The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on
clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets ( Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a sty ...
s, primarily consisting of
diplomatic correspondence between the
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
administration and its representatives in
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
and
Amurru Amurru may refer to:
* Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon
* Amorite, ancient Syrian people
* Amurru (god)
Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...
, or neighboring kingdom leaders, during the
New Kingdom, spanning a period of no more than thirty years between c. 1360–1332 BC (see
here
Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to:
Software
* Here Technologies, a mapping company
* Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Technologies, Here
Television
* Here TV (form ...
for dates).
[Moran, p.xxxiv] The letters were found in
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south.
In ancient E ...
at el-
Amarna, the modern name for the ancient Egyptian capital of ''Akhetaten'', founded by pharaoh
Akhenaten
Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth D ...
(1350s–1330s BC) during the
Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The Amarna letters are unusual in Egyptological research, because they are written not in the language of ancient Egypt, but in
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
, the writing system of ancient
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
. Most are in a variety of
Akkadian sometimes characterised as a
mixed language
A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that, whereas creoles/pidgin ...
, Canaanite-Akkadian;
one especially long letter—abbreviated
EA 24—was written in a late dialect of
Hurrian
The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...
, and is the longest contiguous text known to survive in that language.
The known tablets total 382, of which 358 have been published by the Norwegian Assyriologist
Jørgen Alexander Knudtzon
Jørgen Alexander Knudtzon (9 September 1854 – 7 January 1917) was a Norwegian linguist and historian. He was a professor of Semitic Languages at the University of Oslo from 1907.
Knudtzon was born in Trondheim, the son of consul Hans Nic ...
in his work, ''Die El-Amarna-Tafeln'', which came out in two volumes (1907 and 1915) and remains the standard edition to this day.
The texts of the remaining 24 complete or fragmentary tablets excavated since Knudtzon have also been made available.
The Amarna letters are of great significance for
biblical studies as well as
Semitic linguistics
Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta.
Semitic may also refer to:
Religions
* Abrahamic religions
** ...
because they shed light on the culture and language of the Canaanite peoples in this time period. Though most are written in Akkadian, the Akkadian of the letters is heavily colored by the mother tongue of their writers, who probably spoke an early form of
Proto-Canaanite
Proto-Canaanite is the name given to
:(a) the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later.
:(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an u ...
, the language(s) which would later evolve into the daughter languages of
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and
Phoenician. These "Canaanisms" provide valuable insights into the proto-stage of those languages several centuries prior to their first actual manifestation.
The letters
These letters, comprising
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
tablets written primarily in
Akkadian – the regional
language of diplomacy for this period – were first discovered around 1887 by local Egyptians who secretly dug most of them from the ruined city of Amarna, and sold them in the antiquities market. They had originally been stored in an ancient building that archaeologists have since called the
Bureau of Correspondence of Pharaoh
The building known as the Bureau of Correspondence of Pharaoh (also known as the Records Office) is located in the 'Central City' area of the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten, known as Amarna in modern times. The city was the short-lived capit ...
. Once the location where they were found was determined, the ruins were explored for more. The first archaeologist who successfully recovered more tablets was
Flinders Petrie
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egyp ...
, who in 1891 and 1892 uncovered 21 fragments.
Émile Chassinat, then director of the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
, acquired two more tablets in 1903. Since Knudtzon's edition, some 24 more tablets, or fragments, have been found, either in Egypt, or identified in the collections of various museums.
The initial group of letters recovered by local Egyptians have been scattered among museums in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
, France, Russia, and the United States. Either 202 or 203 tablets are at the
Vorderasiatisches Museum in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
; 99 are at the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in London; 49 or 50 are at the
Egyptian Museum
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...
in Cairo; 7 at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
in Paris; 3 at the
Pushkin Museum in Moscow; and 1 in the collection of the
Oriental Institute in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. A few tablets are at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels.
The archive contains a wealth of information about cultures, kingdoms, events and individuals in a period from which few written sources survive. It includes correspondence from Akhenaten's reign (
Akhenaten
Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth D ...
who was also titled
Amenhotep IV
Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dy ...
), as well as his predecessor
Amenhotep III's reign. The tablets consist of over 300 diplomatic letters; the remainder comprise miscellaneous literary and educational materials. These tablets shed much light on Egyptian relations with
Babylonia,
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
,
Syria,
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
, and
Alashiya
Alashiya ( akk, 𒀀𒆷𒅆𒅀 ''Alašiya'' -la-ši-ia uga, 𐎀𐎍𐎘𐎊 ''ẢLṮY''; Linear B: 𐀀𐀨𐀯𐀍 ''Alasios'' -ra-si-jo, also spelled Alasiya, also known as the Kingdom of Alashiya, was a state which existed in the Middle ...
