DECONSTRUCTING CULTURAL HEGEMONY OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE INTERNATIONALISM: THE AEGYPTO-AEGEAN CONTACT UNDER THE NEW KINGDOM IMPERIALISM

Abstract

This research pays some attention to the cultural contact, economic commerce, and diplomatic relation between Egypt and the Aegeans from the entire Bronze Age phase by interpreting the archaeological evidence from both Middle Kingdom, Second intermediary, and New Kingdom Egypt and Aegean sites. The cultural, economic, and diplomatic contact between Egypt and the Aegean world seems to be a great part of systematic networks in the Bronze Age Mediterranean. The trade, tributary alignment, and the royal marriage between Egypt and Minoan for diplomatic purposes were all fruitions of international relationships in the Eastern Mediterranean world. The power wrestling of these different ancient superpowers boosted the prosperity of the commercial economy and ideological exchanges in some unexpected way, and the influences of these grandiose historic contexts had influenced some periphery parts of the existing world at that time. The archaeological evidence from the Aswan, Avaris-Pirameses complex, el-lisht, Kahun, and Abydos will be intentionally collected to demonstrate the trajectory of interregional contacts between Egypt and the Aegeans under the hegemonial power structure. In this thesis, I will coordinate the two regional studies under one theoretical approach. I viewed the Neo-Marxism theory as a juncture for analyzing ancient IR and ancient political economy. I used Neo-Gramscian theory to deconstruct the apparatus of Egypt-centric hegemony.