Page 182 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LEVANT IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C.

Levantines, show themselves adhering to the proper rules, for the chariot-hunt had a
social, a symbolical significance. Introduced by the Mitarmi it was a knightly sport, the
prerogative of kings and nobles. Its wide distribution through the ancient world illus­
trates well the cosmopolitan character of the Mitamiian era - cosmopolitan in the sense
that intercourse between countries was easy and stimulating, yet national individuality
was everywhere preserved.

The Hittite and Ramessid Era (1360-1150 b.c.)

The prosperity of the period we have just discussed rested upon the stability which the
Mitamiian kingdom had brought to north Syria. The Hittites were confined to Asia
Minor. With Egypt - after initial conflict - relations were friendly. From about 1450 b.c.
the alliance was sealed by the entrance of Mitamiian princesses into the households of
successive Pharaohs. The combined powers were unassailable. Under Amenhotep III
(1405-1370 b.c.) no Syrian expeditions - not even military displays - were deemed
necessary. Under his son Akhenaten a false sense of security led to disaster. Dushratta of
Mitanni provoked the Hittites by advancing towards the Taurus; when they struck,
Akhenaten did not act. He was absorbed in his religious reforms which imposed a solar
monotheism upon an unwilling people, and he gave little attention to Asiatic develop­
ments.
At first die prestige of Egypt induced caution. Mitanni was destroyed, the country as
far south as Aleppo and Alalakli occupied, yet the Hittites avoided a direct conflict with
Egypt. But they fostered intrigues and terrorism among die Egyptian vassals who, in
the absence of support, increasingly transferred their allegiance.71 About 1360 b.c. the
great Hittite king Suppiluliumas marched south. In campaigns extended through five
years he subjugated the whole of Syria.
Egypt could not attempt to regain her position in Asia before internal order had been
restored. Akhenaten’s second successor, Tutankhamen, abolished the religious reform;
two reigns later Seti I (1318-1298 b.c.) initiated the reconquest of Palestine and Syria,
and a new equilibrium was established when his son Ramses II (1298-1232 b.c.) con­
cluded in 1273 b.c. a peace treaty with the Hittite king Hattusilis, in which he abandoned
his claims to the regions north of the Lebanon. Henceforth the art of Palestine and south­
ern Syria was dominated by Egypt, but a corresponding Hittite influence in the north
cannot be observed. For Hittite art was feeble outside the capital and without tradition.
The north Syrians continued to work in the hybrid styles established in the Mitannian
era. But the Aegean element in these styles became stronger than it had ever been.
During the thirteenth century b.c. Aegeans were everywhere along the coasts of
Anatolia and the Levant; the tombs found at Minet el Beida, the port of Ras Shanira,
are almost as strongly Mycenaean (Late Helladic III) in character as those of Rhodes or
Cyprus.
Once.again the ivory carvings reflect most clearly the mingling influences. We have
cited them before, for the same purpose (p. 131 above), and it is a mere accident that
the examples from the Mitannian era are fewer and smaller than those we can now
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