694 ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



now in the tablets found at Tel-el-Amarna, in Egypt, a kind of diplo- 

 matic correspondence, carried on at that early time, more tlian a thou- 

 sand years before the invasion of Greece by Persia, between the kings 

 of Egypt and their friends and vassals in Babylon. Syria, and Palestine- 

 These letters were docketed in Egypt in hieratic writing, like the dis- 

 patches in our Foreign Office. They throw much light on the political 

 relations then existing between the Kings of Egypt and the Kings of 

 western Asia, their political and matrimonial alliances, and likewise 

 on the trade carried on between different countries. They confirm 

 statements known to ns from hieroglyphic inscriptions in Egyi>t, more 

 particularly those in the temple of Karnak. The spelling is chiefly 

 syllabic, the language an Assyrian dialect. Doubtful Accadian words 

 are often followed and explained by glosses in what may be called a 

 Cauaanite dialect, which comes very near to Hebrew. But how did 

 the kings of Egypt understand these cuneiform dispatches'? It is true 

 we meet sometimes with the express statement that those to whom 

 these missives were addressed had understood them,* as if this could 

 not always be taken for granted. It is true also that these letters were 

 mostly brought by messengers who might have helped in inter])reting 

 them, provided they had learned to si)eak and read Egyptian. But 

 what is more extraordinary still, the King of Egypt himself, Amenophis 

 ITT, when writing to a king whose daughter he wishes to marry, writes 

 a dispatch in cuneiform letters, and in a language not his own, unless 

 we suppose that the tablet which we possess was simply a translation 

 sent to the King Kallimma Sin, and as such kept in the archives of the 

 Egyptian Foreign Office. 



It is curious to observe that the King of Egypt, though quite willing to 

 marry the daughters of smaller potentates, is not at all disposed to send 

 P^gyptian princesses to them. For he writes in his own letters (p. 20) 

 "A daughter of the King of the land of Egypt has never been given to 

 a 'Nobody.'" Whatever else we may learn from these letters, they are 

 not patterns of diplomatic language, if indeed the translation is in this 

 case quite faithful.! In these dispatches, dating from 1400 b. c, a num- 

 ber of towns are mentioned, many of which have the same names as 

 those known to us from hieroglyphic inscriptions. Some of these names 

 have even survived to our own time, such as Misirim for Egypt, Damas- 

 cus, Megiddo, Tyre (Surrii), Sidon (Siduna), Byblos (Guble), Beyrut 

 (Biruta), Joppa (Yapu), and others. Even the name of Jerusalem has 

 been discovered by Sayce in these tablets, as UrulsaI'm, meaning in 

 Assyrian the town of jieace, a name which nnist have existed l)efore 

 the Jews took possession of Canaan. Some of these tablets (eighty- 

 two) may be seen at the British Museum, others (100) at Berlin, most 

 of the rest are in the nuiseum at Gizeh. We are indebted to Mr. Budge 



* See Tablets xxvi, lx, lxix, lxxxiv. 



tMy skepticism ou tliis point Las been ooiifirmed, for I see in an article by Piof. 

 Sayce iu the last number of the Academy that this translation is not quite correct. 



