacy. ⁹

This type of urban development as a result of global connectivities, however, is not without detrimental consequences. Throughout history, cities and states have had a much more complex, fluctuating relationship than is usually assumed in the contemporary world, and this relationship is central to the study of globalization. ¹⁰ Cities grow to occupy a power vacuum at the local level when there is a decline of national power under conditions of globalization, ¹¹ and eventually, they lead to a growing disconnect between themselves and their host nations, ¹² as will be further discussed below. Ancient Egypt was no exception, and the rise of specific localities domestically as part of long-distance trade networks – sometimes in contrast with the central government – is increasingly acknowledged in Egyptology. ¹³ In particular, global connectivities, economic interdependence, and international cooperation reach such an extent that it becomes questionable whether cities really need territorial states. ¹⁴ As a result, globalization challenges a modern world that is based geographically on ‘the subordination of cities to territorial states’, ¹⁵ and the history of ancient Egypt presents instances of cities which refused this subordination by challenging the authority of the pharaonic government or, more simply, altering its established territoriality (e.g., Hyksos Avaris). Amarna may have been the case of a city that was founded specifically to question the authority of the Theban establishment not only from a religious point of view, but also as a globally competitive capital of one of the major countries of the globalized world of the Late Bronze Age. Even if there had been no deliberate project by Akhenaten to develop Amarna as a global city, it is still possible to hypothesize that this new seat of pharaonic power and religious capital of Egypt was progressively assuming the characteristics of an emergent global city. ¹⁶ Interestingly enough, the failure of Amarna as a global city was determined by factors that could be considered entirely endogenous, i.e. the abandonment of Akhenaten’s religious and political programme by his successors at the end of the 18^th Dynasty. This illustrates how global cities are not immune from domestic politics, which may be decisive not only in their development, but also in their demise.

Methodological Considerations: Global History and Comparativism

From a methodological and disciplinary point of view, globalization is intrinsic to Global History. It is important to realize, however, that the latter need not limit its scope to global connectivities. Equally, if not more, significant is the analysis of specific historical phenomena in global contexts, how the local is integrated in the global, and how networks and interconnections shape/are shaped by social actors and localities. ¹⁷ A Global Historical approach to the city and society of Amarna, therefore, would situate this highly peculiar episode in Egyptian history within the broader geopolitical context of the Late Bronze Age world. In this respect, Amarna could also be a case-study in localism, and how localism relates to globalism.

Comparativism represents one of the main methodologies of Global History, ¹⁸ and in recent scholarly literature, Akhenaten and the Amarna revolution have been analysed in light of comparable cases in Near Eastern and world history: the Hittite king Muwatalli II (c. 1295–1272 BC) and his foundation of Tarhuntassa; ¹⁹ the religious and political reforms of the Chinese emperor Wang Mang (45 BC–AD 23); ²⁰ the Neo-Babylonian emperor Nabonidus (555–539 BC), his cult of the lunar god Sîn, and his move to the Arabian oasis of Tayma. ²¹ The foundation of new cities, in particular, is far from unusual, ²² and Akhenaten’s case is certainly not unparalleled during the Late Bronze Age. Throughout Near Eastern history, it is this particular period that has witnessed the foundation of new, residential capitals to the greatest extent, and in virtually all the major geopolitical powers: Egypt, Mesopotamia (both Assyria and Babylonia), Syria (Mittani), Anatolia (Hatti), and Elam. ²³ This has led Mirko Novák to interpret this phenomenon as ‘an expression of power in a time of competing territorial empires’. ²⁴ In the present study, however, the emphasis is on globalization, as opposed to imperialism, and it is argued that Akhenaten’s foundation of Amarna should be reinterpreted as a globally-induced process with little to no connection with imperialism, as will be discussed below.

This study, in particular, sets out to investigate if, how, and to what extent Amarna may have functioned within political and economic networks on a global scale, and if Amarna was en route to becoming a global city of the Bronze Age world. An estimated c. 20,000–50,000 people lived at Amarna, ²⁵ in an elongated space that stretched along the east bank of the Nile for c. 6 km in length and 1 km in width. ²⁶ These relatively small dimensions could be raised as objections against the application of the concept of global city to Amarna. Size, however, need not be a determining factor in this analysis: contemporary global cities include, for example, the likes of Zurich and New York City, which are incomparable in terms of dimension. What defines a global city is not how large it is, but rather how a set of specific features determine its functioning in the global political and economic networks.

