AMAR'NA LETTERS. A collection of more than three hundred letters and dispatches. in scribed upon clay tablets, which were found, in the winter of 1887-SS, in the village of Tel el-Amarna (q.v.) in Middle Egypt. They repre sent the Asiatic correspondence of the Egyptian court about 1400 B.C., and it is a remarkable fact that they arc in the cuneiform character. and, with three exceptions, in the Bahylonian language, which would thus appear to have been the medium of diplomatic communication throughout Western Asia. One of the letters is in the language of Mitani, in northern Mesopo tamia, and two are in that of Arcapi or Arzaya (probably Cyprus). Among the writers are the Egyptian kings Amenophis 111. (q.v.), and Amenophis IV. (q.v.), and the kings of :Milani, of Babylonia, of the Hittites, and of Alashia (Cyprus). It appears from these letters that the Egyptian kings of the eighteenth dynasty intermarried with the royal houses of both Mitani and Babylonia. Amenophis Ill. married a sister of Kadashman-Bel, King of Babylonia, and also a sister of Dushratta, King of Mitani; while Amenophis IV. married a niece of his father's Mitanian wife. Frequent reference is made to commercial affairs. implying a consider able intereourse between Egypt and the Asiatic states. By far the greater number of the Amarna letters proceed from Egyptian officials and subject allies in Syria, at that time a de pendency of Egypt, and afford a valuable insight into the state of Palestine before the Hebrew in vasion. The growing weakness of Egypt and the
extension of the Hittite dominion in the north can be clearly seen, and the withdrawal of the Egyptian troops gave opportunity for conflicts between the princes of the small city-states into which the land was broken up. To add to the general confusion, the country was threatened on the east by the Khabiri—marauding nom ads from the Arabian Desert, whose sphere of activity extended from southern Palestine as far north as Sidon. Beirut, and Gebal. Some scholars are inclined to identify the Khabiri with the Hebrews; but this theory has not met with general approval. The letters of the Pales tinian princes, which are full of mutual recrim inations, reveal the fact that there were two chief parties; one loyal to Egypt, the other pro fessing loyalty, but in reality allied with the enemies of Egypt. The latter party seems to be everywhere successful. Among the most zealous supporters of Egypt was the Prince of Jerusalem, which appears, at this time, as a city of some importance. For a translation into German of the Amarna tablets, consult Winekler. in Schra der's Keitinsehriftliehe Bibliothelz(Berlin,1896) : English translation by Metcalfe, under the title, The Tell El Amarna Letters (New York, 1896).