Full Description
This Element offers readers an introduction to the Amarna letters. This group of 350 cuneiform tablets was discovered at the site of Tell el-Amarna (ancient Akhetaten) in Egypt. They date to the mid-fourteenth century BCE and preserve correspondence between Egyptian rulers of the late Eighteenth Dynasty and foreign political contemporaries from all over ancient Western Asia. These rulers (with few exceptions) never met face-to-face, yet they communicated about trade, military operations, gift-giving, and intermarriage between royal houses. The Canaanite Amarna letters from the southern Leant also elucidate the impact of Egypt's military and economic agenda from the perspective of subjugated elites. The Amarna letters are also important for our understanding of the people who made written diplomacy possible: cuneiform scribes. Overall, the letters paint a picture of highly localized and divergent scribal practices. The letters thereby fill in the gaps in material evidence for cuneiform scribal communities in the Amarna Age.
Contents
1. Introduction; 2. The Discovery of the Amarna Letters; 3. Ancient Akhetaten: A Short-Lived Capital; 4. The Chronology of the Amarna Letters; 5. The Political Backdrop of the Amarna Age; 6. Cuneiform in the West; 7. A Closer Look at the Amarna Corpus; 8. Diplomacy between the Great Kings; 9. Cuneiform Scribes: The Gatekeepers of Amarna Diplomacy; 10. Amarna Age Diplomacy as Seen from the Levantine Letters; 11. The Amurru Amarna Letters, Sent from the Borderlands of Egypt's Power; 12. The Southern Levantine Letters(aka the "Canaanite" Letters); 13. The Language of the Canaanite Amarna Letters; 14. Cuneiform Letter Craft in Canaan; 15. A Closer Look at the Canaanite Amarna Scribes; 16. Diversity in Canaanite Scribal Practice; 17. Conclusion; References.