Akhenaten’s Boundary Stelae and the Cuneiform Texts from Amarna: Contradictory Notions of Space

The Boundary Stelae ²⁷ proclaim Akhenaten’s single-handed foundation of Amarna without employing any term that could possibly be translated as city and by emphasizing the pristine, isolated nature of its location. ²⁸ It is simply a ‘place’ (st), which shall serve as ‘the horizon of the Aten’ (ȝḫt jtn). The cuneiform texts of the Amarna archive, ²⁹ however, contradict this notion of Amarna as an isolated, secluded place for the Aten, and are rather indicative of a city participating in networks and diplomacy on a global scale. ³⁰ This contradiction between the Amarna letters and the Boundary Stelae epitomizes Manuel Castells’ distinction between ‘space of flows’ and ‘space of places’. ³¹ Certain aspects of society, such as people and labour, are situated in places, whereby a place should be understood as ‘a locale whose form, function, and meaning are self-contained within the boundaries of physical contiguity’. ³² Others, such as political and economic power, are configured as networks that create spaces of flows. ³³ According to Castells, this is a situation of ‘simultaneous globalization and localization’, ³⁴ and it is precisely within these coordinates that the city and society of Amarna are situated by the cuneiform texts on the one hand, and the hieroglyphic Boundary Stelae on the other.

The cuneiform tablets from Amarna are testimony to the presence of a local class of educated scribes who were well-versed in the lingua franca of the Late Bronze Age and engaged in text production, in a manner comparable to their colleagues at Ugarit, Hattusa, and elsewhere. ³⁵ Most importantly, the Amarna letters as a powerful form of communications technology were foundational to the functioning of Amarna as a global city: they enabled its participation in the political and economic networks of Late Bronze Age globalization. Equally significant in this respect are those texts in the Amarna archive that were designed to educate the Egyptian scribes in Akkadian cuneiform language and culture, the so-called Amarna scholarly tablets. ³⁶ They constitute evidence of another distinguishing characteristic of cities, and in particular, global cities: knowledge. On a more basic level, knowledge and flows of information are in themselves a powerful form of mobility which challenges borders and fixed notions of territoriality. ³⁷ In fact, the finding of a cuneiform archive at Amarna also blurs the disciplinary boundary of Egyptology and Assyriology. Now, this concentration of knowledge in cities, far from being a haphazard phenomenon, is what enables their participation in global networks. ³⁸ Therefore, cities necessarily become places of knowledge: as Sassen pointed out, global cities rely on the ‘gathering, storage and dissemination of information’, ³⁹ and urban life ‘becomes synonymous with being in an extremely intense and dense information loop’. ⁴⁰ Although one may debate the actual intensity of this information at Amarna, and especially what proportion of its population had access to or benefitted from this knowledge, Akhenaten’s chancellery does display this kind of density that is diagnostic of global cities. Moreover, the simultaneous presence of epistolary and scholarly documents within the Amarna archive is also indicative of the profound relationship between knowledge and diplomacy which has been recognized in studies on modern diplomacy, ⁴¹ and Otte’s definition of foreign chancelleries as ‘knowledge-based organizations’ ⁴² aptly describes this fundamental component of the royal court that Akhenaten established at Amarna. Thus, the very existence of the Amarna archive indicates that this city constituted a ‘knowledge hub’ within Egypt: in this respect too, Amarna conforms to the notion of global city. Jan Assmann maintained that the use of Akkadian at Amarna is ‘the most important implement of globalization’. ⁴³ However, the variety of local types of Akkadian across the various centres of cuneiform culture during the Late Bronze Age, and in this specific case, the birth of an ‘Amarna Akkadian’, are rather indicative of Akkadian as ‘a “glocal” phenomenon’. ⁴⁴

Evidence for Global Connectivities at Amarna

It is clear from the archaeological evidence that Amarna was characterized by a substantial industrial production, and, as such, it has been aptly described as a ‘factory’. ⁴⁵ One of the main industries was glass production, of which Amarna may have been the main centre in Egypt, ⁴⁶ with a possible specialization in blue glass. ⁴⁷ There seems to have been both primary glass production (i.e., from raw materials) ⁴⁸ and the import of glass of Syro-Mesopotamian origin, ⁴⁹ and Amarna may have been part of a much broader trade network of both Egyptian and Mesopotamian glass encompassing not only the Nile valley and the Near East, but also the European continent. ⁵⁰ Different industries seem to have been closely connected, sharing facilities for the manufacture of different materials such as faience, metal, and glass, and possibly producing finished objects. ⁵¹ In general, industrial production seems to have been a complex, multifaceted system of interlocking networks, combining state institutions, large-scale factories, smaller workshops at the household level, and satisfying not only royal demand, but also a private market. ⁵² This economic interconnectedness reflected a society that was closely integrated and highly networked, structured along a dense pattern of relations between king, citizens, and dependants. ⁵³