(
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
) as well as relations with the
Mitanni
Mitanni (; Hittite cuneiform ; ''Mittani'' '), c. 1550–1260 BC, earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat (''Hanikalbat'', ''Khanigalbat'', cuneiform ') in Assyrian records, or ''Naharin'' in ...
, and the
Hittites
The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centra ...
. The letters have been important in establishing both the history and the chronology of the period. Letters from the Babylonian king,
Kadashman-Enlil I
Kadašman-Enlil I, typically rendered m''ka-dáš-man-''dEN.LÍL in contemporary inscriptions (with the archaic masculine determinative preceding his name), was a Kassite King of Babylon from ca. 1374 BC to 1360 BC, perhaps the 18th of the dyna ...
, anchor the timeframe of Akhenaten's reign to the mid-14th century BC. They also contain the first mention of a Near Eastern group known as the ''
Habiru'', whose possible connection with the
Hebrews
The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still ...
—due to the similarity of the words and their geographic location—remains debated. Other rulers involved in the letters include
Tushratta
Tushratta (Akkadian: and ) was a king of Mitanni, c. 1358–1335 BCE, at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the reign of Akhenaten. He was the son of Shuttarna II. Tushratta stated that he was the grandson of Artatama I. His si ...
of Mitanni,
Lib'ayu of Shechem,
Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem, and the quarrelsome king,
Rib-Hadda
Rib-Hadda (also rendered Rib-Addi, Rib-Addu, Rib-Adda) was king of Byblos during the mid fourteenth century BCE. He is the author of some sixty of the Amarna letters all to Akhenaten. His name is Akkadian in form and may invoke the Northwest Semi ...
, of
Byblos
Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 8 ...
, who, in over 58 letters, continuously pleads for Egyptian military help. Specifically, the letters include requests for military help in the north against Hittite invaders, and in the south to fight against the Habiru.
[El-Amarna Tablets](_blank)
, article at West Semitic Research Project, website of University of Southern California accessed 2/8/15.
Letter summary
Amarna Letters are politically arranged in rough counterclockwise fashion:
* 001–014 Babylonia
* 015–016 Assyria
* 017–030 Mitanni
* 031–032 Arzawa
* 033–040 Alashiya
* 041–044 Hatti
* 045–380+ Syria/Lebanon/Canaan
Amarna Letters from Syria/Lebanon/Canaan are distributed roughly:
* 045–067 Syria
* 068–227 Lebanon (where 68–140 are from Gubla aka Byblos)
* 227–380 Canaan (written mostly in the
Canaano-Akkadian language).
Akhenaten and Tushratta
Early in his reign,
Akhenaten
Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth D ...
, the pharaoh of Egypt, had conflicts with
Tushratta
Tushratta (Akkadian: and ) was a king of Mitanni, c. 1358–1335 BCE, at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the reign of Akhenaten. He was the son of Shuttarna II. Tushratta stated that he was the grandson of Artatama I. His si ...
, the king of
Mitanni
Mitanni (; Hittite cuneiform ; ''Mittani'' '), c. 1550–1260 BC, earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat (''Hanikalbat'', ''Khanigalbat'', cuneiform ') in Assyrian records, or ''Naharin'' in ...
, who had courted favor with his father,
Amenhotep III, against the Hittites. Tushratta complains in numerous letters that Akhenaten had sent him gold-plated statues rather than statues made of solid gold; the statues formed part of the bride-price that Tushratta received for letting his daughter
Tadukhepa marry Amenhotep III and then later marry Akhenaten.
[Moran, pp.87–89]
An Amarna letter preserves a complaint by Tushratta to Akhenaten about the situation:
I...asked your father Mimmureya .e., Amenhotep IIIfor statues of solid cast gold, ... and your father said, 'Don't talk of giving statues just of solid cast gold. I will give you ones made also of lapis lazuli. I will give you too, along with the statues, much additional gold and thergoods beyond measure.' Every one of my messengers that were staying in Egypt saw the gold for the statues with their own eyes. ... But my brother .e., Akhenatenhas not sent the solid oldstatues that your father was going to send. You have sent plated ones of wood. Nor have you sent me the goods that your father was going to send me, but you have reduced hem
A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the g ...
greatly. Yet there is nothing I know of in which I have failed my brother. ... May my brother send me much gold. ... In my brother's country gold is as plentiful as dust. May my brother cause me no distress. May he send me much gold in order that my brother ith the gold and mny ood
The Ood are an alien species with telepathic abilities from the long-running science fiction series '' Doctor Who''. In the series' narrative, they live in the distant future (circa 42nd century).
