From Marriage to Capture: Aspects of the relations between Egypt and Arzawa during the New Kingdom.

Document Type : research articles

Author

History Department, Faculty of Arts, Fayoum University.

Abstract

Egypt had many international relations in Anatolia. One of these relations was with the Arzawa Kingdom whose relations with the Hittite Kingdom were a significant effective factor in its relations with Egypt where Western Anatolia posed a significant challenge to the Hittite Kingdom. Many of these regions rebelled against the Hittite Kingdom and sought independence from them; Arzawa was the most important of those regions. Arzawa appeared in many Egyptian texts and reliefs, such as the Amarna letters (EA 31, EA 32), inscriptions of Kadesh Battle (Poem or “Literary Record” and Report or “Bulletin”), and the inscriptions of the temple of Medinet Habu related to the sea-people’s battles of Ramesses III. This paper hopes to flesh out a more substantial picture of Arzawa and its relationship with Egypt than has been previously presented, and how these relations changed from wishing for marriage (Amarna Letters) to depicting them as captives on Egyptian reliefs (Kadesh and Habu inscriptions), and the factors that caused such changes.

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