The Amarna Letters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 190 miles, by river, south of Cairo, the mountains, which in the area normally rise direct from the river bank, recede for a distance of about six miles and leave a small plain, with a breadth at its widest point of 3 miles. Here lie a number of Arab villages, including one called Et-­Til. On the other side of the river is another village which still has the name of the Arab tribe, the Beni-Amran, which settled on both sides of the river over 200 years ago. From this tribe, the district came to be called el-Amarna. The name of the village, Et-Til was added to this, and the area came to be called Tell-el-Amarna. A ‘tell’ is a mound, but there is no mound there. Nevertheless the name has become firmly established and it would not be possible to change it now,

For many years the site had been exca­vated and relics of the past had been found in the tombs cut out of the surrounding rocks, but it was not until 1887 that its fame was established. In that year a native woman was searching in the ruins for Sebakh, the nitrous earth resulting from the crumbling of the mud-brick walls of ancient buildings. which has great value as a fertiliser. In her search she came across a small store-chamber. Some of the bricks composing it were stamped, and bore the statement, “The place of the records of the palace of the king”. Inside the store were a large number of baked clay tablets, inscribed with the cuneiform, or wedge-shaped, characters of Babylonia.

The peasant thought so little of her find that she sold her interest to a neighbour for ten piastres, or two shillings. At first it seemed that the purchaser had made a bad bargain for the tablets proved difficult to sell. Dealers who were shown them sent some to Paris, only to be told that they were forgeries. At Iast a large number were carried in sacks to Luxor and suffered severe grinding on the way. They were hawked among dealers. Eventually some­one realised their value and the bulk of those remaining were bought by the British and Berlin Museums. A few drifted to St. Petersburg, as it then was, and to Paris, and some into private collections. But much of great value was lost.

Three hundred and fifty or so tablets survived the ordeal, and those were found to be nothing less than the diplomatic correspondence of the Egyptian Foreign Office during two of the most vital reigns of Egyptian history. Of them Baikie writes,

“The information contained in them has been like a searchlight flashed on the history and life, not of Egypt alone, but of almost all the other great nations of the ancient world”.

Not the least valuable is the contribution which the tablets have made to knowledge of the period of Israel’s early Old Testament contact with Egypt.

Before discussing this contribution, it is desirable to ask how, since the normal capital of Egypt in those times was at Thebes nearly 300 miles from Tell-el­Amarna. the Egyptian Record Office came to be located at the latter place. It will be helpful to recount briefly the development of Egyptian history from when the Israelites entered the country in the time of Joseph. At that period the Egyptians were ruled by hated foreign kings who had supplanted the native rulers. These were the Shepherd Kings or Desert Chiefs, known as the Hyksos, a race of nomads. Their supremacy explains why the Hebrew foreigners, who were also a pastoral people, enjoyed such privileges in Joseph’s time, and why every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyp­tians. (Gen. 46. 34). It also sheds light on the statement that it was an abomination for the Egyptians to eat bread with the Hebrews (Gen. 43. 32). About 1587 B.C. however, the Egyptians rose against their oppressors and in the reign of Aahmes I they expelled them. Again, to use the words of Scripture, “There arose another king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.”

Accordingly the fortunes of the Hebrews changed, for the native Egyptians wrought their revenge on any who had enjoyed the favour of the Shepherd Kings. The Israelites were made to serve with rigour and to make bricks and build cities for Pharaoh.

The greatest monarch of this period was Thothmes III, who reigned from about 1503 to 1449 B.C. and who raised Egypt to the greatest heights to which it had attained up to that time. He was succeeded by Amen-Hetep II (1449-1423 B.C.). Of late years, largely under the influence of the discoveries of Professor Garstang at Jericho, many Egyptologists have come to believe that Thothmes was the chief Pharaoh of the Oppression and Amen-Hetep the Pharaoh of the Exodus. There is Scriptural support for this view. We learn from I Kings 6. 1 that King Solomon began to build his temple in the fourth year of his reign, 480 years after the Exodus. The fourth year of Solomon was about 960 B.C. and this would make the date of the coming out of Egypt about 1440 B.C., which would come during the reign of Amen-Hetep. Moreover, Jephthah reminded the king of Ammon that Israel had dwelt in Heshbon and Aroer for 300 years. (Judges 11. 26). It is generally understood that Jephthah’s date is about 1100 B.C., so this passage would indicate that it was about 1400 B.C. that the Hebrews occupied Heshbon and Aroer, towards the end of their forty years wilder­ness wanderings. This again would agree with the dates of the Egyptian monarchs. Another interesting fact is that during the time of Thothmes III lived Hatshepsut, one of the most powerful and colourful princesses of Egypt, just the type of woman to demand that the infant Moses should be spared and not drowned like other Hebrew male babies.

