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The decline of the New Kingdom is tied moreso to the breakdown of the entire"international" system that characterized late Bronze Age commerce and diplomacy. This is going to happen either way, as it was heavily driven by shifts in climate and disruptions of supply chains in Europe. If Egypt...

The chronology is a bit murky, but it seems that Egypt had concurrent problems in Canaan with figures like Abdi-Ashirta and Aziru in Amurru, and Lab'aya in Canaan. Any Egyptian effort to help Mitanni needs to overcome those foes first, or else have a sword dangling over its head. Historically...

I'd be interested in seeing this! Why shouldn't an Akkaidan-Canaanite mix exist though? Don't many of the Amarna Letters feature Akkadian with Canaanite quirks?

Ah, thanks for clarifying. Either way, it's hieroglyphs all the way down! Though I'm not convinced Ugaritic derives from Proto-Sinaitic. There's also the Byblos script to contend with... Who knows what was up with that.

They did adopt an alphabet though, that's what Coptic is. The point of the hieroglyphic script wasn't ease of use, it was to express layers of metaphysical significance on top of the phonetic information. The complexity/playfulness was the point, which is why we eventually end up with...

Ge'ez traces back to Phoenician via old South Arabian scripts, and Hangul was influenced by Mongolic scripts that also trace back to Phoenician. It's totally possible that a "true alphabet" develops somewhere else... But that can't really be predicted with any certainty. The trajectories of...

There's likely still going to be diffusion of scripts from West Asia and North Africa. That means Europe picks up some kind of semanto-phonetic tradition, either based on a mix of syllabic and logographic characters à la cuneiform or hieroglyphic Luwian, or the consonant-syllabic-logographic...

I got excited when I saw the name "Pahory" (it translates to something like "One of Horus"). That was short-lived! Is TTL's Alexandria in the same spot as OTL's (the Egyptian town of *Rhakotis)? If so, one could imagine that fantastic natural harbor being put to good use and maintaining the...

Nah, it's fun to have a black swan event or two in the mix. History itself doesn't tend to do "foreshadowing" beyond the kinds of trends we can only perceive with the benefit of hindsight. I do suspect Kush should have a role to play in the Egyptian struggle for eventual independence.... Kush...

Gotta watch out for those flying bricks... I'm a bit surprised that Argead Egypt happened after all... But given the OTL Diadochi states were hounded by pressure and losses from the east, and that Egypt at this point has a long-standing tradition of rebellion against the "Asian" powers, and...

I imagine the Argeads themselves would be keen on holding Macedon... But if the Asian realm were to fall under the control of another dynasty with looser ties to Macedonian heritage, then that's a different story.

Love the Wends, excited to see where this goes!

There's nothing about "space exploring, ecologically minded, syncretic pagan anarchists" as a concept that doesn't damn-near bring me to tears. This world you've created continues to be nothing short of amazing.

The custom among Hittite elites was to be clean-shaven, actually. Hairiness aside, the most important points have been made. Western Anatolia was very difficult to control, and Mycenaean domination of the Aegean was very difficult to challenge. Canaanite seafarers would give the Greeks a run...

Finally catching up on this TL! Wonderfully detailed, truly alternate history in the sense it's hitting a lot of OTL's beats with a twist (looking at that Argead Empire). Alexander seems as inexorable as ever, though I'm skeptical of the Macedonian capacity to actually conquer Carthage... Seems...

Nice title.

So, the American and Canadian imperial projects are dismantled, and it's anarchists and syndicalists that come out on top? That's the exact opposite of a dystopia... What else is going on? What's up with all the small states down South and in the West?

In a general "surviving Atenism" scenario, you would likely have several Pharaohs all pretending to religious headship. The fracturing of the Empire means schisms within the religion. Unless, of course, power can be devolved to some kind of priestly authority. In my TL specifically, Pharaoh no...

Eventually, yes. The Zhou were still scheduled to replace the Shang, but beyond that alternate migrations were free to throw wrenches into things...

India was very loosely thought-out, but there was to be a large Gangetic empire (practicing largely familiar forms of Hinduism, though with Surya retaining a bit more prominence) spreading across much of the North by, roughly, the 400's BCE. This Empire would leave behind something of a "Mandate...