Egypt and Cyprus in Antiquity

By D. Michaelides, Vasiliki Kassianidou and Robert S. Merrillees

The international conference "Egypt and Cyprus in Antiquity" held in Nicosia in April 2003 filled an important gap in historical knowledge about Cyprus' relations with its neighbours. While the island's links with the Aegean and the Levant have been well documented and continue to be the subject of much archaeological attention, the exchanges between Cyprus and the Nile Valley are not as well known and have not before been comprehensively reviewed. They range in date from the mid third millennium B.C. to Late Antiquity and encompass every kind of interconnection, including political union. Their novelty lies in the marked differences between the ancient civilisations of Cyprus and Egypt, the distance between them geographically, which could be bridged only by ship, and the unusual ways they influenced each other's material and spiritual cultures. The papers delivered at the conference covered every aspect of the relationship, with special emphasis on the tangible evidence for the movement of goods, people and ideas between the two countries over a 3000 year period.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Oct 30, 2009
• ISBN: 9781782973010

Book preview

Contributors to this volume

ARISTODEMOS ANASSTASIADES

Cultural Services

Ministry of Education and Culture

Nicosia

Cyprus

CLAIRE BALANDIER

Université d’Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse

74 rue Louis Pasteur

F-84 025 Avignon Cédex 1

France

Email: [e-mail]

PASCALE BALLET

Professeur d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’art de l’Université

de Poitiers (France)

8, rue René Descartes

86022 – Poitiers Cedex

France

Email: [e-mail]

JOAN BRETON CONNELLY

Professor of Classics and Art History

Department of Classics, New York University

Silver Center, Room 503

100 Washington Square East

New York 10003

Email: [e-mail]

DEREK B. COUNTS

Department of Art History

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

PO Box 413

Milwaukee, WI 53201

USA

Email: [e-mail]

PAVLOS FLOURENTZOS, FSA

Director

Department of Antiquities

1, Museum Street

P.O. Box 22024

1516 Nicosia

Cyprus

Email: [e-mail]

SABINE FOURRIER

CNRS-UMR 5189/Hisoma

Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée

7 rue Raulin

Fr-69365 Lyon Cedex 07

France

Email: [e-mail]

NICOLAS GRIMAL

Collège de France

11, place Marcelin Berthelot

75231 Paris Cedex 05

France

Email: [e-mail]

ANNE MARIE GUIMIER-SORBETS

Université de Paris X-Nanterre

8 Square Alboni

75016 Paris

France

Email: [e-mail]

IRMGARD HEIN

Institute of Egyptology

University of Vienna

Austria

ANTOINE HERMARY

Université de Provence/Centre Camille Jullian

Centre Camille Jullian

Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme

5, rue de Château de l’Horloge

BP 647

FR-13094 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 2

France

Email: [e-mail]

LINDA HULIN

Oriental Institute

University of Oxford

Pusey Lane

Oxford

OX1 2LE

UK

Email: [e-mail]

VASILICI KASSIANIDOU

Associate Professor, Archaeological Research Unit

Department of History and Archaeology

University of Cyprus

PO Box 20537

CY1678

Cyprus

Email: [e-mail]

KENNETH A. KITCHEN

Professor emeritus of Egyptology and honorary Fellow

School of Archaeology, Classics and Oriental Studies

14 Abercromby Square

University of Liverpool

LIVERPOOL L69 7WZ

UK

Email: [e-mail]

ANTIGONE MARANGOU

Université Rennes 2, Haute Bretagne

Département d’Histoire de l’Art et Archéologie

6, avenue Gaston Berger

CS 24 307

35043 Rennes Cedex

France

Email: [e-mail]

SYLVIE MARCHAND

Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale

37, rue al-Cheikh Aly Youssef

B. P. Qasr el-Ayni 11562

11441 Le Caire

Égypte

Email: [e-mail]

ANDREAS MEHL

Professur für Alte Geschichte

Institut für Klassische Altertumswissenschaften

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Universitätsplatz 12 (Robertinum)

D-06108 Halle (Saale)

Email: [e-mail]

ROBERT S. MERRILLEES

Le Mimosa

3 place de la République

89660 Mailly le Château

France

Email: [e-mail]

DEMETRIOS MICHAELIDES

Director, Archaeological Research Unit

Department of History and Archaeology

University of Cyprus

PO Box 20537

Nicosia CY1678

Cyprus

Email: [e-mail]

JOLANTA MŁYNARCZYK

Institute of Archaeology

Warsaw University

ul. Zwirki i Wigury 97/99

PL 02-098 Warszawa

Poland

Email: [e-mail]

MARIE-DOMINIQUE NENNA

Directeur de recherche CNRS

UMR 5189 HISOMA

Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée

7 rue Raulin

69007 Lyon

France

Email: [e-mail]

D. PARKS †

Department of Classics

Brock University

St Catherines, ON

L25 3AI

Canada

ISABELLE TASSIGNON

École Française d’Athènes

Didotou, 6

GR-10680 Athènes

Greece

Email: [e-mail]

FRIEDA VANDENABEELE

Professor Emeritus

Free University Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Coghensquare 38, B-1180 Brussels

Belgium

Email [e-mail]

EMILIA DINA VASSILIOU

16 Oinopeioiou St.

Anoyira, Lemesos

Cyprus 4603

Email: [e-mail]

HELEN WHITEHOUSE

Department of Antiquities

Ashmolean Museum

Oxford OX1 2PH

UK

Email: [e-mail]

Part I

The Bronze Age

edited by Robert S. Merrillees and Vasiliki Kassianidou

1. Alas(h)i(y)a (Irs) and Asiya (Isy) in Ancient Egyptian Sources

Kenneth A. Kitchen

Introductory

It was a pleasure and a privilege to be able to share in the original conference, and I only wish that I could have unveiled – with drama and panache! – some brilliant new evidence and equally brilliant assured results towards the interests that engross our deliberations. Alas, no such luck! There are a few scraps of additional data, but perhaps not enough to solve our problems definitively.

