Mapping Political Diversity

Abstract

The social and cultural developments in the Eastern Mediterranean Area of Connectivity in the 8th to 6th c. BC are strongly rooted in the cross-regional mobility and subsequent cultural diversity that resulted from the various local strategies in the southern Levant and the Nile delta of challenging and outmaneuvering the super-powers. Yet, historiographical maps of 7thc. Egypt predominantly depict the political landscape – if at all– as the dominion of politically homogeneous entities: as part either of the Assyrian empire, or of the Kushite empire, or of a local power. By contrast, this paper discusses an alternative visualization, which indicates historical complexity with the aim of triggering further research.

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