The long-distance interconnections which the city of Amarna entertained during its short lifespan ⁵⁴ are documented by a very broad range of evidence, not just the Amarna archive. In this respect, worthy of attention is the official Tutu, who was buried in Tomb no. 8 at Amarna ⁵⁵ and is attested in four Amarna letters from Amurru (EA 158, EA 164, EA 167, and EA 169). His tomb inscriptions illustrate his role in foreign policy and diplomacy and constitute an almost direct counterpart to the Amarna letters. ⁵⁶ Most importantly, this evidence indicates that foreign policy was not an exclusive prerogative of states and kings, but depended on the participation of citizens who were capable of entertaining relations. Thus, the agency of citizens such as Tutu would be essential in enabling the city’s participation in the networks of Late Bronze Age globalization.

Most of the archaeological evidence for Amarna’s connectivities concerns relations with the Aegean, ⁵⁷ and primarily consists of substantial quantities of Mycenaean pottery. ⁵⁸ In light of the prominence of bulls and bull-leaping scenes in Aegean-style frescoes across the Mediterranean, ⁵⁹ possible Aegean influences should also be considered for the representations of cattle and calves on faience tiles from Amarna. ⁶⁰ Pendlebury tentatively identified the house of a ‘Mycenaean merchant’ in the North Suburb (T36.36) based on material culture and architectural characteristics, ⁶¹ but this hypothesis remains unconvincing. A more convincing piece of evidence for an Aegean presence in the city may be the possible representation of Mycenaean warriors employed by the Egyptians as mercenaries on a pictorial papyrus from Amarna (BM EA 74100). ⁶² Although it seems likely that a significant number of foreigners probably lived at Amarna, however, no foreign district may be identified archaeologically. ⁶³

As far as the Near East is concerned, connections with a major global city of the time, Qatna, may be witnessed by the clay sealing of Akhenaten found in a contemporary archaeological context in the royal palace, which leads to the hypothesis of a dispatch of goods from Amarna to Qatna during his reign. ⁶⁴ Amongst the most characteristic finds from Amarna are the bunches of grapes made of faience, which were probably used as decorations in ceilings. ⁶⁵ These are typical of Amarna and other sites in Egypt (e.g. Malqata and Qantir), but they have also been unearthed at Ugarit, and this could be interpreted as indicative of exchange relations between these two cities. ⁶⁶ Worthy of mention is also a Hittite pendant made of silver (Cairo Museum, JE 55408) found as part of a metal hoard known as the ‘Crock of Gold’ inside a pottery jar in the North Suburb at Amarna. ⁶⁷ Finally, iconographic evidence such as the representation of the reception of foreign tribute in Akhenaten’s 12^th regnal year (the so-called Durbar scene) in the tomb of Meryre II ⁶⁸ concurs in portraying Amarna as a place of global status that was meant to be visited by a broad, international public.

One of the materials which consistently attests to global interconnectedness in antiquity is seemingly missing from Amarna: amber. The world’s largest deposits of amber – and those which served the Late Bronze Age global market – are located in the Baltic region, particularly in present-day Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast, and this material was part of a trade network that stretched from northern Europe, through northern Italy, the Adriatic, the Aegean, and all the way to the Near East. ⁶⁹ Significant quantities have been unearthed at Qatna, ⁷⁰ and Baltic amber was also present aboard the Uluburun shipwreck. ⁷¹ At Amarna, however, amber seems to be absent. ⁷² The only attestation of this material among the published finds seems to be a bead that may have formed part of a necklace. ⁷³ In fact, not only are there no known deposits of amber in Egypt, but its use and attestations are also unclear throughout much of pharaonic history, as what is often termed amber may simply be resin. ⁷⁴ Therefore, its absence from Amarna is not particularly puzzling, even if any future finds may contribute to corroborating our knowledge of this city’s participation in global networks of trade and exchange. As far as resin is concerned, however, pistacia resin has been found in Canaanite amphorae both at Amarna and on the Uluburun shipwreck, and this parallel may attest to the existence of trade in resins across the Mediterranean, of which Akhenaten’s city was part. ⁷⁵

This succinct – and by no means complete – review indicates that the far-flung interconnections which the city of Amarna entertained during its short lifespan are documented not only by the Amarna letters, but also by a broad range of archaeological evidence. In particular, if one considers the main features that define the notion of a global city in contemporary times – connectivity, economic wealth, human capital, knowledge and culture ⁷⁶ – they are all unequivocally visible at Amarna, despite its very short lifespan as a city.

