The Amarna Letters provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Egyptian diplomacy, showing how pharaohs were flattered, alliances were formed, and power brokers maneuvered.
Archaeologists occasionally come upon an entire trove of documents rather than just one or a few, which completely alters their perception of a bygone era and whose interesting details throw that distant time into sharp relief. The Amarna Letters, a collection of 382 clay tablets said to be the earliest diplomatic records ever discovered, are without a doubt the collection that revolutionized Egyptology.
Written in the 14th century B.C., they include letters from puppet rulers under Egyptian power as well as correspondence between the pharaohs and its enemy kings, the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, and Mitanni. The archive covers Amenhotep III’s (1390–1353 B.C. ), Egypt’s legendary builder monarch, as well as Akhenaten’s (1353–1336 B.C. ), whose religious revolution shook ancient Egypt for a generation.
The letters provide a thorough look at the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East during the Late Bronze Age, when Egypt was cementing its influence and Assyria was emerging as a new regional force. They also provide a window into the 18th dynasty of Egypt.
The letters, which expose the flattery, haughtiness, resentment, and groveling of the writers, also shed light on the growing complexity of international diplomacy. A system of laws was required as a result of the expansion of powerful empires vying for dominance, and the Amarna communiqués offer historians unmatched insights into how these early laws functioned.
Pharaoh’s City of the sun
Pharaoh Akhenaten relocated his court to a remote area further north, almost equidistant from Thebes (his previous capital) and Memphis, around 1348 B.C. The relocation was a component of the pharaoh’s ambitious plan to elevate Aten, the solar disc, to the position of practically only Egyptian deity.
The name Akhetaten, which translates to “horizon of Aten,” was given to Akhenaten’s new city on the east bank of the Nile, presumably in reference to the neighboring hills’ ability to frame the rising sun.
Tell el Amarna, which is used interchangeably with the site of Akhetaten, is the name of the location in modern times. It is also the name of the extraordinary culture that flourished for a brief period of time when the pharaoh’s Aten cult was in upheaval and a radical shift in art, known as the Amarna style.
But the reign of Akhenaten wasn’t simply about revolutions in the arts and in religion.
His father, Amenhotep III, had left him a kingdom with enormous strength and standing in the region, and he proceeded to further Egyptian interests, particularly in mineral-rich Nubia to the south.
Egypt’s capital was a thriving city full of residences, barracks, temples, and government structures until King Akhenaten passed away in 1336 B.C. The latter was home to the ongoing collection of diplomatic correspondence that Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye started. (King Tut’s grandparents were a prominent royal couple in Egypt.)
When Akhetaten’s boundary stone was discovered at Amarna in the late 1700s, the ancient city was identified. After a string of fortunate discoveries, the letters were discovered in the 1880s.
As word of their presence spread, the location unexpectedly gained enormous archaeological significance.
Wallis Budge, the curator of the British Museum, purchased a group of 82 items. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Staatliche Museum in Berlin both received a sizable number of tablets via the antiquities market.
The first significant excavation at Amarna, under the direction of British Egyptologist William Flinders Petrie, soon yielded more tablets from the Akhenaten era.
Petrie unearthed a structure during his first campaign that had the words “Bureau of Correspondence of Pharaoh” stamped on its bricks.
Petrie was a careful archaeologist who also had a knack for getting attention.
He was aware that the Amarna Letters would help raise money for the dig.
His analyses of the letter’s documentary wealth and the ancient capital’s archaeological ruins greatly advanced knowledge of this dynasty and the New Kingdom.
Not every letter was discovered at once. When the Norwegian linguist Jrgen Alexander Knudtzon arranged them chronologically within geographic groups in the early 1900s, there were 358. The remaining 24 were found over the course of the 20th century and added to Knudtzon’s numbering scheme, which is still in use by academics today. What the Armana Letters tell us about ancient pirates is as follows:.
The letters are written in Akkadian, a language that was extensively used in ancient Mesopotamia. They are not written in ancient Egyptian. Similar to how English is used in international relations today, Akkadian spread throughout the entire region in the second millennium B.C. It is written in cuneiform, a wedge-shaped writing style.
The majority of tablets discovered so far are letters that the Egyptians received. The majority of tablets discovered so far are letters that the Egyptians received. The pharaohs’ letters were only preserved in a few copies.
Written By Puppets
The Amarna Letters have been classified into two main categories by scholars.
Both the rulers of the other major, independent regional powers wrote letters to the pharaoh, one from the heads of the kingdoms Egypt controlled and the other from his equals (or, as he would have perceived them, his near equals).
Dispatches from puppet rulers, the first group, come from Canaan, which is now Israel and Lebanon. Under Thutmose III, Egypt had taken possession of Canaan as an imperial trophy a century earlier. Along with prestige, the new acquisition brought Egypt troubles. Its rulers had to deal with a group known as the Habiru, who some historians believe to be the Hebrews, though this is still up for debate.
Evidently, there was a strong temptation for puppet leaders to strike deals with the neighborhood Habiru. The ruler of Tyre laments that the Habiru have destroyed the area in an Amarna dispatch to Akhenaten (Letter 148), but notes that another local ruler, that of Hazor (modern-day northern Israel), who was supposedly loyal to Egypt, “has aligned himself with the Habiru… [and] has turned over the king’s land to the Habiru.” abandoned 3,700 years ago, a Canaanite palace.
(Archaeologists now understand the cause.)
