The el-Amarna letters.
An introduction.

T
 
 
he el-Amarna letters are an ancient Egyptian collection of mainly diplomatic papers written in a space of about thirty-five years from about 1370 to 1335, ie from the end of the reign of Amenhotep III to the death of Tutankhamen. They were found in the city of Akhetaten, a city built by Amenhotep IV (better known as Akhenaten) to become the new administrative capital of the Egyptian empire. The city was abandoned not long after the death of Amenhotep IV and along with it this archive.

T
 
 
hese letters, totalling nearly four hundred, represent an immensely important window into the ancient world, showing the relationship between Egypt and its rivals as well as with the small kings ("kinglets") of Syria-Palestine. We find letters from Assyria, Kassite Babylon, Hatti and Mitanni, as well as from the Phoenician coast (Ugarit, Byblos, Sidon and Tyre), the Orontes valley and the many Canaanite reigns in Palestine. The letters also show the variety of approaches to diplomacy employed by the various writers, some attempting to eke out their own hold on power, others trying to curry favour with Egypt, yet others complaining consistently with the aim of getting further support from Akhetaten to deal with their local situation.

T
 
 
he rulers of the great powers called each other "brother", starting their letters along these lines:

"To Naphururiya, king of Egypt, my brother, say: thus speaks Burnaburiash, king of Karduniash, your brother. I am well. To you, your land, your house, your wives your children, your Grandees, your horses, your chariots, many greetings!..."

This is how the Babylonian king started his letters and reflects the formula what most important rulers used. The kings exchanged gifts and arranged marriages. Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, even wrote counselling letters to the new king of Egypt, Amenhotep IV.

F
 
 
or the kinglets of Syria-Palestine there was a strict protocol to be adhered to which showed their relationship with the pharaoh. The introductory formula usually found in the letters is as follows:

"To the king my lord, my sun: message from [name], your servant, the ground on which you walk. At the feet of the king my lord and my sun, seven and seven times I throw myself..."

These letters are rich in background information, sometimes merely responding to requests from pharaoh's administration, sometimes calling for assistance against other local realms, sometimes being the pharaohs eyes and ears -- reporting events from elsewhere.

T
 
 
he texts were written in a dialect known as Western Peripheral Akkadian, ie a version of the language used in Mesopotamia, a language which was the lingua franca of the Near East, though one letter from Tushratta, is written in Hurrian. The Palestinian letters, though written in Akkadian are full of Canaanite expressions with the Egyptian officals have had to add explanations to the texts to make their significance clear. This means that the Egyptians maintained a number of scribes who were fluent in the Akkadian language, along with their own scribes of the ancient Egyptian language.

I
 
 
t was once thought that the el-Amarna letters showed an Egypt that had turned its back on its possessions in Syria-Palestine, as its pharaoh gave all his attention to the one god, the solar disk, Aten, but more recent analyses see the texts very differently. The Egyptians had garrisons placed throughout their possessions, high officials were constantly referred to in the letters as having been to this city or that, and, in one famous case, the unruly Abdi-Ashirta, king of Amurru -- a land on the Syrian coast between Ugarit and Byblos --, had continually caused such a fraccas in the zone that the Egyptians replaced him. If one read only the letters of Rib-Adda of Byblos, the king who tells us most about Abdi-Ashirta, one might think that Egypt was inert and uninterested in the Levant. However, the reality was different with Egypt attempting to deal with each of the kinglets as necessary to keep everyone in check.

T
 
 
he el-Amarna letters provide us with invaluable information about the history of Canaan, the rise of the Hittite kingdom under Suppiluliuma I and the consequential decline of Mitanni. They provide information about names and geography, and about language and religion. They show how Egypt administered its far-reaching empire in the later Bronze Age and show the context which would lead Egypt and Hatti to the battle of Qadesh, when Ramses II narrowly avoided a major defeat at the hands of the Hittites. We see in the downfall of Mitanni the desperate efforts of the ex-Mitannian vassals to gain the support of Egypt in the turmoil in which pro-Hittite statelets attempted to exert their new gained power over their ex-Mitannian rivals. Amurru's rise is chronicled with the disturbances it caused in north Syrian.


King lists of the era  -  The Labaya page  -  The History & Religion page

  Text by Ian Hutchesson
Copyright 16/04/2000

1