Religion, Politics, and Kingship

Studies on the religion of Amarna tend to recognize a correlation between the universality of the Aten, and the unprecedented phase of Egyptian engagement with the rest of the world that had reached an apex just before the time of Akhenaten, under Thutmose III through to Amenhotep III. ⁷⁷ According to Assmann, in particular, the greater awareness of the rest of the world that Egypt achieved during the New Kingdom led to the development of universalist ideas in Egyptian theology and the belief in a creator god who differentiated the entire world, of which Egypt was just one part. ⁷⁸ These universalist tendencies are but one component of a broader religious evolution throughout the entire New Kingdom (including the Ramesside Period), which Assmann has famously termed ‘New Solar Religion’, ⁷⁹ and of which the religion of Amarna would be nothing but ‘a radical variant’. ⁸⁰ In this respect, there is thus a correlation between Akhenaten’s monotheism and Late Bronze Age globalization. ⁸¹

It is generally agreed that Akhenaten’s religion was heavily centred upon the king, and that this was a reaction against a progressive weakening of kingship throughout the 18^th Dynasty. ⁸² According to Redford, this erosion of the pharaonic institution was due to the difficulty in accommodating multiple and contradictory aspects of kingship (political, military, and divine), which progressively led to a humanization of the king. On the one hand, the resort to oracles and the public role in religious cults subordinated him to the gods; on the other, militarism and imperialism resulted in the exposure of the pharaoh to public opinion and, potentially, even failure, while his participation in diplomacy and international relations implied a terrestrial aspect of his persona on a par with other monarchs across the world. ⁸³ In Redford’s view, therefore, it was against this erosion of the pharaonic institution that Akhenaten directed his religious and political revolution. ⁸⁴

The complex range of dynamics in which cities are protagonists demands a reconsideration of the hypothesis that Akhenaten’s revolution and his move to Amarna may have been motivated, at least in part, by a reaction against the power of Thebes. According to Redford, for example, the rise in importance of the Theban establishment was due to the unprecedented quantities of wealth donated to the cult of Amun thanks to the imperial policies of the 18^th Dynasty, as part of a political strategy aimed at avoiding resentment against the king on the one hand, and the growth of wealthy elites who could challenge royal power on the other. ⁸⁵ This growth of the Theban establishment to an unprecedented size and complexity may have effectively replaced the authority of the Egyptian monarchy in Upper Egypt, a phenomenon which had also been encouraged by the relocation of the royal court back to Memphis from Thutmose I onwards. ⁸⁶ Therefore, this increasing division of the country and the weakening of royal authority in Upper Egypt must have been a matter of concern for Akhenaten that is likely to have contributed to his political and religious agenda. ⁸⁷

As is occasionally the case in Egyptology, some insightful observations may be found in scholarship that is now otherwise outdated. John Wilson, in particular, argued that the policy of imperialism during the 18^th Dynasty led to a complicated situation, characterized both by a progressive openness to the world and by a certain ‘conservatism’ which could not tolerate the ‘vulgarization and alienation’ of traditional culture. ⁸⁸ Initially, the two sides of this internal conflict could be identified simply ‘as conservatives and modernists, as priestly isolationists and militaristic imperializers’. ⁸⁹ Progressively, however, this situation changed. Imperialism was supported by the clergy of Amun and the culturally and religiously conservative establishment in Thebes, whose increasing importance and wealth was directly proportional to the successful pursuit of an imperialist foreign policy. ⁹⁰ Akhenaten, on the other hand, was universalist from a religious point of view, but ‘disinterested in the empire’, and this led to a clash with the Theban establishment. ⁹¹ Therefore, Wilson saw Akhenaten’s followers as ‘a swarm of parvenus’ who were ‘recently rich through empire but not conservative because of vested interests and traditions’, whereas the Theban establishment included ‘the old civil bureaucracy, a landed and hereditary aristocracy’. ⁹²

