EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT — BORCHAEDT. 457 



portion of an Assyrian syllabary. Syllabary is the designation of 

 tabular arrangements in different columns of cuneiform characters, 

 their names and values. Usually they consist of three columns. In 

 the middle column are placed the cuneiform signs which are to be 

 explained; the column to the left gives the pronunciation and syl- 

 labic value of the character, while the column to the right contains 

 the names of the signs. The present fragment is either the writing 

 exercise of a dragoman who was intrusted with the cuneiform cor- 

 respondence to western Asia, which the large script would suggest, 

 or a reading exercise provided for such a dragoman in western Asia. 



Of much more interest and value is the larger fragment (pi. 11; 

 pi. 12, fig. 1). It is made of a fine light-red clay, with a height and 

 width of 10 centimeters and a thickness not exceeding 2.4 centi- 

 meters. It is closely inscribed on both sides with the so-called 

 "Hittite" stroke of the cuneiform script, the several paragraphs 

 being separated by lines. As far as made out, it is the first part of 

 a serial literary work, bearing the title "King of the Battle" (Sar 

 tamhari), which treated of a military campaign in western Asia, 

 of which the present fragments delineate the causes and the begin- 

 ning. Unfortunately, the name of the author or scribe, with which 

 Assyrian tablets are usually signed, is here wanting. In its place 

 is some wiped-out Eg}"ptian red ink and the impression of a finger 

 besmeared with red ink, which might suggest that the Egyptian 

 name of the author or scribe in Egyptian script was intended to be 

 placed there. 



The first question which pressed for answer was, Did these pieces 

 come from the well-known archives, or are they the harbingers of 

 the existence of deposits of cuneiform tablets apart from the public 

 archives in Tell el-Amarna ? The contents of the two tablets do not 

 hinder their having come from the archives, for syllabaries had be- 

 fore that been found in the archives by Professor M. Flinders Petrie 

 and the existence of literary texts in the archives may likewise be as- 

 serted. There was found there, belonging to the library of Ameno- 

 phis III, a faience label of a wooden case of a papyrus which con- 

 tained, obviously in Egyptian script, the tale of the " Sycamore and 

 the Date Palm." But the great distance of the location of the find 

 from that of the "house of the royal letter- writer," about 1^ Idlo- 

 meters, would indicate that it did not come from the archives. We 

 should have to assume either that in ancient times pieces from the 

 archives had been scattered over the field of ruins, or that the peas- 

 ants of Et-Till, who discovered the archives in 1887, have in an in- 

 credible manner thrown some of the pieces around. But whatever 

 may have been the origin of the two new tablets, it is certain that 

 there is hope of still further finds of tablets in Tell el-Amarna, 

 where search had been completely abandoned. 



