CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
RELATIONS BETWEEN
BABYLONIA AND THE LEVANT
DURING THE KASSITE PERIOD
P. S. Vermaak
INTRODUCTIONT
he relations between Babylonia and the Levant^1 during the Kassite period have
to be understood within the larger cultural context of the Ancient Near East.
While this period is richly documented across the whole geographical region,^2
specifically Babylonian texts are in short supply.^3 Therefore the entire scenario in the
Ancient Near East should be taken into consideration in order to determine the
particular relations between the Levant and Babylonia.
This larger context forms the international playground which fertilised the relations
between all these ancient communities. Several terms such as ‘cultural interrelations’
(Bouzek 1985 ), ‘interconnections’ (Davies and Schöfield 1995 ), ‘cultural interaction’
(Bunnens 1996 ) and ‘synchronisation of civilisations’ (Bietak 2000 ) have been used
in order to characterise the cultural exchange between civilisations living around the
Mediterranean, the Near East, Africa, Egypt, Anatolia and the Levant. The relations
between Babylonia and Levant, should therefore best be described in the broad terms
of cultural exchange. Cultural exchange as an anthropological term (cf. Haviland
1993 ) includes innovation, discovery, diffusion^4 and acculturation^5 and cultural loss.^6
The spread of the Akkadian language as lingua francaduring the Kassite Babylonian
period and the presence of Babylonian scribes throughout the Levant provide an
excellent indication of an extraordinary cultural exchange that took place over a larger
period of time. The major question is how these activities took place and in what
way did it occur. We are ‘aware of extensive exchange networks, intensive traffic and
substantial volumes of goods traversing’ the Ancient Near East, ‘however, we are
largely ignorant of how this operated’ (Marfoe 1987 : 34 ).
Many comparative studies in the Ancient Near East have a linear approach to
discussing relations between peoples. This is often formulated out of a central market
place theory which identifies dominant settlements as the centres of symmetrical
compact service areas. These ‘central places’ (Christaller 1966 ) and ‘isolated states’
(Hall 1966 ) are compact service areas in the shape of circles or hexagons (Hirth 1978 :
37 ). These theoretical models are generally applied in reference to small-scale societies
and involve food items, clothing and other necessary commodities, not luxury goods.