Wilson’s interpretation certainly seems far-fetched, not least because of a terminology that now appears anachronistic. However, the underlying ideas of his analysis might not be entirely fallacious: external processes had an impact on the delicate equilibrium between different political and social groups and on how institutional and economic power was shared among them. In Wilson’s view, the success of imperialism during Thutmosid times and its end under Akhenaten were a shock that destabilized Egypt internally. What I would suggest, however, is that this shock was rather a longer-term failure of Egyptian imperialism in the part of the Levant that mattered – i.e. the north – and a globalized world in which Egypt occupied an increasingly less privileged position: not only did the pharaoh have to correspond as an equal ‘brother’ with other monarchs across the Near East, but also most major cities in Syria were pursuing their own independent policies behind the façade of patronage and vassalage. ⁹³ It was not imperialism per se, but its shortcomings and failure that had been gradually undermining the institution of the pharaonic monarchy. Thus, Akhenaten’s departure from Thebes to Amarna was not ‘a withdrawal from a cosmopolitan center of modern excitement’, ⁹⁴ as Wilson suggested, but the creation of a new one that was more closely tied to the king.

Cities at the Intersection of Global and Local Dynamics: The Case of Amarna

The present study argues that this clash between the pharaonic monarchy and a much too powerful Theban establishment was a globally-induced process, whereby these two institutions found themselves competing against each other for the more privileged position in the global political and economic networks, at a time when Egyptian imperialism in the Levant had mostly failed, and the Amarna diplomacy was the only viable instrument to exert political influence internationally. In particular, in the context of Late Bronze Age globalization, Akhenaten’s foundation of Amarna may have been a reaction to an erosion of pharaonic power at the national level determined by global connectivities above the state, and the rise of localities such as Avaris and Thebes below the state.

In contemporary history, it has become apparent how globalization causes an ‘empowerment’ of cities and an erosion of state power, which in turn lead to a dynamic of competition between global cities and their home countries. ⁹⁵ As a result, global cities become ‘disconnected’ from their host nations. ⁹⁶ Brexit is a contemporary example of this antagonism between a successful, global city, London, and the rest of the country; ⁹⁷ and to Brexit one may add the problematic relationship between the Hong Kong SAR and the People’s Republic of China. This phenomenon is apparent in the case of Hyksos Avaris/Tell el-Dab’a. In light of Manfred Bietak’s extensive excavations and research, it is now clear that Egypt needed a multicultural, highly interconnected city such as Avaris to participate in the political and economic networks across the Mediterranean and the Near East. ⁹⁸ However, the empowerment of Avaris as a global city led to its progressive disconnect from the pharaonic government in Thebes and its cultural and political alienation from the rest of Egypt. ⁹⁹

Now, if the antagonism between Avaris and the pharaonic monarchy in Thebes was a manifestation of processes of globalization, one could attempt to reframe Amarna in similar dynamics. Thus, the hypothesis advanced in this article is that Amarna may have been at the heart of an alteration to the traditional balance of power at another critical point in Egyptian history, conditioned, at least in part, by processes of globalization. In particular, Amarna may have been construed as a new barycentre of power specifically for a pharaoh whose authority had been eroded, on the one hand, by the religious and economic power of the Theban establishment, and on the other hand, by global networks beyond the control of state government through ordinary means such as imperialism.

Peter Taylor has argued that globalization is characterized by a fluctuating relationship of ‘mutuality’ and ‘antagonism’ between cities and states. ¹⁰⁰ Throughout Egyptian history, this seems to be a structural, ongoing feature: competing cities and networks leading to state formation in the late fourth millennium BC; the emergence of a national kingship and centralization of power during the Old Kingdom; state collapse and the rise of localities in the First Intermediate Period, which led to the emergence of Herakleopolis Magna in the north, and Thebes in the south; the Theban unification of the country with Mentuhotep II and the Middle Kingdom; another phase of political disaggregation due to the antagonism between Hyksos Avaris and Thebes; another unification of the country, by Kamose and Ahmose, and a monarchy with expansionist ambitions during the 18^th Dynasty; then Amarna. In fact, this trajectory was due to continue following Amarna, with the Ramessides, of northern origin, and the foundation of Piramesse in the Delta. This eventually exacerbated, once again, the rivalry with the clergy of Amun in Thebes, and ushered in the Third Intermediate Period, with Egypt divided between the pharaonic monarchy in Lower Egypt and the authority of the High Priest of Amun over Upper Egypt. ¹⁰¹

The debunking of traditional notions of territoriality ¹⁰² is central to processes of globalization as well as the appreciation and the understanding thereof. It is thus possible to state that Akhenaten provided a new territoriality to the ancient Egyptians, devoid of most of the reference points of traditional Egyptian culture and ideology. ¹⁰³ Since the city, under conditions of globalization, becomes ‘a far more concrete space for politics than the nation’, ¹⁰⁴ Akhenaten’s choice to focus on one specific city seems to be a shrewd political move: as opposed to attempting to muster national support for his agenda, a newly designed, globally connected city would have given him better leverage. By his time, territorial imperialism had proven unsustainable, while the monarchy was destabilized domestically by the religious and financial power of the Theban establishment. Akhenaten’s reaction, therefore, was to propound a new religion based on the centrality of the king and concentrate all forms of power – political, economic, and religious – in one city of his own design that derived its strength from global connectivities.