The locations and nature of the Irs and Isy of the Egyptian inscriptions have been endlessly discussed by innumerable people for well over a century now. The sole certainty that we have comes from a docket on the tablet EA 39, from the El-Amarna archive, whereon a letter from a correspondent termed explicitly King of Alashi(y)a in cuneiform is docketed in Egyptian hieratic as the Ruler of Alas(i)a.¹ For Isy, we enjoy no such help.

I am well aware of the vast antecedent bibliography, and am rather cynically unconvinced by the contents of most of it (so far as I have read in it). Mainly because the Egyptian material seems to be so ill-understood, leading to too many misconceptions of both its nature and its worth (if any, in many cases!) as of other data also. Therefore, I propose to take an entirely fresh and partly minimalist look at what we have got, and to stress both its limitations and its genuine potential (when present). Not just count heads.

Very little new, additional data on these two terms have surfaced in almost half a century since the publication of Vercoutter’s massive Egypt/Aegean volume of 1956, or even in 16 years since the lively and provocative monograph issued by our good friend, Dr. Robert Merrilees in 1987.² I owe to his great kindness the opportunity to peruse the late Professor Vercoutter’s unpublished listing of Egyptian references to Irs and Isy. I discovered only two additional references he had found that I did not have (neither of much help, alas), and that I also had two more references that he did not have (one, intriguing; the other, not). What I now propose to do compactly, is to give a critical evaluation and classification of the Egyptian and some allied data, in order to see what the realistic possibilities seem to be.

The Data on Irs

A. Chronologically

1. From the Middle Kingdom, we have one new reference, mid-12th-Dynasty, in the reign of Amenemhat II, at c. 1900 BC, being two joining slabs inscribed with an extract of the annals of his reign, in two years (year-numbers not preserved, but possibly following his accession to sole rule).³ There are three entries here, which are worth quoting in full.

In line 8, we read: Sending forth an army-force with a general of troops on (as") an expedition, to hack up Asia (Setjet) – (namely) Iw3, [and (line 9, now lost) I3sy.] Here, sending" has a ship-determinative.

In lines 16–18, we can read: "[Return of the military expedition that had been sent out] to hack up Iw3, and (to) hack up I3sy [both place-names each written inside an oval]; number of prisoners brought back from these two foreign lands:- Asiatics, 1,554." There follows a long list of loot, as follows: of bronze and wood, 10 battle-axes, 33 sickles, 12 daggers, 4 1/4 saws, 79 knives, 1 chisel, 4 razors, [x items lost, including more than 330 [of one item], 2 and 45 obscure items, 6 harpoons, and 3 plus 60 other items. Then, 646 deben-weight of copper (scrap, lit. sawn), and 125 deben of new copper. Of wood and silver, 8 staves with rings; 58 deben of (doubtfully!) amethyst, 1.25 deben of another mineral (hswd) and 1,734 deben of malachite, plus 4 plaques of ivory. Finally, various wooden items: 54 Asia vessels, and 1, 13 and 8 items of uncertain reference (which the editors rather daringly consider to be linked with chariot-parts). Not a bad haul!

In lines 25–26, we read of a grateful king’s rewards to his bold buccaneers: "Gift of rewards – (of) serfs, fields, gold (of honour), clothing, and of all (manner of) good things, to: the general of troops, the commander of levies, and the levies (themselves), who had returned from hacking up Iw3 and I3sy." A good time was had by all, unless one had lived in Iw3 and I3sy at that time!

And the point of all this? These are typical Middle-Kingdom spellings, where 3 stands for r/l. These names, as pointed out by Helck and endorsed by Quack,⁴ are in fact ‘Ura and ‘Alasiya, no less. But where were they situated? As both Helck and Quack point out, the repeated ship/boat determinatives of the word m3c to send out strongly suggest that the Egyptian force was seaborne, which flotilla would also afford relatively easy transport of troops, prisoners and loot back down to Egypt afterwards. If so, then both Alasiya and Ura had to be coastal or at least readily reached from a shoreline. In the Ancient Near East were many Uras, but only one (perhaps two) Alas(i)as. Most of the known places called Ur, Ura, Ure, Uri, etc., were well inland from the Mediterranean’s eastern seaboards – we can eliminate all those in Mesopotamia, or mere villages in northern Syria (satellites of Ebla, or Alalakh; or even Ugarit⁵), plus all in inland Anatolia. The one notable Ura that fits the case is the one situated on the south-central coast of Anatolia, either at Gelindere or else perhaps more likely about 55 km (35 miles) further east at Silifke (classical Seleucia),⁶ which seems more likely, based on its distance from Kirshu, fixed by inscriptions at Meydancikkale (cf. Lemaire, in Davesne, Lemaire and Lozachmeur 1987, 372–377). This was the Ura whence Hittite merchants had dealings with Ugarit in the 13th century BC, and was an ancient port. Thus, wherever it was situated (coast of N. Syria? S. coast of Anatolia? Cyprus?), Middle-Kingdom Alasiya had to be close enough to Ura to be an object of, and be raided by, one and the same Egyptian seaborne force. Thus, this new datum gives us our earliest Egyptian mentions of Alasia, as a land (one of these two lands twice so termed here) and perhaps having a fortified centre (by its name being enclosed in a fortification-oval, of a kind familiar in other examples from the Old Kingdom onwards). The use of the same basic name for land and town recurs in another, much later narrative, that of Wenamun some 800 years later (c. 1080 BC).⁷