In 1414 B.C. Amen-Hetep III became Pharaoh. His wife, Queen Tyi, was almost equally well known as he was, and exerted much influence in the kingdom. His pre­decessor, Thothmes IV (1423-1414 B.C., ) had married a princess from Syria named Mutemuya or “Mother in the Boat”. Amen­Hetep III was therefore half Egyptian and half Syrian. During his reign he showed signs of a change of religion in exchange for the traditional worship of Amen, and the Queen seems to have encouraged him to this end. Whatever his private opinions, how­ever, the Pharaoh outwardly maintained existing worship.

In the reign of the next monarch, Amen­hetep IV, however, all this was changed. The new monarch made a definite break with worship of Amen and endeavoured to substitute for it the cult of Aten, or the adoration of the sun’s disc. The religion which the monarch sought to impose on Egypt suggested a god who not only ruled over Egypt but over all nations—a kind of universalism tending to monotheism, or the worship of one deity. This conception led the king to hate war between nations and to pacifism. The king’s endeavours were sup­ported by his queen Nefer-titi, reputed the most beautiful woman of her time.

Needless to say, the new cult was vigor­ously opposed by the priests of the tradi­tional religion and so stout was their resistance that Amen-Hetep was compelled to vacate the existing capital city, Thebes, and establish his headquarters elsewhere. He chose the district now called Tell-el­Amarna. There he built a new city, with many fine buildings. The city he called Akhet-Aten, or “Horizon of the Disc”. His name he changed to Akh-en-Aten, or Akhnaton, which means “Blessed of the Disc.” Here the imperial archives were brought and the king set up his court. The tablets found by the native woman in 1887 were despatches and letters received from neighbouring kings in Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor and from Egyptian rulers and vassals in Canaan.

Akh-en-Aten conducted his rule from Akhet-Aten until he died in 1365 B.C., having reigned for 18 years. When he died, his efforts to reform Egypt’s religion died with him. The priests of Amen regained their authority, and the city of the “heretic” Pharaoh was covered with sand, to keep its secrets for thousands of years.

The tablets themselves differ in colour, according to the colour of the clay in the country from which they came. Their con­tents also vary. Some deal with matters of a very trivial nature, while some refer to events of great moment, affecting the wel­fare of the Egyptian Empire. Both kinds are valuable in relation to the Bible. The less important ones dealt hardly with the theory which was finding some favour at the time when they were discovered. This was the opinion that Moses could not have written the first four books of the Bible because writing was not known in his time, or, at least, was a very rare accomplishment. Dr. Sayce’s comment on the letters is an adequate criticism of the validity of the theory :

“The letters are written by persons of the most diversified race and nationality ; many of them are from Officers of the Egyptian court and they are sometimes about the most trivial of matters. They testify to an active and extensive correspon­dence, carried on, not by a select caste of scribes, but by everyone who pretended to the rank and education of a gentleman.”

Many scholars are agreed that the Amarna Age was about the time of Moses. Some would even place him two centuries later. The bankruptcy of the theory was complete and it is seldom heard nowadays.

Akh-en-Aten’s pacifism had disastrous consequences for the Empire. The vassals of Egypt in Canaan and Syria were quick to realise their opportunity to rebel and the most important despatches are eloquent testimony to this effect. They are appeals for help from the Egyptian governors and the vassal kings in those countries. The appeals were in vain. The Pharaoh hoped that reasoning with his foes would be effec­tive. Consequently city after city was taken from the Egyptians and their friends. Of particular interest is the refence in the letters to a people called the Habiru, who were prominent among the attackers. One letter from Ahdi-Kheba, vassal king of Jerusalem, states,

“By the life of the King my Lord, because spoke thus to the officer of the King my Lord. ‘Why dost thou love the Habiru and hate the regents ?’ Therefore I am slandered before the King my Lord, Because I say, ‘The lands of the King, my Lord are being lost’. Therefore am I slandered before the King.” He also wrote, “Now the Habiru are capturing all the fortresses of the king. Not a single governor remains to the King my Lord ; all are destroyed. No countries remain unto the king ; the Hahiru have wasted all the countries of the king.”

Thus did the introduction of the worship of Aten lead to the destruction, at least for the time being, of the Egyptian Empire.

The similarity of Habiru to Hebrew will not have escaped the reader. Many scholars think that the references to the Habiru in the Amarna letters may be, at least to some extent, a reference to Joshua’s invasion. Certainly the Biblical dates already quoted in relation to the Exodus would not be in­fringed by such a view, for the period of Akh-cn-Aten was about 30 years after the Scripturally calculated dates of the invasion of Canaan. It is likely that some of the Amarna letters give the description by the dwellers in Canaan of Joshua’s invasion, of which we have the Bible description in his book. It should be remembered, however, that the Egyptian vassals were menaced by other attackers besides the Habiru. In fact the weakening onslaughts of these warriors might have softened their opponents to the benefit of Hebrew endeavour.