The broader Mediterranean area, which includes twenty five nations today, was the witness of the development of some of the most important and magnificent civilisations of the past. The Mediterranean Sea facilitated to a great extent this development through cross-cultural exchanges, which were mobilized by various modes of thought and action. This multi-authored volume of 20 essays comprises an up-to-date authorization account of many aspects of international politics, foreign relations, religious and cultural interactions in the Southeastern Mediterranean region during the second and first millennium BC. Subjects discussed include Egyptian foreign policy and diplomatic relations, wars and treaties, Greco-Egyptian contacts and their semantic connotations, international trade, artistic imports and exports, linguistic and cultural interactions, mobilization of religious ideas and ideologies, geopolitics and diplomacy.Contributors include Peter Brand, Panagiotis Frantzis, Susanne Gorke, Brett Heagren, Yvan Koenig, Kenneth Kitchen, Panagiotis Kousoulis, Yvan Ladynin, Alan Lloyd, Christofilis Maggidis, Konstantinos Magliveras, Samuel Meier, Ludwig Morenz, Alexandre Nemirovky, Robert Ritner, Alessandro Roccati, Anthony Spalinger, Elizabeth Walters, Sabine Weber, Penelope Wilson and Renate Muller-Wollermann.