People on the Move: Framework, Means, and Impact of Mobility Across the Eastern Mediterranean Region in the 8th to 6th Century BCE

The volume at hand publishes the proceedings of the workshop “People on the Move: Framework, Means, and Impact of Mobility across the East Mediterranean Region in the 8th to 6th Century BC”, which took place at CH-Castelen in August 2015. Aim of the workshop was to tackle the questions of how the increased cross-regional mobility of people and commodities in the wake of the Kushite, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and early Achaemenid expansions to the eastern Mediterranean affected a) the actual people who were leaving their homeland; b) the communities left behind; and c) the communities receiving the travelers on a visit or for long-term residence. Special attention was drawn to the following issues: PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE: What routes and means of transport were preferable to others and why? What preparations are necessary? Who or what factors decided whether to leave or to stay? How were necessary stopovers organized? How did communities cope with the loss of specialists or of comparatively large percentages of their inhabitants? ON THE WAY: What motivations for traveling can be discerned? What routes were used? What could happen during the trip? What kind of reception would one expect? ARRIVAL AND RECEPTION: How were travelers housed? How did this affect the receiving private or institutional households? How did local “foreign” communities deal with the enhancement of their numbers? How did the decision to integrate oneself into their community or to keep one’s distance affect these “foreign” communities, the local society as a whole, and the policy toward “foreigners”? Was long-term emigration the aim or the result of traveling? The volume includes the following contributions: Wasmuth, Melanie: Introduction. The Eastern Mediterranean Area Of Connectivity in the 8th–6th Century BCE—Setting an Agenda Breier, Idan: “He Will Raise an Ensign to a Nation Afar, Whistle to One at the End of the Earth”: The Assyrian and Babylonian Armies as Described in Prophetic Texts and Mesopotamian Inscriptions Kahn, Dan'el: Egypt and Assyria in Isaiah 11:11–16 Köpp-Junk, Heidi: Pharaonic Prelude—Being on the Move in Ancient Egypt from Predynastic Times to the End of the New Kingdom Schütze, Alexander: The Standard of Living of the Judean Military Colony at Elephantine in Persian Period Egypt Staubli, Thomas: Cultural and Religious Impacts of Long-Term Cross-Cultural Migration Between Egypt and the Levant Wasmuth, Melanie: Cross-Regional Mobility in ca. 700 BCE: The Case of Ass. 8642a/IstM A 1924 The Editors and Authors: Synthesis: Summaries and Responses.