Possible Objections and Further Remarks

There is one possible objection that might seem to discredit the notion of Amarna as a global city: its unassuming location in Middle Egypt. However, this could be explained by the fact that Akhenaten may have wanted to depart from the concentration of royal power in Thebes, and at the same time, avoid the risk of economic power and full-fledged globalization such as Avaris/Tell el-Dab’a, the trauma of which had great resonance throughout the entire New Kingdom. It remains possible that the gap in the cliffs which is reminiscent of the hieroglyph for ȝḫt, ‘horizon’, may have drawn Akhenaten to this precise location and given the name ȝḫt-jtn, ‘Horizon of the Aten’, to this city. ¹⁰⁵ Moreover, Amarna’s location in Middle Egypt may have been significant precisely as the symbolic centre of the entire country, something which neither Memphis nor Thebes could claim to be. ¹⁰⁶

Strategic considerations should not be dismissed. In particular, Juan Carlos Moreno García has suggested that the area around Beni Hasan, Deir el-Bersha, and Asyut in Middle Egypt, may have constituted a region of highly strategic significance for the control of landborne and waterborne trade routes in and out of Egypt, and it may have hosted local elites who entertained relations with the Levant, from the late third millennium BC and through the Middle Kingdom. ¹⁰⁷ In this view, the political relevance of Queen Tiye and her parents, Yuya and Tuya, who were a family of Akhmim, and the very foundation of Amarna in the New Kingdom could possibly amount to ‘the latest efforts to revive Middle Egypt’. ¹⁰⁸ Moreover, Moreno García has also suggested that Akhenaten’s revolution and his relocation to Amarna could have been ‘the last stand of some Upper Egyptian nobles eager to retain their influence against the irresistible rise of the (Eastern) Delta as the richest and most powerful region in Egypt’. ¹⁰⁹ This interpretation of Middle Egypt as a nexus of supra-regional long-distance connectivities corroborates this hypothesis of Amarna as a global city that altered the traditional dichotomy between the Theban area and the Delta, provided a new equilibrium between various parts of Egypt, and facilitated participation in global networks.

In this analysis, the obvious ‘elephant in the room’ is Memphis. ¹¹⁰ This city could have functioned as a global city even better than Amarna thanks to its strategic location at the junction of the Nile Valley and the Delta, and its greater proximity to the Mediterranean and the Near East. In fact, Memphis was not deprived of its institutional significance during the Amarna Period: it seems likely that it continued to function as the administrative capital of the country, ¹¹¹ and it may even have witnessed the establishment of some religious institutions for the cult of the Aten and the royal family. ¹¹² However, I suggest that two obvious factors may have determined the foundation of a new city on virgin soil in Middle Egypt: first, Akhenaten was establishing a new religion; second, the Memphite region was already characterized by too dense a concentration of political and economic power.

This globally-oriented development of Amarna does not exclude – and would not be contradicted by – any projects that Akhenaten may have had for Memphis or any other place throughout Egypt. Thus, the fact that global networks were primarily centred around the Mediterranean and the Levant does not lessen the importance of Nubia: Akhenaten’s activity is documented at several sites in Sudan, ¹¹³ such as the ‘colonial temple-town’ of Sesebi, which played an important role in the acquisition of gold. ¹¹⁴ Moreover, his projects for Nubia may have amounted to an extension of the cult of the Aten over the region. ¹¹⁵

In his seminal monograph on Amarna, Barry Kemp privileged the view that Amarna was designed primarily for the cult of the Aten as ‘a necessary adjunct’. ¹¹⁶ However, he also interrogated how economic production and social organization defined the true nature of the city, for which he discussed concepts such ‘pre-preindustrial city’ and ‘urban village’. ¹¹⁷ In this study, I suggest the notion of ‘global city’ not in contrast with, but in addition to these and other understandings of the city. For example, this interpretation of Amarna as a global city does not discount its traditional understanding as a holy city for the cult of the Aten: it complements it, as these two functions are not incompatible. In fact, the universalist beliefs of Akhenaten’s religion may also lend greater credibility to the hypothesis that the city of Amarna was intended to be a globally connected urban centre from which to exert universal domination, albeit fictionally and through more mundane, much less ambitious activities such as trade and diplomacy.

