After an introduction describing some recent works, the lecture was devoted to presenting the sources in chronological order. Sources relating to alliances should not be limited to "treatises". Literary works such as theEpic of Tukulti-Ninurta or theSynchronic History, royal inscriptions and correspondence, as well as modest accounting texts, all need to be taken into account.
The study of the 3rd millennium traditionally begins with the war between Lagaš and Umma, known in particular by the famous "stele of the vultures". But the discovery of the Ebla texts has provided a wealth of new data for the 14th-23rd centuries: while the famous "treaty with Abarsal" has given rise to a large body of literature, administrative texts should not be overlooked. In particular, they have enabled us to reconstruct Ebla's military campaign against Mari. In the 21st century, little is known about the relations between the kings of the 3rd Dynasty of Ur and their neighbors.
On the other hand, the first half of the 2nd millennium has become the best-documented period; a review of known "treaties", written in Paleo-Assyrian as well as in Paleo-Babylonian, has been carried out, the most recent being those discovered in 1987 at Tell Leilan and published in 2011. But data from letters and administrative documents are also essential. The second half of the 2nd millennium is first documented by the 380 or so letters discovered at Tell el-Amarna, which constitute almost exclusively the passive correspondence of Pharaohs Amenophis III and IV; these letters were written by kings of similar stature (who considered themselves their "brothers"), in Anatolia, Upper Mesopotamia or Babylonia, or by their vassals in Syria-Palestine. This documentation is extended by letters and treatises discovered in the Hittite capital of Hattuša and the Syrian city of Ugarit, both destroyed at the dawn of the 12th century.
Documentation from the first half of the 1st millennium is much more limited: allusions in royal inscriptions or correspondence attest to no fewer than 45 treatises, of which only half a dozen have been found, mostly in a sorry state.
The problem is whether to follow an emic classification, using the categories of the ancient civilizations in which these texts were written, or an etic classification, thus conforming to a contemporary typology. The danger of the latter is that texts labelled as "treaties" are completely separated from other, very similar texts labelled as "loyalty oaths". However, "treaties" only gradually emerged as such, initially being exactly the same as the simple loyalty oaths sworn to kings by members of their entourage. It was only in the second half of the 2nd millennium that the characteristics of genuine treaties, concluded between kings but binding on their successors, gradually began to emerge.
