The Qatari royal family’s idea of offering President Trump ‘a palace in the sky’ echoes a practice documented in ancient Egypt, when exchanging gifts was a political sport. The kings of Egypt and Mesopotamia, northern Syria and Cyprus among others, competed to convey their image and aspirations to one another. Whether given in tribute to a real or potential conqueror, or to welcome or congratulate a fellow royal for a marriage or conquest, it wasn’t just the thought that counted. Lavishness was key, to demonstrate the status of the giver while flattering the prestige of the receiver. The protocol would be to to reciprocate with a gift of similar or greater import, ideally in some creative, customised form. Take for instance, Saudi prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s recent reception of the US president, which included a mobile McDonald’s restaurant on the back of a flatbed truck, in case America’s top dog craved a Big Mac.

During the half-millennium known as the New Kingdom in Egypt (c.1550-1070 BC) food surpluses, thriving trade and the subjugation of adjacent lands made it rich. Pharaohs liked to reward victorious generals or otherwise faithful servants with quantities of gold to show how much they had to throw around. A ‘fan-bearer to the right side of the king’ named Ey and his wife were invited to pharaoh’s exclusive ‘gold-bestowal’ ceremony, as depicted in their tomb, where they were so loaded down with party favours they could barely stagger home. Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, tossed golden trinkets from their balcony to Ey and other favoured courtiers. According to tomb inscriptions, ‘Ey raised his arms rejoicing, and the king nodded to him pleasantly.’

Recipients of such honours were expected to show appreciation in kind and variety. The tomb of a high-official from the reign of Amenhotep II (1427-1400 BC) inventories the kick-backs he gave to his boss: ‘carriages of silver and gold, statues of ebony and ivory, [necklaces] of all kinds, jewels, and works of art’, including two large carved pieces of ivory representing gazelles with flowers in their mouths. This came with a handsome arsenal of ‘axes, daggers and armour, 30 clubs of ebony inlaid with silver and gold, 360 sickle-shaped bronze swords, 220 ivory whip handles, and 680 shields made of the skin of some rare animal’.

Living animals were among the earliest diplomatic gifts. Warrior king, Thutmose III (r. ca.1479-1425 BC) collected flora and fauna on his foreign campaigns, and was frequently presented  with interesting live specimens, including an elephant, a giraffe, and ‘birds that give birth every day’, probably hens, a rarity in Egypt at that time. Rarities worked as royal gifts, whether natural or invented. Mechanical birds fashioned from precious metals astonished the Byzantine emperor’s envoys to the 10th-century palace of Abbassid Caliph al-Mu’tasim in Samarra, with the sophistication of Arab technology they might take home.

Recognising the rapid expansion of Islam’s wealth and influence, Byzantium’s Christian rulers paid generous attention to Egypt’s Fatimid Caliphs in the 11th century. Catalogued in The Book of Treasures and Gifts (1062), some 414 entries betrayed an urge to overdo it. Vessels of rock crystal, already a precious and difficult to sculpt material, might be encrusted with gems, encased in gold and silver and presented in ivory or ebony boxes carved with priceless artistry.

Diplomatic gifts were often displayed as both public entertainment and image burnishing on behalf of the state. In the early 1400s, when the first giraffe imported to China was presented to the emperor, he interpreted its strange beauty as an endorsement of his authority, calling the giraffe the most auspicious of auspicious signs. In late 18th-century Revolutionary France, nothing pleased crowds more than animals confiscated from the menageries of deposed monarchs; African lions and Swiss brown bears paraded in cages through Paris along with other booty, advertising triumphs and wide-reaching command.

Similarly, Mao Zedong sent a panda pair (Ping Ping and Qi Qi)  to Moscow in 1957 to both congratulate the Soviet Union on the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, and to thank the Russians for being the first world power to recognise the People’s Republic. Anti-communist Western countries wouldn’t get their pandas (symbolising peace and friendship) for a while. Nowadays, China may reward a favoured trade partner by leasing it a panda for a fee directed to their conservation fund. Should relations sour, the panda can be recalled, as Reuters reports, ‘[owing to] recent downturn in bilateral ties, Ya Ya, on loan to the US for 20 years, was returned in April 2023’.

It seems there has never been a moment when diplomatic gifts weren’t leveraged against some political aim. Between flying palaces, popes in mitres and presidents’ military parades, what now passes for breaking news would feel right at home in the Bronze Age.