The Levant has always been a crucial zone for contacts between Egypt and the ancient Near East. During the Late Bronze Age (the ‘international period’) and the Iron Age, pharaonic Egypt, the Hittite empire, and later the Neo-Hittite and Aramaic states shared many occasions of exchange and interaction, testified both by texts and artefacts: among them, luxury objects like ivories. This paper aims to retrace the circulation of some iconographic motifs of different origins attested on the ivories of Arslantaş/Hadātu (near the border of modern Syria and Turkey), comparing this material with other ivories found in sites of the Levantine area (Ugarit, Byblos, Megiddo): a journey through precious items from Egypt to Anatolia, across the Levant throughout the Bronze and Iron Age, to the rediscovery of those people who, despite geographical distances, travelled, circulated and interlaced relationships.
