Acknowledgements
This is a substantially revised version of my dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, in March 2020. As I wrote and revised the manuscript, I received an enormous amount of help and support from many people and institutions. First of all, I would like to thank my Ph.D. supervisor, Professor Peter Machinist, who has inspired me to focus on the two crucial political phenomena, i.e. nation and empire, in an ancient context, when the original topic of my dissertation went slightly out of control in terms of length and complexity. He was the one who reassured me at a time of self-doubt and perplexity, and the one who encouraged me to complete the project as planned. I have benefited tremendously from his courses, lectures and writings as well as numerous personal communications in his office and online.
I am also indebted to my other teachers at Harvard, especially Professors Piotr Steinkeller and Gojko Barjamovic, who served on my committee. I benefited not only from their courses and writings, but also from the important questions they raised about various issues discussed in the current study which prompted me to reconsider their subtleties in a more profound and balanced manner. Professor Barjamovic kindly encouraged me to submit this work to the Culture and History of the Ancient Near East series at Brill when I was completely unfamiliar with book publication, troubled by the constant pressure to “get published” as a novice assistant professor at Peking University. His positive feedback and encouragement helped me really to start a “career”. Studying with other teachers at Harvard, including Professors Jon Levenson, D. Andrew Teeter, Shaye Cohen, Peter Manuelian, Benjamin Studevent-Hickman, Anne Löhnert, Jeremy Rau and the late Professor Lawrence Stager, has also greatly benefited me, as they helped me acquire a more rounded knowledge of ancient West Asia and Egypt in general, which is indispensable for further research on any specific period and region.
I am also grateful to my other teachers who have been so helpful since the day I began with Hebrew studies at Peking University in 2007: Professors XU Zheping, WANG Yu and CHEN Yiyi. They are the ones who introduced me to the Modern and, later, the Biblical Hebrew language(s), as well as the basics of Judaic and biblical studies. I would also like to thank Professors YAN Haiying, GONG Yushu, LI Zheng, PENG Xiaoyu, LI Longguo, who introduced me to the areas of Egyptology, Assyriology and Hittitology and Medieval European history. I never majored in these disciplines (except for some training in Assyriology), but these scholars have served as role models that encourage me to pursue the study of non-Chinese cultures and civilizations, which will eventually enhance the understanding of our own past, the different paths of cultural and political development taken by different human societies and, ultimately, the commonalities shared by us all.
In addition to these two institutions where I received my degrees, I would also like to thank the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Leipzig University and the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem (AIAR), all of which received me with hospitality when I spent time as a visiting student/researcher. In particular, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professors Wayne Horowitz, Elnathan Weissert and Tania Notarius of the Hebrew University. I am one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of international visiting students who have taken their courses on ancient West Asian history and languages at the Rothberg International School. These courses, some of which were unavailable to undergraduate students back home at Peking University, provided me with the resources and skills I needed to apply to graduate programs in North America. I remain grateful to these scholars to this day, for I would not have been able to continue with my studies in ancient West Asia without their help 13 years ago. Likewise, I would like to thank Professors Andreas Schüle, Angelika Berlejung and Michael Streck, who kindly hosted me when I spent a year at Leipzig University to complete my dissertation.
Many others have contributed, in one way or another, to the completion of this project. Throughout my studies, I am fortunate to have met (more advanced) colleagues and friends whose expertise and insights enriched my own learning and thinking. Among them are my NELC teaching fellows and classmates, Adam Anderson, Cian Power, Jonathan Kline, Matthew Rasure, Iosif Zhakevich, Gabriel Hornung, Ryan Winters, Jae-Hwan Kim, Reed Carlson, CHEN Zhan and Andrew Pottorf. As I wrote the dissertation, I also benefited from many others (scholars, friends and colleagues) who inspired me with their insightful comments and suggestions, sometimes providing me with bibliographical information and other resources that had been beyond my knowledge. Special thanks are due to JIA Yan, OUYANG Xiaoli, WANG Xianhua, WANG Huan, ZHANG Hongwei (whom I have known since high school), CHEN Fei, CHANG Yangming, LI Zhi, Hannes Leonhardt, DONG Xiaobo, XIE Guosheng, YANG Guang and WANG Zihua. When I prepared for the publication of the manuscript, CHANG Yangming, XU Zheng, YAN Jiayu, YANG Guang, JIANG Wenyue and JIANG Tianruo provided me with invaluable assistance as they collected academic resources unavailable to me in different parts of the world and helped me with the proofreading and the indexing of the manuscript.
I would also like to thank the editors of the Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Series, especially Prof. Eckart Frahm and Prof. Jonathan Stökl, for accepting the manuscript. I am also thankful for Ms. Katerina Sofianou and Ms. Marlou Meems for arranging the production of the book. Many thanks should go to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback and suggestions, which prompted me to reorganize the first half of the original draft. All errors, of course, remain my own.
I could not have completed the project without the following libraries—some providing me with vital academic resources, others serving as tranquil shelters from the daily chores I have to deal with as a parent: the Widener Library, the Andover Theological Library, Lamont Library (all at Harvard), the AIAR Library, libraries of the Hebrew University, and, in particular, the Albertina Library and the Altorientalistik Library of the Leipzig University, King Abdulaziz Public Library Branch in Peking University and the nice public libraries of Hebei, Beichen and Wuqing Districts of my lovely hometown, Tianjin, where I have done most of my work in winters and summers.
At the dissertation stage, this project benefited from a generous grant from the Noble Group (Hong Kong, China) which funded my research at the AIAR (2017–2018) and the Harvard Dissertation Completion Fellowship, with which I spent the year 2018–2019 in Leipzig. The revision of the manuscript is funded by a Peking University grant for my project “Nation and Empire in the Ancient East Mediterranean Region”.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family. I am thankful that my parents, LI Chuanhua and MEI Xingliang, who themselves never had the chance to go to college, carefully fostered and protected my curiosity about history and society, allowing me to make all the important decisions in my life, including pursuing a PhD in a field about which they know very little. None of my grandparents lived to see the day when the book is published, including my paternal grandmother who passed away as I was revising the manuscript in late 2022. I cherish the childhood days I spent with them, which I will never experience again.
I am deeply indebted to my wife ZHENG Peng, who partly sacrificed her own career to accompany me in my studies in North America, West Asia, Europe and back home in China. In the past years, she has been tolerating my not-so-fascinating “lectures” on topics that only interest me and has now become a semi-expert. I am also grateful that our children, MEI Zhaoxi and MEI Zhaoyi, have magically grown up alongside my dissertation and the book. Without them, I might have completed my work much earlier, but the process would undoubtedly have been much less memorable and meaningful.
MEI Hualong
Beirut, Lebanon, June 15, 2023