Illus. endpapers

Catalog of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Nov. 18, 2008-Mar. 15, 2009

Introduction / Joan Aruz -- The Middle Bronze Age / Mogens Trolle Larsen -- Babylon / Béatrice André-Salvini -- Mari / Jean-Claude Margueron -- Ebla / Paolo Matthiae -- The development of trade routes in the early second millennium B.C. / Michel Al-Maqdissi -- Ugarit / Bassam Jamous -- Byblos / Suzy Hakimian -- The Cedar forest / Ira Spar -- Minoan Kamares ware in the Levant / Robert B. Koehl -- Egypt and the Levant / Thomas Schneider -- The Tôd Treasure / Geneviève Pierrat-Bonnefois -- Lapis Lazuli / Michèle Casanova -- The old Assyrian merchant colonies / Mogens Trolle Larsen -- Central Anatolian ivories / Joan Aruz -- Technical notes on the Metropolitan Museum ivories / Jean-François de Lapérouse --

Texts, trade, and travelers / Jack M. Sasson -- Ornaments of interaction: the art of the jeweler / Kim Benzel -- Egypt, the Levant, and the Aegean from the Hyksos period to the rise of the New Kingdom / David O'Connor -- Tell el-Dab'a in the Nile Delta / Manfred Bietak -- The burial of Queen Ahhotep / Peter Lacovara -- Painted palaces / Joan Aruz -- The wall paintings of Thera and the eastern Mediterranean / Christos G. Doumas -- Minoan artists at the Court of Avaris (Tell el-Dab'a) / Manfred Bietak -- Bull leaping / Joan Aruz -- Ritual and royal imagery / Joan Aruz -- Board games / Irving Finkel -- The horse in the ancient Near East / Kim Benzel --

The Late Bronze Age: materials and mechanisms of trade and cultural exchange / Mario Liverani -- The Amarna letters / Ira Spar -- The Hittite Empire / Andreas Müller-Karpe -- Shapinuwa: a capital of the Hittite state / Aygül Süel and Mustafa Süel -- Hattusa: capital of the Hattite Empire / Andreas Schachner -- Literary and cultural connections / Gary Beckman -- The Mitanni state / Jean M. Evans -- Alalakh (Tell Atchana) / K. Aslihan Yener -- Kassite Babylonia / Jean M. Evans -- The Middle Assyrian period / Jean M. Evans -- Syrian archaeological excavations at Qatna / Michel Al-Maqdissi -- The Royal Palace at Qatna: power and prestige in the Late Bronze Age / Peter Pfälzner --

Italian archaeological research at Qatna / Danièle Morandi Bonacossi -- Ugarit in the Late Bronze Age / Bassam Jamous -- Ugarit: gateway to the Mediterranean / Jean-Claude Margueron -- New Kingdom Egypt / Thomas Schneider -- Depictions of foreign emissaries in the Theban tombs / Sarah Graff -- Aegean interactions with the Near East and Egypt during the Late Bronze Age / Robert B. Koehl -- Mycenae / Lena Papazoglou-Manioudaki -- Mycenaean Thebes / Vasilis Aravantinos -- The Uluburun shipwreck and Late Bronze Age trade / Cemal Pulak -- Cyprus: an international nexus of art and trade / Sophie Cluzan -- The art of exchange / Joan Aruz -- Ivory, shell, and bone / Annie Caubet -- Vitreous materials / Annie Caubet -- Bridges to Babylon: Homer, Anatolia, and the Levant / Sarah P. Morris -- The legacy of ivory-working traditions in the early first millennium B.C. / Marian Feldman -- Problems of chronology: Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Syro-Levantine region / Glenn M. Schwartz -- Problems of chronology: Egypt and the Aegean / Eric H. Cline