Oaths to the Pharaoh and Indigenous Socio-Politics in the Late Bronze Age Levant

EMANUEL PFOH

Egitto e Vicino Oriente

Università degli Studi di Pisa

Lugar: Pisa; Año: 2023 vol. 46 p. 171 - 179

0392-6885

The scant evidence of loyalty oaths sworn to the Egyptian kings by the Syro-Palestinian rulers during the Late Bronze Age should not be considered an expression of the imposition of some sort of legal procedure by the Egyptian administration. Instead, these loyalty oaths ought to be understood as both political and symbolic manifestations of Egyptian suzerainty and Syro-Palestinian subordination, within the context of a clash of bureaucratic power and indigenous socio-politics based on patron-client relationships.