2. New Kingdom, Eighteenth Dynasty. The name Alasia recurs once in Queen Hatshepsut’s time (c. 1470 BC) in a personal name, ‘Pa-Alasa’, the Alasian, of an individual man in an account of Ahmose-Peniati, an official then.⁸ Thereafter, at present ‘Alasia’ remains unattested for about 120 years until the accession of Amenophis IV (c. 1353 BC). Within that period, we have the mentions of Isy under Tuthmosis III, see below. In his great Syrian toponym-list, an Irs – spelt differently from the usual Alas(i)a (with bolt s instead of quiver-lid s) – is attested. But this seems to be some village in inland northern Syria, not the coastal Alasia that we are concerned with. The series of Amarna letters EA 33–39 was sent to Egypt under Amenophis IV (Akhenaten) by an anonymous King of Alashiya, No. 39 bearing the Egyptian docket that equates Egyptian Irs with Alas(h)ia, as noted above. These letters do not tell us anything much about the location of their Alashia. Its king sends hundreds of talents of copper to the pharaoh; but such copper is not unique to Cyprus (as once imagined),⁹ hence such allusions cannot prove that Alashia was Cyprus; – copper occurred in the Anatolian hinterland, and was traded mainly internally up at Kanesh in Old-Assyrian times (early 2nd millennium BC).¹⁰ Much more to the point is the complaint by the King of Alashia (EA 38:7–12), Year by year the men of Lukki seize villages in my country. This could only be the case in two situations: the two lands shared a common border, or else the Lukku were sea-raiders who could range more widely. The Lukku were the precursors of later Lycia, based in the south-west ‘bulge’ of Anatolia. Therefore, if it and Alasia had a shared border on land, then Alasia itself would have to have been located either between Lycia and the mountainous zone eastwards dividing it from Kizzuwatna (plains Cilicia), or else west of Lycia, in later Caria and just north-east and east of such islands as Rhodes and Kos respectively. However, the Lukku people eventually ranged far beyond later Lycia, as far as ancient Libya (just west of the Egyptian Delta), joining with the Libyan/Sea-People attack on Egypt in Merenptah’s 5th year (c. 1209 BC), and through the Levant, down to the edge of Egypt’s East Delta in the Sea-People attack in the 8th year of Ramesses III (c. 1177 BC). So, if Alasia had been in Rhodes, or Cyprus, or coastal north Syria, it would still have been open to over-sea attack on its settlements; the question remains open, nach wie vor.

Fig. 1.1. The Aegean area, Anatolia, North Syria, Middle to Late Bronze Age.

One other item of importance in these few letters is the political status of the King of Alashia vis-à-vis the pharaoh of Egypt. He actually greets the pharaoh – wealthiest and most prestigious monarch of the time – as Brother, just as did the kings of Hatti, Babylon, and Mitanni (if not Arzawa). Not for him, the snivelling, grovelling in the dust: my lord, I am the mere dirt under your feet, I flatten myself in obeisance 7 times each on my back and my belly kind of talk! Not here. Thus, below the capstone of the international, social pyramid – the Great Kings who actually ruled empires of vassals – our Alashian monarch rated the next highest rank, as an independent ruler of a fully-fledged independent realm, not a snivelling vassal-state or – status. This contrasts massively with the whole line of East-Mediterranean petty kingdoms the full length of Phoenicia and coastal Canaan, from big, wealthy Ugarit in the north, via Sumur, Beirut, Byblos, Sidon, Tyre (no less), Accho, down to Ascalon – all of these gentlemen grovel uniformly, repeatedly, always at a diplomatic level far below Alashia and the other higher kingdoms just mentioned above. As do many others inland, to both Egypt and Hatti.

Quite the contrary. In more recent finds from Ugarit at the house of Ourtenou, finds included actual cuneiform letters (in diplomatic Akkadian, just as to Egypt) by a king of Alashia, and named for the first time: Kushmashusha see Malbran-Labat in Yon et al., 1995, 445). What is crucial for us is that he addresses the king of big, wealthy Ugarit as his son, which is 14th/13th-century diplomatic-speak when addressing a ruler of inferior rank. So, again, Alashia is shown to have been politically superior to Ugarit and its Levantine contemporaries (other than the kingdom of Amurru, of same level of rank). Alasia is very clearly not a minor power ruling a postage-stamp sized patch of real estate, but a proper state; independent, but not a Great-King empire. That should affect our judgement on where to put it (cf. below.) The same Ourtenou file makes mention also of Alashian copper [but context not yet stated; Malbran-Labat in Yon et al., 1995, 449)]. Among the other treasures of Ourtenou’s house is a clay bulla, double-sided, with a seal-impression on one face, and two Cypro-Minoan signs on the other (Yon et al., 1995, 440 with fig. 7a/b). Like previous finds of this script at Ugarit, it indicates contact with Cyprus; but not the latter’s identity with Alashia, of course. The name Kushmashusha is very intriguing; scrutiny of appropriate onomatological reference-works would suggest that it is neither Egyptian, nor Semitic (West, East or South), nor Hittite/Luwian, nor Hurrian. Minoan is unknown; I perhaps should not be so mischievous as to pretend it might be Mycenaean Greek (*Kosmassos?? A Mycenean Ko-sa-ma-to [just conceivably a Konsmatos, or cf. later Kosmetes, a title of Zeus, Ventris & Chadwick, 1956, 420b) might be symptomatic of such a possibility. In any case, local rulers of such West-Anatolian settlements as Miletus (Milawata), Ephesos, (Apasa), Lesbos (Lazpa), or Taruisa/Wilusa (Troy/(W)ilion, despite ill-informed detractors) might also have borne Mycenaean-Greek names – so, such a name proves nothing for the location of Alasia in itself.

