The Late Third Millennium in the Ancient Near East

During the late third millennium BC one of the biggest transformations of the ancient Near East took place, affecting almost all regions from Egypt to Anatolia and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iranian plateau. This period not only saw the collapse of urbanization in the southern Levant at the end of the Early Bronze Age III and the following pastoral Intermediate Bronze, and the rise and decline of the Akkad empire in the Upper Euphrates region, but also the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom in the Nile valley. In recent years it has been argued that climatic reasons, especially rapid climate change in the late third millennium BC (the so-called 4.2 ka BP event) might have triggered this supraregional collapse in western Asia and Egypt, linking it to a period of aridification and cooling. This volume compiles papers presented at the tenth annual Oriental Institute Postdoctoral Seminar, held on March 7-8, 2014. Three major topics are covered: The radiocarbon evidence for the mid to late third millennium BC Near East, the chronological implications of new dates and how historical/archaeological chronologies should/could be adapted, and - based on this evidence - if and how climate change can be related to transitions in the late Early Bronze Age. Furthermore, written sources concerning late Early Bronze Age Near Eastern interrelations and/or transformation and collapse from Egypt to Syria/Mesopotamia are taken into account.