The Ood are portrayed as a slave race, natura ...
may honor me.
Amarna letters list
Note: Many assignments are tentative; spellings vary widely. This is just a guide.
Chronology
William L. Moran
William Lambert Moran (August 11, 1921 – December 19, 2000) was an American Assyriologist. He was born in Chicago, United States.
In 1939, Moran joined the Jesuit order. He then attended Loyola University in Chicago, where he received his ...
summarizes the state of the
chronology
Chronology (from Latin ''chronologia'', from Ancient Greek , ''chrónos'', "time"; and , ''-logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. I ...
of these tablets as follows:
From the internal evidence, the earliest possible date for this correspondence is the final decade of the reign of
Amenhotep III, who ruled from 1388 to 1351 BC (or 1391 to 1353 BC), possibly as early as this king's 30th
regnal year
A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin ''regnum'' meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year o ...
; the latest date any of these letters were written is the desertion of the city of
Amarna, commonly believed to have happened in the second year of the reign of
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
later in the same century in 1332 BC. Moran notes that some scholars believe one tablet, EA 16, may have been addressed to Tutankhamun's successor
Ay.
[Moran, p.xxxv, n.123] However, this speculation appears improbable because the Amarna archives were closed by Year 2 of
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
, when this king transferred Egypt's capital from Amarna to Thebes.
Quotations and phrases
A small number of the Amarna letters are in the class of
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
. An example is
EA 153, (EA is for 'el
Amarna'). EA 153, entitled: ''"Ships on hold"'', from
Abimilku
Abimilki ( ''Amorite'': , '' LÚa-bi-mil-ki'', ) around 1347 BC held the rank of Prince of Tyre (called "Surru" in the letters), during the period of the Amarna letters correspondence (1350–1335 BC). He is the author of ten letters to the Egypt ...
of
Tyre is a short, 20-line letter. Lines 6–8, and 9-11 are parallel phrases, each ending with ''"...before the troops of the king, my lord."''-('before', then line 8, line 11). Both sentences are identical, and repetitive, with only the subject statement changing.
The entire
corpus
Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to:
Linguistics
* Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts
* Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files
* Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics
Music
* ...
of Amarna letters has many standard phrases. It also has some phrases, and quotations used only once. Some are
parables: (
EA 252: ''"...when an ant is pinched (struck), does it not fight back and bite the hand of the man that struck it?"''....)
Bird in a Cage
:''A bird in a cage (Trap)''—
Rib-Hadda
Rib-Hadda (also rendered Rib-Addi, Rib-Addu, Rib-Adda) was king of Byblos during the mid fourteenth century BCE. He is the author of some sixty of the Amarna letters all to Akhenaten. His name is Akkadian in form and may invoke the Northwest Semi ...
subcorpus of letters. (Rib-Hadda was trapped in Gubla-(
Byblos
Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 8 ...
), unable to move freely.)
"A brick may move.."
:''A
brick may move from under its partner, still I will not move from under the feet of the king, my lord.''—Used in letters
EA 266,
292, and
296. EA 292 by
Adda-danu
Adda-danu was the 'mayor' of the city/city-state of Gazru-(modern Gezer, Israel) of the Amarna letters period, 1350-1335 BC. 'Adda' is the name of the Northwest Semitic god Hadad, and Adda-danu translates as: ''"Hadad (is the) Judge"''. Adda-danu ...
of
Gazru.
"For the lack of a cultivator.."
:''"For the lack of a cultivator, my field is like a woman without a husband."''—Rib-Hadda
letter EA 75
"Hale like the Sun..."
:''"And know that the King-(pharaoh) is hale like the
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
in the Sky.'' For his troops and his
chariots in multitude all goes very well...."—See:
Endaruta, for the ''Short Form''; See:
Milkilu
Milkilu, and more properly Milk-ilu, or Milku-ilu, with an alternate version of Ili-Milku (letter 286, by Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem), was the mayor/ruler of ''Gazru'' ( Gezer) of the 1350–1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. Adda-danu, and Ya ...
