The Great Powers' Club

For two centuries a handful of kingdoms ran the Near East together: Egypt, Babylon, Mitanni, the Hittites and later Assyria.

Their kings called each other 'brother', wrote in Babylonian, exchanged ambassadors and married each other's daughters. Ships carried copper, tin and luxury goods around the whole Mediterranean.

They also fought, but in a way that kept the system going, as at Kadesh and the treaty that followed. It was the first international order.