The Great Powers' Club or The Club of Great Powers is a term used by historians to refer to a collection of empires in the
ancient Near East and
Egypt between 1500 and 1100 BC, or the
Late Bronze Age. These powers were
Assyria,
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
,
Egyptian Empire,
Hittite Empire, and
Mitanni, viz. the major powers in
Mesopotamia, the
Levant and
Anatolia.
This period saw a systematic rise and fall of civilizations. Many civilizations went through the same cycle of creation, fluorescence, and fall of centralized states which include: the middle Elamite kingdom in western Iran, Kassite Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia, the Hittite new kingdom in Anatolia, and the new kingdom Egypt. While they did not all rise to the equal amount of power and influence at the same time, they did organize and participate in an international system of diplomacy, trade, and culture.
[Van De Mieroop, Marc. "The Club of Great Powers." In ''A History of the Ancient Near East, Ca. 3000-323 B.C.'' 2nd ed., ]Malden, Massachusetts
Malden is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 66,263 people.
History
Malden, a hilly woodland area north of the Mystic River, was settled by Puritans in 1640 on la ...
: Blackwell Pub., 2007,
As states went through cycles of growth and expansion, usually one or two states were more powerful than the rest, and a political hierarchy was naturally formed, with each state knowing its respective place. As leaders rose to power in respective states throughout the regions and although they wanted to expand their empire and grow their power, they realized the immense benefits of diplomacy. A system of trade, not of the state's resources, but of the properties of the kings, was initiated.
Items traded
States interacted through letters, written in
Akkadian, the international language of diplomacy, and through oral messages. Marriages were a sure way to strengthen diplomatic ties and peace. One exception to this system was Egypt, which never gave royal women, but happily accepted the royal women of other states. Another commonly traded item was gifts. Each state had a specialty it could produce in its region. Egypt mined gold, Lebanon logged cedars, murex shells valued for their dye came from Northern Africa,
Canaan specialized in jewelry, and Cyprus had its glass, beads of gold,
faience, and agate.
Sources
One of the main primary sources we have of this Club of Great Powers comes from the
Amarna letters
The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between t ...
in Egypt. King Akhenaten moved the capital of Egypt to
Amarna
Amarna (; ar, العمارنة, al-ʿamārnah) is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Ph ...
and there kept the correspondence of him and his father with the rest of the members of the Club of Great Powers. A collection of 350 clay tablets was found there. The vast majority of the letters were written to Egypt's vassals in the Syria-Palestine region, and a minority are written to kings whom the Egyptians kings considered equal. They were the kings of Babylonia, Assyria, Mittani, Hatti, Alashiya (on Cyprus), and Arzawa (in south-west Anatolia). Collections of letters on clay tablets are also found throughout the Near East.
References
{{Reflist
Power (international relations)
Bronze Age