3. The Ramesside Sources, 13th to beginning of 12th centuries BC. Here, quality-wise, things change radically. Among scribal training-texts (the so-called ‘Late-Egyptian Miscellanies’), the lavish preparations for Pharaoh’s arrival, doubtless back at his palace, list endless supplies including: "incense, sweet moringa-oil, djefet-oil of Alasia, finest qedjur-oil of Hatti, ineb-oil of Alasia, nikaftir-oil of Sangar [Babylonia] and so on; then later, many ingots of raw copper and bars of lead(?) are the neck(s) of the youngsters of Alasia as gifts for His Majesty".¹¹ Copper from Alasia is familiar to us; but oils also appear in the letter EA 34 end; incense, of course, is a luxury substance traded around far from its ultimate source. However, geography gains nothing here. Nor do the topographical lists of foreign countries do us any good at this juncture; Alasia in its normal spelling appears just once in a short, general, heraldic list of Sethos I out at Kanais temple in Egypt’s eastern desert, south from Thebes. After the traditional Nine Bows, the list gives the ‘big boys’ – Hatti, Naharin (=Mitanni), Alasia, before turning to Phoenician and Canaanite places, and then mixed northern Syrian/southeast Anatolian inland names, again Naharin, and Isy (Asiya) in the middle of these.¹² This kind of list mixes sets of distant names considered to be subject to the pharaoh’s influence with more realistic blocs of names (more local!) of places actually subject (or, subjected) to him. And finally here, in recording the eastward then southward advance of the Sea Peoples, Ramesses III’s Year 8 text remarks No land could stand against their arms, beginning from Hatti – (even) Qode (and) Carchemish, Arzawa and Alasia, cut off…, then down south to Amurru, and to Egypt. Apart from being associated with Anatolian and Syrian areas, this does not locate Alasia with any accuracy. At the end of the 20th Dynasty, Wenamun was said to have been shipwrecked on the shore of the land of Alasia, and was grilled by the local queen of the town. So, Alasia had a coastline in 1080 BC as in 1900.

4. Finally, later sources. From Vercoutter’s notes I learned that in the 7th century BC, Taharqa of the Kushite 25th Dynasty dedicated 10 Alasia vessels in a temple;¹³ this illustrates the survival of the name in Egyptian records, but does no more for East-Mediterranean geography than Bombay Duck for that of India. And the Graeco-Roman sources are a thousand years after our main sources, and cannot be demonstrated to show independent accuracy on faraway places of long, long ago.

B. Qualitative Summary

From all this, we find (Middle Kingdom) that an Egyptian seaborne force could raid in one swoop both Ura (west of Cilicia) and Alasiya. Amarna epistolary evidence has Lukku raiders (from Lycia) impinging on Alasian villages. If over a common border and remembering Alasia’s old link with Ura, then Alasia (if Anatolian) should best be sought between Lycia and and Ura, perhaps in coastal terrain inland of the Atalya bay (coastal Pamphylia) between the two. If Lukka sea-raiding abilities be kept in mind (Libya and with later Sea Peoples), then Cyprus is possible, or in theory northern Syro-Phoenicia. Copper is brought from Alasia; but we now know it had no monopoly of the stuff.

It is important to observe that, in a rigidly-stratified diplomatic ‘pecking-order’, Alashiya ‘s king could greet the Pharaoh of Egypt as Brother on almost top-level terms – no groveller, he, under the dust of the pharaoh’s feet! This does bespeak a more substantive regime than one of the long series of lesser kingdoms in Syria or festooning the Levantine coast from Ugarit to Ascalon. But more comparable with (e.g.) Arzawa, Wilusa, and so on.

A further point is that we never read of any Hittite imperial army marching overland to or into Alasia; neither did Tuthmosis III reach it while roving round Aleppo and Carchemish (not to mention travelling up the Phoenician coast). The sole imperial Hittite conflict involving Alasia (under Suppiluliuma II) involved a sea-battle; if Alasia had been anywhere in northern Syria (not to mention Anatolia), it could not possibly have escaped the military attentions of Suppiluliuma I and his successors, any more than did Ugarit, Niya, Nuhasse, Alalakh, Carchemish, Qadesh, that had to become (at least for a time) subjects, clients or land-based foes of the Hittite great kings; cf. (e.g.) the list of their allies against Ramesses II of Egypt at Qadesh. This aspect throws in doubt attempts to lodge Alasia on mainland Syro-Phoenicia or coastal Anatolia, and would be better served by an Alasia in Cyprus or Rhodes; not Crete, which (on total data) is really best left Cretan. But our inquest is not yet complete, so we must not draw final conclusions yet.

The Data on Isy

A. Chronologically

1. This term appears in non-list contexts almost entirely limited to the reign of Tuthmosis III. The only narrative reports are the sending of diplomatic gifts by the Ruler of Isy to Tuthmosis III as listed in his prosaic Annals in his Year 34 (c. 1445 BC), Year 38 (c. 1441 BC) and Year 39 (c. 1440 BC). Such gifts were sent by distant Assyria in Years 24 (c. 1456 BC), 33 along with Babylon and Hatti (c. 1447), and 41 by Hatti (c. 1440). In the 15th and early 14th centuries BC, none of these powers was supreme in any way. In Anatolia, we find Arzawa’s king Tarkhundaradu going so far as to try making a marriage-alliance with Egypt (EA 31–32), not only Alasia engaging in diplomatic intercourse. In that area, local main powers still jostled for advantage, before the emergence of Suppiluliuma I versus Mitanni; Egypt was seen as a possible counterweight by some actors in this drama. So, we have two options for Isy, vocalisable as Asiya. Either (as some think) it was a variant term for Alasi(y)a, with omission of the first syllable, and the two entities are but one.¹⁴ Or else, it was a separate bit-player that engaged with Egypt for a while, and then sank from her sight, becoming only a bureaucratic and literary memory. In his Poetical Stela, this king placed Isy in the West, along with Keftiu/Crete.¹⁵

Hence the two camps that would make of Asiya either another form of name for Alasia (especially when thought to be Cyprus), or else an entity in Anatolia (Cyprus or no Cyprus).

2. The Ramesside Period. Our one other literary example is in the Cairo Love-poems, II, §4, Happy is the land of Asi{b}ya, and blessed is its product, exhibiting the introduction of a false b, but not naming the ‘product’ in the writer’s mind.¹⁶ This spelling is a forerunner of the deviant spellings of the Graeco-Roman period, but in itself it offers no further clue to Alasia’s geographical location.

