Reading the Pharaoh's private mail with Irving Finkel | The Amarna Letters | Curator's Corner Ep100
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Overview
Irving Finkel explains how 382 cuneiform tablets discovered at Amarna in 1887 preserve the diplomatic correspondence of Egypt and neighboring kingdoms during the 14th century BC. The letters reveal royal bargaining over gold and marriages, mounting threats to Egypt’s Canaanite vassals, and an international scribal system that used Akkadian to connect rulers who spoke different languages.
Key takeaways
- The 382 Amarna tablets preserve a snapshot of 14th-century BC diplomacy, spanning the end of Amenhotep III’s reign through Akhenaten’s and probably into early Tutankhamun’s.
- Akkadian cuneiform allowed rulers from Egypt, Babylon, Mitanni, Assyria, and other states to correspond even when it was not their native language.
- Gold was a recurring source of diplomatic conflict: Kadashman-Enlil complained about a delayed messenger and a small, inferior gift, while Tushratta demanded the solid-gold statues promised by Amenhotep III.
- Rib-Hadda’s approximately 70 surviving letters document the collapse of Egyptian influence around Byblos and his repeated, ultimately desperate requests for military support.
- The Amarna scribal school combined Babylonian literary and linguistic training with Egyptian practices, visible in a student copy of the Nergal and Ereshkigal story, red punctuation dots, and hieratic notes on cuneiform tablets.
Chapters
- A find of 382 cuneiform tablets surfaced at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt in 1887, far from the Mesopotamian heartland of cuneiform.
- Wallace Budge identified letters addressed to the pharaoh, including royal titles rendered in Akkadian.
- Unusual clay colors, small formats, and rough writing initially led some observers to suspect forgery.
- The archive spans the end of Amenhotep III’s reign, Akhenaten’s rule, and probably the opening years of Tutankhamun’s reign.
- Kings such as Kadashman-Enlil of Babylon and Tushratta of Mitanni exchanged elaborate greetings before pressing for gold, gifts, or diplomatic action.
- Amenhotep III disputed a Babylonian ruler’s claims about Egyptian gifts and marriage negotiations, showing how royal flattery could give way to pointed accusations.
- Royal marriages secured alliances, while dowries could include horses, gold-covered chariots, jewelry, weapons, and other costly goods.
- After Amenhotep III’s death, Tushratta complained that Akhenaten sent wooden statues plated with gold instead of the solid-gold statues his father had promised.
- Tushratta appealed directly to Queen Tiye, Akhenaten’s mother, asking her to uphold the relationship she had shared with Amenhotep III.
- Assyria’s Ashur-uballit entered the correspondence as an emerging great power, seeking recognition and substantial gold.
- Diplomatic friction extended to protocol: rulers objected to messenger delays, detention, and even the order in which royal names appeared on tablets.
- As Akhenaten focused on religious change, local rulers in Egypt’s Canaanite territories reported attacks, disorder, and weakening Egyptian control.
- Vassal letters used deferential formulas, including claims of falling at the pharaoh’s feet seven times and seven times.
- Rulers described the Habiru as a threat to towns and roads and urged Egypt to restore order.
- Rib-Hadda of Byblos, also called Gubla, accounts for around 70 surviving letters and repeatedly begged Egypt for troops and archers.
- He described losing surrounding towns to Abdi-Ashirta’s forces and compared himself to a bird trapped in Gubla.
- Abdi-Ashirta portrayed himself as Egypt’s loyal servant, while Tunip’s rulers later warned that his son Aziru was expanding his power.
- Lab’ayu denied accusations of rebellion, and a royal letter eventually warned Aziru that disloyalty could bring death to his entire family.
- Egyptian scribes learned to prepare clay tablets and write Akkadian cuneiform in an apparent chancery school at Amarna.
- Flinders Petrie later found school texts, including a bilingual Egyptian-Babylonian vocabulary tablet and a student copy of the Babylonian story of Nergal and Ereshkigal.
- Red dots used as punctuation on literary tablets reflect Egyptian scribal practice rather than standard Babylonian convention.
- An Egyptian hieratic note on the back of a Tushratta letter shows two writing systems sharing a single object in the royal archive.
- Akkadian served as the diplomatic lingua franca, with scribes translating rulers’ messages between local languages and the language of the letters.
- Tushratta’s roughly 500-line Hurrian letter is the longest known Hurrian inscription and accompanied a royal marriage arrangement.
- A surviving Hittite letter from the king of Arzawa discusses a proposed marriage and directly urges the Egyptian scribe to write clearly and include his name.
- Scribes handled politically sensitive information, including treaties, gold shipments, and messages that required careful translation.
- The letters were ordinary communications written for their original recipients, preserving candid complaints, anxiety, negotiation, and political maneuvering.
- Unlike archives limited to a single Mesopotamian city, the Amarna collection brings together voices from across the wider Middle East.
- Finkel closes by explaining the Babylonian-inspired cuneiform phrase used to represent “hit the button” in the series’ like-and-subscribe sign-off.
Transcript excerpt
0:00 Hello, I'm Irving Finkel, a curator in the Middle East Department of the British Museum in London, and welcome to my corner. Actually, it's not my corner. We are in the Department of Egypt, but it's rather appropriate because I have in front of me a group of cuneiform tablets. And uniquely, they were found in Egypt. And even more wonderfully, they give us an insight into the kind of political world in which the pharaohs lived in the 14th century BC. Today, we're going to look at the Amarna letters. Welcome to my corner. In 1887, 382
0:49 cuneiform tablets came to light. They were not found in Mesopotamia, where the cuneiform script is at home, but they were actually discovered in Egypt. [clears throat] And they turned out unofficial way. Somebody dug them up in a sort of box. They didn't know what they were. They showed them to other people, and they didn't know what they were, but eventually, some of them were shown to individuals who knew something about this writing system, and it was quite a flurry of interest. Let me read you what Wallace Budge wrote about it. He was the keeper of the Egyptian Antiquities Department. In the course of the day, he says, "A man arrived from Kandil bringing with him some half a dozen of the clay tablets which had been found accidentally by a woman at Amarna, and he asked me to look at them
1:40 and to tell him if they were kadim, i.e., old, or jadid, i.e., new. That's to say, whether they were genuine or forgeries. The woman who found them thought that they were bits of old clay and useless, and sold the whole find to some neighbor, and somebody else bought them, and somebody else bought them, but
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Summary, takeaways, and chapters were generated by AI from the video's transcript and may contain errors. The video belongs to its creator, The British Museum.