Glossary Society, writing and trade
Amarna letters
Also called: Amarna tablets
Diplomatic letters on clay tablets, mostly in Akkadian cuneiform, found at Akhenaten's capital of el-Amarna in Egypt and dating to the mid-fourteenth century BCE.
The archive holds letters between the pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten and the rulers of Babylon, Mitanni, Hatti, the Levantine cities and Alashiya. Eight letters, numbered EA 33–40, come from the king of Alashiya. He addresses the pharaoh as 'my brother', the form used between great kings, and sends copper, in one case 500 talents with an apology that a plague had killed his copper-workers.
The letters also show friction: EA 38 answers an Egyptian charge that men of Alashiya had joined sea raiders. Analysis of the clay of the Alashiya letters points to southern Cyprus. See Egypt.
Full entry: Egypt
Related terms
- Alashiya
A copper-rich Late Bronze Age kingdom named in Near Eastern texts and widely identified with all or part of Cyprus.
- Oxhide ingot
A flat copper slab with four projecting handles, weighing about 24–30 kg: the standard form in which Late Bronze Age Cyprus exported copper.