Otherwise, the term Isy recurs only in formal, non-informative topographical lists, under kings Sethos I and Ramesses II. The lists XIII and XIV of Sethos I have Asiya merely lumped in between Syrian Qatna and the obscure Mennus. For Ramesses II, a Memphis fragment has Asiya, then Naharina [=Mitanni], Hatti, a few Syrian places and Libyan Meshwesh. At Karnak Pylon IX, we have the same as for Sethos I, (as did Ramesses III later, in his list XXX) while at Karnak South Wall, XXIV, we find Asiya grotesquely sandwiched between the Mentiu-folk of Asia and Nubian Shidjtum! While at Abydos, Asiya comes between Keftiu and Nubian Shaat! None of these occurrences has anything significant to tell us about Asiya, especially geographically. The List of Mineral Regions (at Luxor, Ramesses II) cites as the 21st and 22nd entries the Mount of Asiya and the Mount of Alasia, after the Mount of Turquoise (=Sinai, 2nd occurrence), and preceding the Mounts of Hatti, Babylon and Keftiu/Crete. Both are credited with offering silver and copper to the king. Again, unless any weight be placed on the proximity of Hatti, we gain nothing here. By now, Asiya in Egyptian records served merely poetic and heraldic purposes, to adorn poetry, and to share in exhibiting a world ambience for Egypt’s prestige. The geographical input is close to zero with these items in the dossier.¹⁷

3. The later periods. Isy and its corrupt derivatives recur in the Graeco-Roman period. By themselves, they can decide nothing for periods of a thousand years before. If Asiya proved to be, or be in, Cyprus, then Graeco-Roman scribal usage in that direction would have guessed right or received a tradition correctly. If Asiya were not in Cyprus but somewhere else, then they got it wrong (along with a few more entities). I thus need comment no further here on what has been discussed ad nauseam already.

B. Qualitative Summary

Here, we have much less to go on, than for Alasia itself. It might well have been a short-lived variant for (Al)asiya under Tuthmosis III, which later lodged in tradition, and was then later wrongly perceived as a separate location; hence its occasional presence in the same lists as Alasiya. The references under Tuthmosis III give us no clear geographical hint in his Annals, while Asiya’s attribution to the West in his great triumph-hymn is consistent with anything embracing any of Cyprus, Rhodes, Kos, or southern Anatolia. The rare separate occurrences of Alasia and Asiya in the later lists tempts one to posit an original separate existence (which I have previously preferred, but am unable to prove). In turn, this has led long since to comparisons of Asiya with East-Anatolian Isuwa within the Murad Su and NW Euphrates, and much more likely with the Assuwa of Western Anatolia, embracing a sweep of territory going south from Wilusa via Arzawa, etc., towards Lycia and Caria. The only initial objection to equating Asiya with Assuwa is the y/w interchange, but this need not be fatal.¹⁸ But in the Hittite archives, nobody is ever King of Assuwa – it is a wide region, not a state. Therefore, to interpret Isy as deriving from *asiya is safest. A misinterpretation by an Egyptian scribe, of cuneiform mat Alasiya as mat al(u) Asiya is the likeliest source (despite Quack); Egypt’s dealings with cuneiform probably began only from Tuthmosis III. Thus, Asiya in Egyptian could be a state separate from (Al)asiya, but there is no evidence for this.

Provisional Overall Conclusions

My provisional conclusions are two fold: the location of Alasi(y)a either in Cyprus (or, Rhodes?) or in adjoining mainland Anatolia or north Syro-Phoenicia cannot yet be finally proved without fresh and more decisive evidence. Nor can we finally prove (so far) whether Asiya (Isy) = Alasia (wherever placed), or not. Within that overall situation, some nuances may be equally provisionally offered. There is realistically neither physical nor hierarchical room for an Alasia in northern Syro-Phoenicia, jammed in amongst Ugarit, Arvad, Simyra, Ullaza, and all the way south to Tyre (cf. maps in Marfoe, 2000, 6–7). Nor is there adequate room for such a kingdom in inland Syria: we have Aleppo and Carchemish in the north, then Alalakh, Niy, Nuhasse and Qadesh in the centre, with Upe/Damascus south of these cf., e.g., the map in Helck, 1971, 309), and no room beyond these, as we reach Canaan and Transjordan. Alasia was a full kingdom which, in the 14th century BC, could discuss on nearly equal terms with the pharaohs (a king with a great king); its king did not grovel on his face like the long line of Phoenician harbourmaster rulers, from Ugarit to Ascalon, and along with inland Levantine rulers either. No armies of Tuthmosis III or Amenophis II entered Alasia, as they did other seaports on that long coast.

If placed in Anatolia, then Alasia should be located between the Lukku (Lycia) on its west (village-raids by the latter) and Ura to eastwards (could be spoiled together on a Middle-Kingdom Egyptian raid). But further study of the ancient topography here since my original presentation now makes this solution as impractical as the Levant one. Recent studies have clarified the late-2nd-millennium geography of southern and western Anatolia quite dramatically; cf. Otten, 1988, 36–38; Hawkins, 1995, 52–53; Hawkins, [2000], 144–146; Easton, Hawkins et al., 2002, 94–96 with fig. 11; etc.). It thus emerges that the kingdom of Tarhuntassa occupied the whole region of southernmost Anatolia from the mountains bordering on the plains of Cilicia (then, Kizzuwatna; later Que/Huwe) in the east, and extending west to the river Kastraya, classical Kestros (modern Ak Su, formerrly Isparta), across which river to its immediate west lies Hittite Parha, classical Perge. At this point, we are in Lycia/Lukku (identity, Poetto, 1993, 75–82); and there is no room for a further full-blown ancient state at this point between Tarhuntassa and Lukku. So, the Lukku raiders would indeed have raided oversea to attack villages of Alasia.

Moreover, if placed in Anatolia, Alasia – very curiously – was never molested by any imperial Hittite army marching into it overland; virtually everybody else in Anatolia was, at one time or another, in the considerable run of Hittite records. The only conflict involving the place in those records is a naval battle under Suppiluliuma II (could he not have marched there dryfoot?) So, perhaps Alasia was on an island, after all. Not Crete; the data for that being Kaptara/Keftiu is perfectly good enough. Rhodes is available – or was it the Tanayu of Egyptian lists, on somewhat circumstancial evidence (cf. Edel, 1966, 37, 53–55)? Or … should we be prepared to admit it might have been Cyprus after all? I can see no clear evidence against this (the Lukka were sea-raiders, not just land rustlers; the Middle Kingdom Egyptian raiders could easily have called at both (eastern?) Cyprus and Ura). I know of no clear, contrary, first-hand evidence against it. It is a viable thesis, but not a certainty at this stage. And what about Apollo Alasiotes? He is a two-edged sword; he could have been worshipped in Cyprus because he and it were Alasiote (as many have suggested). But a visitor to Cyprus might have chosen to honour there his own home deity Apollo Alasiotes (wherever that really was…) in the foreign land of Cyprus (as some have suggested).