, for a ''Long Form''. Also found in
EA 99: entitled: ''"From the
Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...
to a vassal".'' (with addressee damaged)
"I looked this way, and I looked..."
:''"I looked this way, and I looked that way, and there was no light. Then I looked towards the king, my lord, and there was light."''—
EA 266 by
Tagi (Ginti mayor);
EA 296 by
Yahtiru.
"May the Lady of Gubla.."
:''"May the
Lady of Gubla grant power to the king, my lord."''—varieties of the phrase in the
Rib-Hadda
Rib-Hadda (also rendered Rib-Addi, Rib-Addu, Rib-Adda) was king of Byblos during the mid fourteenth century BCE. He is the author of some sixty of the Amarna letters all to Akhenaten. His name is Akkadian in form and may invoke the Northwest Semi ...
letters
a pot held in pledge
:''a pot held in pledge''—The Pot of a Debt.
EA 292 by
Adda-danu
Adda-danu was the 'mayor' of the city/city-state of Gazru-(modern Gezer, Israel) of the Amarna letters period, 1350-1335 BC. 'Adda' is the name of the Northwest Semitic god Hadad, and Adda-danu translates as: ''"Hadad (is the) Judge"''. Adda-danu ...
of
Gazru.
7 times and 7 times again
:''7 times and 7 times''—Over and over again
:''7 times plus 7''—
EA 189
List of Volkswagen Group diesel engines. The compression-ignition diesel engines listed below are currently used by various marques of automobiles and commercial vehicles of the German automotive concern, Volkswagen Group,ETKA official factory ...
, See: "
Etakkama
Etakkama, as a common name, but also, Aitukama, Atak(k)ama, Etak(k)ama, and Itak(k)ama is the name for the 'mayor' (king) of Qidšu, (Kadesh) of the 1350–1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. (Qidšu is also referenced as: Qinšu, also Kissa). ...
of Kadesh"(title)-(Qidšu)
I fall ... 7 times and 7...''"on the back and on the stomach"''
:I fall, at the feet, ... 7 times and 7 times, ''"on the back and on the stomach"''—
EA 316, by
Pu-Ba'lu
Pu-Ba'lu, (another spelling, also Pu-Bahla) was ruler/mayor of Yursa, (a city/city-state in Canaan(?)), identified with Tell Jemmeh, of the 1350– 1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. His name translates in west semitic as well as in Akkadian ...
, and used in numerous letters to
pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...
. See: Commissioner:
Tahmašši.
''when an ant is struck..''
:''"...when an ant is pinched (struck), does it not fight back and bite the hand of the man that struck it?"''—A phrase used by
Labayu defending his actions of overtaking cities,
EA 252. Title: ''"Sparing one's enemies".''
Example, single letter photo gallery, multiple sides
Amarna letter EA 15
Amarna letter EA 15, titled ''Assyria Joins the International Scene'', is a shorter-length clay tablet Amarna letter from Ashur-uballit I of the '' Land of Assyria'', (line 3 of EA 15). He addresses the Pharaoh in line 1, the ''"King (of) Land M ...
, from
Ashur-uballit I
Ashur-uballit I ''(Aššur-uballiṭ I)'', who reigned between 1363 and 1328 BC, was the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire. After his father Eriba-Adad I had broken Mitanni influence over Assyria, Ashur-uballit I's defeat of the Mitanni ...
; see also
Amarna letter EA 153
Amarna letter EA 153, titled ''Ships on Hold,'' is a short-length clay tablet letter from Abimilku of the island (at Amarna letters time) of city-state Tyre.
EA 153 is approximately tall x wide, (actually 3 1/16 x 2 1/16 inches), and has a ...
.
Image:Amarna_letter-_Royal_Letter_from_Ashur-uballit,_the_king_of_Assyria,_to_the_king_of_Egypt_MET_24.2.11_EGDP021806.jpg, Obverse
Image:Amarna_letter-_Royal_Letter_from_Ashur-uballit,_the_king_of_Assyria,_to_the_king_of_Egypt_MET_DP-211-142.jpg, line drawing, Obverse
Image:Amarna_letter-_Royal_Letter_from_Ashur-uballit,_the_king_of_Assyria,_to_the_king_of_Egypt_MET_24.2.11_EGDP021805.jpg, Reverse
File:Amarna_letter-_Royal_Letter_from_Ashur-uballit,_the_king_of_Assyria,_to_the_king_of_Egypt_MET_24.2.11_EGDP021808.jpg, View from bottom
See also
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Abdi-Heba
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Amarna letters–localities and their rulers
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Ashur-uballit I
Ashur-uballit I ''(Aššur-uballiṭ I)'', who reigned between 1363 and 1328 BC, was the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire. After his father Eriba-Adad I had broken Mitanni influence over Assyria, Ashur-uballit I's defeat of the Mitanni ...
