THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS OF TEL EL-AMARNA,. 21 
from the King of Alasiya, though the commencement of it is 
lost. Here we find: ‘‘Now I have sent [thee] as presents 
a sea (?) of bronze, three talents of hard bronze, the tusk of 
an elephant, a throne, and the hull (?) of aship. These gifts, 
O my brother, this man [brings in] this ship of the king [my 
lord], and do thou in return send a costly gift to me carefully. 
[And] do thou, O my brother, [listen to] my request, and 
give to me the ... which I have asked for. This man is 
the servant of the king [my] lord, but the carpenter with me 
has not finished (his work) in addition to the other presents ; 
yet do thou, O brother, send the costly gift carefully.” 
The reference to the sinnw sa birt, or “elephant’s tusk,” is 
interesting. We know, from the Egyptian inscriptions, that 
Thothmes III. hunted wild elephants in the neighbourhood of 
Ni, near Aleppo; while, some four or five centuries later, 
'Tiglath-pileser I. did the same in the neighbourhood of 
Carchemish. 
The King of Alasiya was not the only foreign potentate 
whose letters are preserved in the Museum of Boulaq. One 
of the tablets in the collection begins in this way: “[To 
N]imutriya, the King of Egypt, [I speak] by letter, even I, 
[ Ris-takul]la-Sin, the king of the country of Babylonia. My 
peace be [upon thee], and upon thy wife, thy children, 
[thy house], and thy chariots and horses; upon all thy 
| possessions] may there ever be peace!” The letter then 
goes on to state that the father of the writer had sent his 
daughter, Irtabi, to the Egyptian Pharaoh many years before, 
Nimutriya sending presents in return to his father. After 
his accession to the throne, the Babylonian prince “ again sent 
an ambassador” to Egypt; and, six years later, the Pharaoh 
forwarded by his envoy Salmasi, 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 whick 
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 
Khiri[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: 
O my brother, my ambassador whom I sent to thy father, 