So, on textual evidence alone, we cannot yet prove where Alasia was situated; but as Syro-Phoenicia and southern Anatolia are now both excluded by being filled-up already with known, locatable states (and no sufficient room for a ‘continental’ Alasia), then our options are now severely limited. If it is not Cyprus, what other island could have supported a politically important kingdom? Rhodes is already probably getting too far west to combine with a raid on Ura (Silifke); and it may well be Tanayu anyway. Crete is far too far away, and is Kaptara/Kaphtor/Keftiu beyond any except frivolous ‘doubts’. With Kos, Samos, Chios, etc., we are (again) getting unrealistically too far away to combine with a raid on Ura/Silifke, and these are too small and remote to have been the base of a kingdom of Alasi(y)a’s politcal status. Thus, by elimination and new geographical understandings, Cyprus (or part of it) is left as probably the least-objectionable solution. In a way, I am sad I cannot find another really preferable option for my friend Robert Merrilees; but even if (some day) absolutely irrefutable evidence that Alasia is (on) Cyprus were finally to appear, it can justly be said that his trim, businesslike monograph of 1987 will always remain an enduringly valid critique of all the wrong (or fudged!) reasons hitherto offered for that equation.

And Isy/Asiya? If it is the same as Alasia (abbreviated form) – which is probably the safest solution – then it goes with it, as just above. But if it were different, then it would be best placed as a swathe of terrain from north to south, from the edges of Wilusa down to Lukka (bordering on an Antalya Alasia), the same as Assuwa and its successor the original ‘Asia’. More I cannot offer you. Sorry! Go find it/them!

Notes

1 Last edition in English (with previous references), see W. L. Moran (1992, 112).

2 See Merrillees (1987); J. Vercoutter (1956) is a very detailed conspectus.

3 Basic publication, Altenmüller and Moussa (1991), 1–48.

4 W. Helck, 1989, 27–30; J. F. Quack, 1996, 75–81.

5 See the convenient list of Uras (with references), given by A. R. Millard (2001). For the Ugaritian Ura, some 50 km (40 miles) east of the Orontes (and over 100 km (65 miles) from the Mediterranean coast!), see M. Astour (1995, 68, §VII end [Ura = Tell Ura], with map, p. 56).

6 For Gelindere, see R. H. Beal (1992); for Silifke, see A. Lemaire, (1993/94), and earlier in Davesne, Lemaire, Lozachmeur (1987).

7 Of Wenamun, many translations exist; cf. (e.g.) Lichtheim (1976, 224–230, cf. 229). In the Near East, slightly later mentions of Alasia (as Alashum) occur in the Mari texts (18th century BC), reported by G. Dossin (1939, 111): Alashian copper; cf.: copper of the mountain of Alashum. However, the Mari occurrences seem to give no geographical indications for locating Alashum. Nor an Old-Babylonian occurrence, Millard 1973.

8 Papyrus BM 10104 verso, col. 2:2, published by Glanville (1928, 311, fig. 2).

9 See long since, Merrilees, (1987, 53), after the Gales’ analyses (source not cited).

10 For the Old-Assyrian copper trade in and around Kanesh, cf. (e.g.) P. Garelli (1963, 294–298, cf. 176–178); Larsen (1976, 91–92) citing large quantities handled; for copper sources in Anatolia, cf. briefly Moorey (1994, 246–247).

11 Papyrus Anastasi IV, Recto 15:1–3 and 17:7–8; good translation R. A. Caminos (1954, 200, 201).

12 List XV in J. Simons’ compilation (1937, 145:12); text now in Kitchen, (1969, 33–34, §13:12); translation, Kitchen, (1993a, 27), along with relevant notes (Kitchen, 1993b, 36–37). We can now add my second ‘new’ reference, under Ramesses II at Aksha (Serra West) temple in Nubia (cf. Kitchen, 1996, 71, §50(a), (ii), a, No. 3): Naharina, Hatti, Al[asia?], then Babylonia and Levantine places.

13 Text published (Kawa Stela VI:2) by M. F. L. Macadam, The Temples of Kawa, I, Oxford, 1949, 34, 37 n.8, and pl. 11.

14 So latterly, Quack, 1996.

15 Last translation in full, Kitchen (1999, 170/171, §4). Position against Asiya being Alasia (and Cyprus), see W. Helck, 1983, 29–36, favouring an Anatolian location for Asiya (as Assuwa).

16 Translation, in Kitchen, 1999, 388/389, 4th stanza.

17 For all these lists, in translation, see Kitchen, 1993a,b (Sethos I), 1996 (Ramesses II), plus 1999a, 71, for XXIV) and 2008 (Ramesses III), ad locc.

18 Discussion of w/y interchange, in the context of Asiya = Assuwa = Asia, cf. long since, H. Bossert, 1946, 69 and passim.

Bibliography

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Astour, M., 1995, La topographie du royaume d’Ougarit, in M. Yon, M. Sznycer, P. Bordreuil (eds), Le pays d’Ougarit autour de 1200 av. J.-C., Ras-Shamra-Ougarit XI, 68, §VII end (Ura = Tell Ura), with map, p. 56. Paris.

Beal, R. H., 1992, The Location of Cilician Ura, Anatolian Studies 42, 65–73.

Bossert, H, 1946, Asia. Istanbul/Ancona. 1946.

Caminos, R. A., 1954, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies. London.

