From Egypt to the Levant and Beyond: African Individuals and Groupsain Cuneiform Texts from the Late Bronze Age

A great number of African (Egyptian, Kushite, Libyan) individuals and groups are mentioned in cuneiform texts from the Late Bronze Age of the Ancient Near East (c. 1600-1150 BCE), notably in archives from the cities of Akhetaton, Hattusa, and Ugarit. This study examines the evidence, both from individual-biographic and collective-demographic viewpoints and perspectives, after having identified Africans on the basis of etymology/onomastics, ethnonyms, family ties, and institutional affiliations. Also topics such as integratiossimilation and direct contacts between Egypt and Mesopotamia are focused on, and the evidence from the Late Bronze Age is contextualized by means of comparisons with the corresponding evidence from the first millennium BCE and Neo-Assyrian and Neo/Late-Babylonian times.