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Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East

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In the epilogue of her engaging study, Dr. Podany observes that the ancient Near East lacks a storyteller like Herodotus for ancient Greece or Livy for Roman history. Although she is obviously no "ancient", she certainly is a storyteller par excellence. She draws her readers into the Near Eastern world of 2500-1300 BCE. One encounters the familiar in places like Babylonia and Egypt, but, more important, unfamiliar realms like Ebla, Mittani, and Hatti. The same is true in terms of historical persons: the familiar Sargon, Amenhotep, and Nefertiti and the unfamiliar Irkab-damu, Suppiluliuma, and Tushratta. Besides elucidating the diplomatic relationships between these ancient kings, Dr. Podany provides us with an amazing view into the daily lives of ordinary people who lived in the ancient Near East. To keep track of persons and gods, she provides a "Cast of Main Characters" and a "Time Line", so her readers will know who lived where and when. Although she does not pursue the issue to any great degree, certain parallels are perceptible in present diplomatic relationships. The general reader will find this a fascinating and worthwhile adventure and will benefit from suggestions for further reading. The scholarly reader will appreciate the footnotes at the end of the text, as well as the ample bibliography.

Brotherhood of Kings, by Amanda Podany, is one of the most interesting books on Near Eastern Archaeology that I have read in a long time.

This book tells the history of the Bronze Age Middle East through the eyes of Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses and vassals who wrote letters found in archives preserved in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt. These letters reveal the personalities of the writers in a very human way. Some of the Kings were greedy for gold; others constantly whined that the gifts that had been sent to them by other Kings were not sufficient. Amenhotep III of Egypt seemed to have an interest in marrying as many foreign princesses as possible and several letters reveal the size of the dowry and bridal gifts exchanged by the Pharaoh and his father-in-law.

Some of the stories are familiar to students of the Ancient Near East. For example, the letters between an Egyptian Queen (Ankhesenamen, the widow of Tutankhamen?) and the King of the Hittites, in which the Egyptian Queen asks for the Hittite King to send one of his sons to Egypt so that she can marry him (as her husband has died and she does not want to marry one of her subjects) is a well-known, and fascinating, story. One wonders how history would have changed if the Hittite Prince had married the Egyptian Queen (instead of being assassinated en route to Egypt).

Other sets of correspondence were not familiar to me. One of the most interesting of these, are the set of letters between Zimri-Lim (King of Mari) and a number of other Kings to whom he had married his daughters. One of the young ladies was very unhappily married and seems to have genuinely feared for her life. She was probably quite relieved when her husband divorced her and sent her home.

This book is well written and easy to read. It is full of fascinating information and tells numerous interesting tales in a very lively manner. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in ancient Near Eastern history.

Dr. Podany explains, for both the expert and non-expert, that rulers of the ancient 'near east' spent considerable time and energy on what is presently called diplomatic relations. Beginning with ancient Ebla around 2400 BCE, Dr. Podany shows how rulers at the time, again 500 years later, and yet again another 500 years on, usually found peace to be far more viable than war. In each of the three time periods, kings related to each other as family members, designating each other to be a 'brother' and creating extended family ties though marriage. Such arrangements led to increased trade and prosperity for the peoples of each society. Those rulers who relied on war and invasion to expand empire (Sargon of Akkad in the earliest time period; Amenhotep II of Egypt in the third) or the rise of new powers such as the Hittites would upset the diplomatic applecart, but eventually they, or their descendents, would rejoin 'the brotherhood' of rulers and more calm relations would once again prevail.

Dr. Podany explains very precisely what is known from preserved clay tablets and other documents, and is careful to illustrate the unknown with other contemporary evidence. Overall, the reader finds many less well known rulers and kingdoms interacting with each other in the diplomatic arena. The preserved clay tablets of Ebla are some of the oldest records of letters of kings to each other, and diplomatic behavior among kings was not new when first written about. Dr. Podany reminds us that new discoveries will not doubt add to, clarify, and perhaps change our understandings of the past. Yet that these were "the first kings to discover the benefits of peaceful coexistence" (p. 309) brings the reader to think about modern and current international issues in a very broad context.

This is q very readable and entertaining book, easy to understand, very well documented, with elaborate timelines and maps.

This is a great book for someone who is interested in learning more about the history of that era as well as about what we now call the Middle East. Sometimes books like these tend to be a bit overwhelming with research and analysis while others tend to be simplistic this book strikes a wonderful middle ground. Brotherhood of Kings is a great way to begin a study of that particular time and calls to us to continue its study.

When I ordered this book I was concerned that it would be another one of those feminists expose's of history, however, not once did I find such terms as: patriarchal oppressor, sexual normativity or pre-colonialist male or any other such words which inserts the biases of a group of historians.

This is a outstanding read. It covers the period 2300BC-1300BC. This book shows how the Great Powers of this age kept a balance of power among themselves. It covers trade relations, war, peace, and friendship. The friendship is unusual in that these Great Kings, as they styled themselves, called each other Brothers even though they usually had and would never meet. I understand that some of this was mere formality but sometimes these "words of friendship' were really meant as the author surmises. This "Brotherhood" was carried out thousand of years before the UN. 200 years later it was all destroyed with the coming of the Sea Peoples, outsiders hungry for land and wealth and no interest in this "Brotherhood". The Hittites were gone for good and replaced by a group of smaller powers in Anatolia, Egypt hiding behind her deserts and water barriers again, Babylon still in play but weaken, and the rise of Assyria who would tolerate no balance of powers. Assyria had to be the one and only power. This relates today with the "Great Powers", in the process of being overrun by hordes of new "Sea Peoples", who are completely antagonistic to this modern "Brotherhood". Deja Vu!!