Davesne, A., Lemaire A. and Lozachmeur, H., 1987, Le site archéologique de Meydancikkale (Turquie): du royaume de Pirindu à la garnison ptolémaique, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, année 1987, avril-juin, 359–383.

Dossin, G., 1939, Les Archives économiques du Palais de Mari, Syria 20, 97–113.

Easton, D. F., Hawkins, J. D., Sherratt, A. G. and Sherratt, E. S., 2002, Troy in Recent Persective, Anatolian Studies, 52, 75–110.

Edel, E., 1966, Die Ortsnamenlisten aus dem Totentempel Amenophis III. Bonner Biblische Beiträge, 25. Bonn.

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Glanville, S. R. K., 1928, The Letters of Aahmose of Peniati, JEA 14, 294–312, Pls 30–35.

Hawkins, J. D., 1995, The Hieroglyphic Inscription of the Sacred Pool Complex at Hattusa (Südburg). Studien zu den Bogazköy-Texten, Beiheft 3. Wiesbaden.

Hawkins, J. D., [2000], Anatolia: The End of the Hittite Empire and After, in E. A. Braun-Holzinger and H. Matthäus (eds), Die nahöstlichen Kulturen und Griechenland an der Wende vom 2. zum 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. Kolloquium, Mainz, 11.–12. Dezember 1998. Möhnesee-Wamel: Bibliopolis.

Helck, W., 1971, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr., 2nd edition. Wiesbaden.

Helck, W., 1983, Asija, Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache 110, 29–36.

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Kitchen, K. A., 1969, Ramesside Inscriptions, I. Oxford.

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Kitchen, K. A., 1993b, Ramesside Inscriptions, Translated & Annotated, Notes & Comments, I. Oxford.

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2. Peuples, États et cités. Enquête sur la cartographie géopolitique égyptienne

Nicolas Grimal

Il n’est guère facile d’établir de façon assurée les relationsque l’Égypte a pu entretenir avec ses voisins, que ce soit avant le deuxième millénaire, pendant celui-ci ou après. Même si, dans des zones fréquentées depuis longtemps parles Égyptiens, comme la Syro-Palestine ou, de façon plus générale, le Levant, les témoignages directs semblent abonder, les discussions, parfois âpres, qui agitent le monde des Orientalistes depuis plus d’une génération à ce sujet, montrent assez que l’évidence est mince. Sans entrer dans certaines outrances réductrices à l’excès, force est de constater que les témoignages avérés de relations, voire de présence sont moins nombreux qu’on ne pourrait le supposer.¹

Rares sont, en effet, les documents découverts dans un contexte archéologique chronologiquement assuré. Rares également, pour ce qui est du matériel dit « égyptien », les objets qui proviennent réellement de la vallée du Nil et ne sont pas des copies ou des réinterprétations levantines, elles-mêmes souvent tributaires d’ateliers d’inspiration égyptienne, voire tout simplement d’évolutions technologiques.² Bien des « filtres » s’interposent ainsi, rendant délicate l’évaluation de rapports ou d’influences directes. Et ce, dans un environnement géographique et politique riche de la rencontre des divers empires et royaumes qui tous, de l’Asie mineure à la Mésopotamie, ont laissé leurs traces au fil des siècles sur les rivages de la Méditerranée orientale.

Chypre en offre une image quasi emblématique. Fort peu de production proprement égyptienne, mais d’une qualité si remarquable que l’on ne peut s’empêcher de supposer, au travers d’objets comme la bague découverte à Dihma, dont le chaton est orné du cartouche de Thoutmosis III, l’important matériel d’Enkomi, partiellement aux noms d’Amenhotep IV et Tiy, la cippe d’Horus trouvée à Kition-Bamboula ou le vase au nom d’Amasis, pour ne prendreque ces exemples, des relations directes d’État à État.³ Ces relations dont témoignent à leur tour les traces laissées parle commerce avec l’Égypte⁴ ou les échanges de correspondance de l’archive diplomatique d’Amarna,⁵ mais que l’archéologie ne vient pas confirmer de façon indiscutable. Les échanges économiques de Chypre et du Levant avec les grands centres égyptiens sont toutefois de mieux en mieux connus, grâce aux progrès des études de céramique ces trente dernières années. Et leur importance quantitative⁶ confirme largement le schéma historique généralement admis.

La présence ou non de Chypre dans les documents égyptiens fournit un bon exemple des difficultés auxquelles se heurte l’exploitation de ces sources. En amont des problèmes que soulève l’identification proprement dite des toponymes qu’elles livrent, et qui est essentiellement fonction des données rencontrées dans des sources non égyptiennes susceptibles de corroborer celles-ci, figure la simple lecture des toponymes. Ceux-ci ont été transcrits leplus souvent phonétiquement par les Égyptiens, qui n’avaient pas nécessairement accès à des sources indigènes sur lesquelles fonder leur propre lecture.

Pour cette simple transcription, les Égyptiens ont dû adapter leur propre mode d’écriture, de façon à noter des phonèmes pour lesquels ils ne possédaient pas toujours d’équivalent. La méthodologie s’est construite au fur et à mesure des besoins, jusqu’à produire un système cohérent de transcription, fondé sur l’écriture syllabique, mais dont nous ne possédons pas forcément toutes les clefs.⁷ Ce processus s’est développé essentiellement au long du deuxième millénaire av. J.-C., c’est-à-dire à l’époque où l’Égypte s’est trouvée confrontée aux réalités d’un Proche-Orient auquel elle s’ouvrait, tout autant que celui-ci l’atteignait. Autant dire qu’il n’est pas toujours facile d’identifier avec certitude, sur une aussi longue durée, d’éventuelles variantes d’un même toponyme, susceptible lui-même d’avoir évolué ou de jouer d’homonymies oud’assonances peu perceptibles pour les Égyptiens.⁸