Late Egyptian and Alphabetic Ugaritic

A final aspect that deserves some serious consideration is the language. It is broadly accepted that the third stage in the history of the Egyptian language, i.e. Late Egyptian, was elevated from vernacular to written use under the reign of Akhenaten. ¹¹⁸ Interestingly enough, it seems likely that Late Egyptian is an evolution of that northern dialect of which Old Egyptian was also an expression, thereby standing in stark contrast with Middle Egyptian, which was probably a southern dialect. ¹¹⁹ An influence of the vernacular language on the official, written language had already started during the First Intermediate Period, ¹²⁰ but this phenomenon peaked with the Second Intermediate Period, the prime examples being Carnarvon Tablet I and the Second Kamose Stela. ¹²¹ Therefore, it is important to emphasize that Late Egyptian existed well in advance of Amarna, but it was during the Amarna Period that it started to be written down to a greater extent. ¹²² What, according to Orly Goldwasser, ¹²³ is significant is the royal and official nature of this transition from spoken to written form: Akhenaten ‘legitimized the process of using the Low in the “forbidden territories” of the Literary’, ¹²⁴ and this decision probably originated from ‘the naturalistic/“positivistic” view in which Akhenaten perceived the world’. ¹²⁵ It has to be specified, however, that this relevance of Amarna could be questioned in light of comparatively early attestations of Late Egyptian, such as the Astarte Papyrus, which now seems to have been produced under the reign of Amenhotep II. ¹²⁶ Thus, it is safer to recognize that Akhenaten and his entourage simply chose an idiom closer to the vernacular language, i.e. Late Egyptian, as opposed to the classical language, i.e. Middle Egyptian, for their textual production. The notion of choice, rather than change, is therefore advisable, as it remains doubtful whether this choice was entirely unprecedented or was in any way decisive in this process of linguistic evolution. In this respect, it is interesting to note that Late Egyptian survived Tutankhamun’s attempt to restore the pre-Amarna status quo, as the language continued to develop after Amarna into Ramesside Egyptian. ¹²⁷

Now, there has been surprisingly little political contextualization for this linguistic choice at Amarna. Here, an opportunity for comparative research arises, with Late Egyptian at Amarna and alphabetic Ugaritic at Ugarit as comparanda. Philip Boyes has investigated the adoption of alphabetic Ugaritic language and writing in text production at Ugarit in the second half of the thirteenth century BC within the broader geopolitical context of the Late Bronze Age Near East. ¹²⁸ He has argued that it is a form of ‘vernacularization as part of Ugarit’s negotiation of, and resistance to, their encounter with Hittite imperialism’, ¹²⁹ when this city, despite still being part of the Hittite empire, was much more reluctant to cooperate with the Hittite monarchy. ¹³⁰ At the same time, however, Ugarit may have tried to assert a local identity by means of its vernacular language in response to those globalizing tendencies that had privileged Akkadian cuneiform as the lingua franca of the Late Bronze Age. ¹³¹ In this respect, Boyes goes so far as to suggest that Ugaritic may have had ‘comparatively populist connotations’. ¹³²

Boyes’ study builds and expands upon Seth Sanders’ view of alphabetic Ugaritic as ‘the first vernacular revolution’. ¹³³ In this view, Ugarit represents a peculiar case-study because of its unprecedented move ‘to make a written language more local, more particular’, ¹³⁴ and the value to produce a ‘vernacular literature’ in alphabetic Ugaritic lay in its being ‘not universalizing, but particularizing’. ¹³⁵ A caveat is now necessary: Sanders’ argument rests heavily upon the fact that the Ugaritic language employed an alphabet. In this respect, Ugaritic and Late Egyptian remain markedly different, and the case of Ugarit is certainly ‘unprecedented’ ¹³⁶ and ‘without parallel’ ¹³⁷ as far as the alphabet is concerned. However, what is significant for the purpose of the present study is that language choice represents a viable policy for cities to assert themselves both culturally and politically, and affirm a distinctive local identity under conditions of globalization. Thus, one might tentatively suggest that Amarna underwent a similar policy of language choice in the mid-/late fourteenth century BC, i.e. roughly a century before Ugarit. The notion of a ‘vernacular revolution’ at Amarna would be applicable only from a political point of view, to what may have been a deliberate choice to privilege the vernacular language in official inscriptions during a phase of disruption to the institutional configuration of pharaonic Egypt. The language itself, however, had been undergoing a gradual development for at least a couple of centuries, if not more, ¹³⁸ and, as has been mentioned above, Late Egyptian was used in texts prior to Amarna.

