CHAPTER XX - THE AMARNA LETTERS FROM PALESTINE

Summary

THE TABLETS AND THEIR CHRONOLOGY

In 1887 an Egyptian peasant woman accidently discovered a large collection of tablets at El-Amarna in Middle Egypt; they were dug out by the local inhabitants and sold to various dealers. Eventually more than 350 cuneiform tablets, some complete, some broken, were purchased by various museums and private collectors. More than half of them were acquired by the Berlin Museum. Smaller collections found their way to the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. In 1915 the publication of all then available Amarna Tablets, begun by J. A. Knudtzon in 1907, was completed. Since then another seven important tablets belonging to the original find have been published by F. Thureau-Dangin and G. Dossin, while a dozen additional tablets and fragments were recovered still later by German and British excavators at the same site. These tablets are mostly letters from the royal archives of Amenophis IV or Akhenaten (1379-1362 B.C.) and his father, Amenophis III (1417-1379 B.C.); only about twenty-five of the texts are not epistolary in content. About 150 of the letters either are written directly from or to Palestine, or are so immediately concerned with Palestinian affairs that they fall within the scope of the present survey.

Some similar documents have also been discovered in Palestine. In 1892 F. J. Bliss found a well-preserved tablet of the Amarna Age at Tell el-Hesi. So far twelve tablets and fragments have been excavated at Ta'anach, near Megiddo, one at Gezer, two at Shechem, one at Jericho, one at Megiddo, and one at Hazor.