A Tale of Two Cities: Ṣumur and Kumidi as Egyptian Centres in the Late 18th Dynasty.

Much has been written of the events concerning the Egyptian, Mittanian, and Hittite presence in the northern Levant during the so-called ʿAmārna Period. Decades of work from excellent scholars have established that the Egyptians elected two cities to be their "capitals" in the region, centres from where they could establish their control over the territory of modern Lebanon: Ṣumur on the ʿAkkār Plain, and Kumidi in the Biqāʿ (Beqaa) Valley. Many points remain relatively unclear, such as the succession of events in the region, the developments of war, and the reasons why the Egyptians decided to create a second centre in Kumidi, when they already controlled Ṣumur. This paper reanalyses the data at our disposal and reconstructs the diachronic succession of events related to the two centres, arguing that Kumidi became an Egyptian centre only after Ṣumur had fallen prey to Abdi-Aširta of Amurru. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]