C’est une des raisons qui entretiennent la controverse autour du nom supposé de Chypre dans les documents égyptiens, même dans des contextes qui lui semblent particulièrement appropriés. La relation fragmentaire de la campagne menée par Amenemhat II aux pays de ἰwA et ἰ(A)sy, contenue dans l’inscription historique de Memphis⁹ paraît fournir un parfait premier écho aux textes scolaires ramessides, pour lesquels Alašia est nécessairement associée au cuivre comme à l’huile et au bétail – tous produits chypriotes par excellence. Par ses objectifs: s’assurer d’importantes quantités de cuivre au terme d’une expédition maritime. Par le nom même de ce pays :¹⁰ les déterminatifs employés semblent même le désigner comme une île,¹¹ qui plus est, peut-être, montagneuse. Ce document pourrait bien ainsi régler définitivement la question de la nature géographique du pays d’Alašia. S’il s’agit bien d’une île et que l’on admet que ἰrś des sources égyptiennes est bien Alašia des textes hittites, de Ras Shamra et de Tell el-Amarna, et que Alašia = Chypre, des positions comme celle de Robert S. Merrillees deviennent, naturellement, difficiles à tenir.¹²

Cette apparente évidence n’a pas manqué d’être remise en cause. Zofia Stos-Gale, par exemple, ne voit aucuneraison économique valable pour laquelle les Égyptiens seraient allés chercher à Chypre le cuivre qu’ils pouvaient trouver en Nubie,¹³ alors que Chypre est plus naturellement le partenaire de la Crète en la matière.¹⁴ De même, le passage d’Ounamon, qui constitue l’un des principaux arguments en faveur de Chypre, n’est pas absolument probant.¹⁵ Aucune source directe ne confirmant l’équation Alašia = Chypre,¹⁶ tout dépend de l’idée que l’on se fait de l’aire géographique des relations extérieures des pharaons au deuxième millénaire av. J.-C.¹⁷ Il est clair que sur de telles bases, et en attendant une hypothétique mention in situ, toute apparition du nom dans les sources égyptiennes officielles – déjà suspectes, pour certains, par leur seule nature de détourner la réalité au profit de la phraséologie¹⁸ – pourra être révoquée en doute.

Même s’il paraît un peu rapide d’accepter quasi sans discussion l’équation Alašia = Chypre,¹⁹ certaines des études présentées dans ce congrès montrent qu’il y a là une forte probabilité.²⁰ Le document d’Amenemhat II évoqué plus haut apporte un autre élément important: il assure la connexion entre ἰrś et ἰsy. Connexion ou identité? Toutes les hypothèses ont été envisagées, de l’un à l’autre nom, jusqu’à considérer que le second ne serait qu’une forme plus « administrative » du premier, lui, plus « littéraire ».²¹

Avant d’évoquer l’emploi de ces deux toponymes dans les documents officiels égyptiens, une remarque s’impose. Ils sont mentionnés essentiellement dans des sources du Nouvel Empire. On pourrait s’étonner que, le rapport d’Ounamon mis à part, pratiquement plus aucune source égyptienne ne les mentionne après le tournant du premier millénaire, alors que Chypre est loin de disparaître de la scène politique à cette époque.

La raison en est probablement à chercher dans le fait quel’Égypte du premier millénaire n’est plus en mesure de tenir au Proche-Orient le rôle qu’elle jouait au deuxième millénaire. Le retour à une quasi partition de fait entre Hauteet Basse Égypte dès la fin de la XXe dynastie ouvre unelongue parenthèse que seuls les Éthiopiens seront en mesure de combler les premiers. Et encore les Assyriens ne leur en laissèrent-ils guère le temps. La seule liste politique qui nous soit parvenue de cette époque est celle de Taharqa.²² Même dans ce cas, le doute est permis: la nature même de cette liste, fortement dérivée des modèles d’Horemheb, ne s’inscrit probablement pas dans la tradition classique de Taharqa comme roi conquérant.²³ Mais cela n’exclut pas d’éventuelles listes dans les monuments soudanais de la dynastie kouchite. Les récentes découvertes de Charles Bonnet à Kerma ou celles de Timothy Kendal ont, en effet, montré que nous sommes loin de connaître toute la documentation soudanaise.

Ramsès III est le dernier souverain égyptien à avoir fait rédiger des listes de peuples qui ne soient pas exclusivement militaires. Celle que Sheshonq fit graver, en effet, à l’extrême ouest du mur extérieur sud de la salle hypostyle de Karnak²⁴ ne décrit guère plus que les campagnes militaires qu’il a menées en Syro-Palestine, même si elle s’ouvre sur la séquence traditionnelle des Neuf Arcs.²⁵

Ces listes montrent les constantes et l’évolution des relations géopolitiques, du moins telles que les Égyptiens les percevaient. L’exemple de Babylone (bbr) et de la Babylonie (sngr) à Soleb (Fig. 2.10) – pour prendre un cas qui nous rapproche des attestations d’Alašia du milieu du deuxième millénaire –, est intéressant de ce point de vue. Surtout si on le compare aux documents contemporains du règne d’Amen hotep III,²⁶ tout particulièrement aux archives d’Amar na. Les échanges épistolaires entre Kadashman-Enlil et Amenhotep III sont considérés comme les premièresattestations de vrais échanges diplomatiques entre États, même si tous les commentateurs modernes restent frappés de l’inégalité de leur ton.²⁷ Une fois la part de la phraséologie faite,²⁸ il est intéressant de comparer, de ce point de vue, la situation de Babylone dans les listes de Soleb et les récriminations de son roi.²⁹ Mais peut-on parvenir à des résultats comparables pour Chypre?

Alašia apparaît essentiellement à cette époque dans les listes de peuples. Celles que Séthi Ier a fait figurer sur les socles des deux sphinx qu’il a adossés au premier pylône de son temple funéraire de Gourna³⁰ lui accordent une place, sur laquelle il est intéressant de s’arrêter.³¹ Ces deux sphinx se font face, fournissant deux listes parallèles de peuples.

a. Sphinx nord

La liste s’ouvre sur les Neuf Arcs, comme il se doit, décrivant ainsi en ce que l’on pourrait appeler un « premier cercle »: l’oikouménè dans laquelle va s’ins crire l’énumération:

Dans le