These letters frequently include language that is extremely demeaning. To the monarch, my lord, my god, my Sun, the Sun of heaven: Message of Yapahu, your servant, the dirt at your feet, wrote the puppet ruler of Gezer in modern-day Israel.
Brides and Bridegrooms
The rulers of the major regional powers, who were the pharaoh’s equals, wrote letters instead, and they took care to show their equality at the appropriate times. The “Great Powers Club” refers to the major regional powers of the time, which included Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni (located in modern-day southeastern Turkey), and “Hatti,” the Hittite empire.
The island of Cyprus, Alashiya, was another club member. Despite its modest size in terms of geography, the island country had a robust economy because of its copper resources. (Egypt was on edge due to the quick war chariots of the Hittites.)
A couple of the letters were written during the time of Amenhotep III and Tiye, who was also Akhenaten’s mother and was a notable royal wife. When Amenhotep’s son assumed the kingdom after his death, his widow remained influential. As a record of Egypt’s diplomatic interactions with allies and vassal kingdoms, Akhenaten brought his father’s archives with him to the new capital.
The exchange of royal princesses for brides is discussed in some of the Amarna archive. A rare example of an Amarna message that the pharaoh actually wrote is Letter 5 from Amenhotep III to the Babylonian king Kadasman-Enlil I. The letter, which is only 30 lines long, covers the three main topics of royal correspondence: extravagant well-wishes, the delivery of pricey gifts, and the pharaoh’s hopes of obtaining a Babylonian princess for his harem. (View inside one of the largest royal weddings in Egypt.)
The pharaoh could have expected to get a wife in return, but his continuous reluctance to do so was an indication of Egypt’s dominance. Kadasman-Enlil I complained to Amenhotep in an earlier letter (Letter 4) that “from the earliest times no daughter of the ruler of Egypt has ever been offered in marriage.” “Why are you teaching me such things? “, the Babylonian king demands of the edict. You are in charge. Do whatever you want.
Who could object if you wanted to give me your daughter in marriage? Other kings in the archive share his annoyance, which exposes the true nature of regional power: Egypt could make all the decisions.
Royal Protocol
The letters written by Tushratta, king of Mitanni, whose expanding empire shared a southern border with Egypt’s northernmost possessions in Lebanon, are some of the most illuminating texts regarding royalty and power. Tushratta starts each of his letters with a standard salutation that the Great Powers established to confirm the sender’s identity.
The format of Letter 27 is a complex pattern of congratulations. He addresses the pharaoh as “brother” because the king of Mitanni is an equal and begins with these words: Say to Naphurreya [Akhenaten], the king of Egypt, my brother, my son-in-law, whom I love and whom loves me: Thus Tushratta, Great King, the king of Mitanni, your father-in-law, who loves you, your brother. For me all goes well. For you may all go well. For Tiye, your mother, may all go well. For Tadu-Heba, my daughter, your wife, for the rest of your wives . . . may all go very, very well.
Akhenaten’s father, Amenhotep III, had married Tadu-Heba, the daughter Tushratta mentions. After his passing, she married Akhenaten. The Mitanni, who were frequently harassed by the Hittites to their north, required a strong alliance with Egypt, hence, this alliance was essential to Tushratta. (Get to know the three queens that successfully defended Egypt against Hyksos invaders.)
The prior letter, Letter 26, written to Queen Tiye rather than Akhenaten, explains an underlying conflict in this one. Tushratta laments to the late pharaoh’s mother that two gold statues were among the presents that her late husband, Amenhotep III, had promised to Tushratta (and which are described in Letter 19). Upon arrival, it was determined that these were “gold-plated sculptures of wood.
Experts disagree about whether the less expensive statues were a deliberate slight against Tushratta and a sign of Mitanni’s declining standing in Egypt. The weaker party in this situation was Tushratta, yet he had to uphold his reputation. The argument is continued in Letter 28, where Tushratta argues that Akhenaten has imprisoned Egypt’s messengers just as he did with his own.
The Assyrian Ashuruballit I, Tushratta’s former vassal king, was about to vanquish him. Power in the Mitanni empire declined as Assyria began to rise. In his first letter to Akhenaten (Letter 15), Ashuruballit I does not yet refer to himself as a brother, but it is a bold assertion that Assyria has joined the “Club”:The “splendid chariot, horses, and a date-stone of real lapis lazuli” were his gifts, but he demanded respect in exchange.
The unexpected rise of Assyria infuriated other countries, especially Babylon, whose monarch addressed Letter 9 to Akhenaten. After the customary greetings and gifts, he queries, “Why have the Assyrian envoys of my vassal [i.e., Ashuruballit I] come to your nation on their own authority? They won’t do any business at all if you love me. Send them to me without anything. To the realities of power, however, such objections were insignificant. Egypt, under Akhenaten, remained the dominant force in the area as Assyria expanded. (These antiquated relics pay tribute to Egypt’s strong queens.)
However, Akhenaten’s new Aten worship would not succeed in Egypt. The final documents in the Amarna archive were written during the reign of Tutankhamun, his son and eventual successor, during whose rule the Amarna reforms were undone and references to Akhenaten’s name were removed.
The capital of Akhenaten was abandoned for the desert to consume. The diplomatic tablets had to have been placed in two tiny pits beneath the administrative building’s floor by a civil servant at some point during its abandonment. They were found there more than 3,000 years later, during another era of power.
