An ever-changing world: Interconnections in the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (ca. 3500-300 BC)

Abstract

The Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean were geographical and sociopolitical scenarios with fluent and constant connectivity from the earliest times in history. Prestige goods and raw materials found their way from one side to another through extensive networks even before the emergence of the state in Egypt and Mesopotamia, integrating movements not only of goods but also of people, technologies, cultural practices, gods, languages, and ideas (Wilkinson et al.  2011; Warburton 2020). In this volume, we named them “interconnections” to precisely emphasize the relevance of exchange in the adoption, modification, or re-adaptation of foreign traces. The influence of incoming technologies and the shaping of identities in such a dynamic world, always moving, is also considered. Naturally, many diverse theoretical approaches were proposed over time to explain those interconnections, contributing to completing the never-ending panorama of relationships (e.g. Warburton 2020: 1-21). At the same time, nowadays a comprehensive amount of evidence is usually considered in explaining those interconnections, mainly material remains, textual registers, and iconography.