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Amarna Period
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Hittite inscriptions The corpus of texts written in the Hittite language is indexed by the ''Catalogue des Textes Hittites'' (CTH, since 1971). The catalogue is only a classification of texts; it does not give the texts. One traditionally cites texts by their numbers in ...
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Labaya
Labaya (also transliterated as Labayu or Lib'ayu) was a 14th-century BCE ruler or warlord in the central hill country of southern Canaan. He lived contemporaneously with Pharaoh Akhenaten. Labaya is mentioned in several of the Amarna Letters (abbr ...
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List of Amarna letters by size This is a List of Amarna letters by size, mostly length X width, and starting with the shortest (in Height). Note: a few Amarna letters are wider than tall, for example Amarna letter EA 290, EA 290.
It should be understood the definition of ''"mayo ...
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List of inscriptions in biblical archaeology
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Mari Tablets
Mari (Cuneiform: , ''ma-riki'', modern Tell Hariri; ar, تل حريري) was an ancient Semitic city-state in modern-day Syria. Its remains form a tell 11 kilometers north-west of Abu Kamal on the Euphrates River western bank, some 120&nb ...
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Mutbaal
Mutbaal ( Akk. "man of Baal") was a Canaanite king of the Amarna Period. He is identified in the Amarna letters as a son of Labaya, the ruler of the hill country north of Jerusalem, including the territory in the vicinity of the city of Shachmu (b ...
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New Chronology (Rohl)
*See the town of "Lakiša",
Lachish
Lachish ( he, לכיש; grc, Λαχίς; la, Lachis) was an ancient Canaanite and Israelite city in the Shephelah ("lowlands of Judea") region of Israel, on the South bank of the Lakhish River, mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. Th ...
, for "find" of one tablet, EA 333
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Šuwardata
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Ugaritic texts
The Ugaritic texts are a corpus of ancient cuneiform texts discovered since 1928 in Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and Ras Ibn Hani in Syria, and written in Ugaritic, an otherwise unknown Northwest Semitic language. Approximately 1,500 texts and fragments h ...
Notes
References
*Goren, Y.,
Finkelstein, I. & Na'aman, N., ''Inscribed in Clay - Provenance Study of the Amarna Tablets and Other Ancient Near Eastern Texts'', Tel Aviv: Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, 2004.
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Further reading
*Aruz, Joan, Kim Benzel, and Jean M. Evans, eds. ''Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.'' New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
*Cohen, Raymond, and Raymond Westbrook, eds. ''Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginnings of International Relations''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
*Moran, William L. ''The Amarna Letters''. English-language ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
*Mynářová, Jana. ''Language of Amarna - Language of Diplomacy: Perspectives On the Amarna Letters''. Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology; Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, 2007.
*Petrie, W. M. ''Flinders Syria and Egypt From the Tell El Amarna Letters''. Worcester, U.K.: Yare Egyptology, 2004.
*Rainey, Anson F. ''Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets: A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect Used by Scribes from Canaan''. 4 vols. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010.
*Rainey, Anson F., and William M. Schniedewind. ''The El-Amarna Correspondence: A New Edition of the Cuneiform Letters From the Site of El-Amarna Based On Collations of All Extant Tablets''. Boston: Brill, 2014.
*Vita, Juan-Pablo. ''Canaanite Scribes In the Amarna Letters''. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2015.
External links
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CDLI, ''Chicago Digital Library Listing'' of the Amarna letters Akkadian in English transliteration.
from the
Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin
The Vorderasiatisches Museum (, ''Near East Museum'') is an archaeological museum in Berlin. It is in the basement of the south wing of the Pergamon Museum and has one of the world's largest collections of Southwest Asian art. 14 halls distrib ...
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Mineralogical and Chemical Study of the Amarna Tablets - Provenance Study of the Amarna Tablets– University of Tel Aviv web page
Sample letterText of some letters archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Amarna Letters
14th-century BC literature
1887 archaeological discoveries
Akkadian literature
Archaeological discoveries in Egypt
Extra-biblical references to Canaan
Diplomatic correspondence
Egyptian Museum
Egyptological objects of the Berlin State Museums
Egyptian inscriptions
Amarna