THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS OF TEL EL-AMARNA. tl 



an ambassador " to Egypt ; and, six years later, the Pharaoh 

 forwarded by his envoy Salinasi, thirty manehs of gold, besides 

 a certain amount of silver. The object of the letter is to inform 

 the Egyptian monarch that other presents are now on their 

 way from his brother-in-law. 



Babylonia is here called Kara-Duniyas, the name by which 

 it went in the age of the Kassite Dynasty. Another potentate 

 who corresponded with the Egyptian kings ruled over a 

 country the name of which is unfortunately lost, a fracture of 

 the tablet having destroyed the characters which composed 

 the name. The letter commences with the words : " [I am] 

 Subbi-kuzki, the king of the country of ... ma(?)-ti; to 

 Khuri[ya], the [king of] Egypt, [I speak] by letter. [May] 

 there be peace before thee, may there be peace [unto thy 

 wife], thy children, thy house, thy soldiers, [thy] chariots, 

 [and in] the midst of thy country may there ever be peace : 

 my brother, my ambassador whom I sent to thy father, 

 and the request which thy father made to the king, saying : 

 ' O prince, let us take counsel together/ I did not counter- 

 mand." The royal scribe then inquires why no acknowledg- 

 ment has been made of the presents he has sent to Egypt, 

 and adds that he is forwarding various other gifts, including 

 a cup of silver five manehs in weight, and a second cup of 

 silver three manehs in weight, as well as two other objects of 

 silver ten manehs in weight. 



The most interesting, however, of all the tablets at Boulaq 

 is a long and well-preserved one, which is addressed by Tar- 

 khundaras, king of the country of Arzapi, to Nimutriya, or 

 Amenophis III., the Pharaoh of Egypt. The heading and 

 one or two technical words are in Semitic Assyrian, but the 

 rest of the letter is written in an unknown language. The 

 ideographs employed in it show that the introductory greetings 

 are the same as those found in other letters from foreign 

 potentates to the Egyptian king, and we are thus enabled to 

 determine the meaning of the phonetically-written words 

 which occur in them. Thus the possessive pronoun " my" is 

 expressed by the affix mi, and the pronoun " thy " by ti, tim, 

 and perhaps ia, which become tu when suffixed to the word 

 signifying " trees." These two pronouns offer a strange simi- 

 larity to the corresponding pronouns in the Indo-European 

 languages. Bibbi is "chariot," and bibbid "chariots," while 

 Tcalatta seems to mean "brother." Ganeda is "exceedingly," 

 and khwman-sdkh(1)-m "may there be peace ;" sakh(?)-an-ta 

 being "thy peace-offering," and hhalu-garitsi " a messenger." 

 Now, Tarkhundaras is a Hittite name, like the names of 

 Tarkhu-nazi and Tarkhu-lara found on the Assyrian monuments, 