If alphabetic Ugaritic is situated in a dynamic of ‘localism’ vs. ‘globalism’, ¹³⁹ this study suggests that Late Egyptian at Amarna was an affirmation of a new, local identity, in a city which developed in response to both domestic politics and global connectivity. Moreover, if this language were indeed based on a northern dialect, as has been suggested, ¹⁴⁰ it could possibly imply that Akhenaten implemented a language choice that would have re-oriented his city away from Upper Egypt and its Theban establishment, and towards a more Mediterranean – and therefore global – direction. As contemporary global cities usually display a closer relationship between the citizenry and the official sphere, ¹⁴¹ it is even possible to suggest that the acceptance of the vernacular language into writing at Amarna – albeit not necessarily unprecedented – reflects the pragmatism of a city that was undergoing a rapid development as a globally competitive urban centre, on a par with Ugarit.

Conclusions

A historical analysis of both textual and archaeological evidence suggests that Amarna, as a city and an urban society, displayed the characteristics and fulfilled the functions of contemporary global cities. As such, it is therefore comparable to other major urban centres of the Near East that sustained the global political and economic networks of the Late Bronze Age.

The structural problem of 18^th Dynasty Egypt was a royal institution that was failing domestically as well as globally: the foundation of Amarna by Akhenaten was a reaction against and a strategic response to both failures. Domestically, the city of Thebes and its establishment derived unprecedented power both from the religious supremacy of Amun that had been developing throughout the 18^th Dynasty, and from the accumulation of wealth in the form of tribute and booty as a result of Thutmose III’s and Amenhotep II’s imperial campaigns in the Levant. Thus, a combination of religious developments and financial power was undermining the foundations of the pharaonic monarchy. What this study argues is that this precarious situation was unsustainable not only internally, but also externally. The success of Egyptian imperialism was limited by the agency of successful, global cities of the northern Levant, who shaped and sustained political and economic networks beyond the control of the institutional authorities of the so-called ‘great powers’ of the time. Military campaigns stopped and expansionist, territorial imperialism failed to give birth to an actual empire in the northern Levant. As a consequence, Akhenaten founded a new capital based on a new religion that had the king at its centre and was meant to derive its power from its global interconnectedness and its competition with other global cities of the Late Bronze Age. Thus, the global level and the local level are closely intertwined.

In light of this analysis, Amarna now appears as yet another episode of change in the territoriality of power within Egypt. Akhenaten needed a different space not simply because of religious reasons: a more ambitious overhaul of the configuration of political and economic power across Egypt was required. A new capital of global standing was therefore necessary to forge a new institutional order and a new form of pharaonic power, more urban and less national. The choice of Middle Egypt for the foundation of Amarna may have been dictated by several considerations: not only did Akhenaten have to curtail the power of the Theban establishment; he also had to depart from the Memphite bureaucracy, and – perhaps most importantly – avoid the pitfalls of a previous global city in the Delta, Avaris, which had posed a challenge to the institutional authority of the pharaonic monarchy and even the territorial integrity of Egypt.

In conclusion, Akhenaten founded a new city from which he could participate in Late Bronze Age globalization on an urban – rather than national – scale, and through participation in political and economic networks (i.e. diplomacy and trade) as opposed to imperialism. The choice to privilege the vernacular language (i.e. Late Egyptian) at Amarna may be tentatively compared to Ugarit’s adoption of alphabetic Ugaritic as a more pragmatic instrument and as a policy to foster a local, urban identity. Moreover, the possibility that Late Egyptian may reflect a northern, Lower Egyptian dialect could also be indicative of a more Mediterranean association and globalizing impetus. Finally, it is even possible to advance this hypothesis: at Amarna, among its remains and among its peoples, one could gain a more realistic visualization of Egypt’s place in the globalized world of the Late Bronze Age; how Egypt really conducted its international relations; what sort of influence Egypt projected abroad over the Near East and the Mediterranean. This picture, albeit fuzzy, is certainly closer to reality than the imperialist propaganda of Thutmose III’s and Amenhotep II’s inscriptions, and it is perhaps even clearer than the Amarna letters, which remain invaluable in capturing the tension between the pharaonic rhetoric and the dynamicity of the Levantine cities. Thus, Amarna as a city embodies the disconnect between the national, territorial logic of the Egyptian establishment and the rise of more localized, yet globally interconnected forms of power.