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Updated: June 13, 2025
A very learned lady who is writing a historical book has commissioned me to collect all the literature relating to the Tell el Amarna letters the cuneiform tablets, you know, of Amenhotep the Fourth." "Well," I said soothingly, "I expect your hand will soon be well." "Yes, but that won't do. The work has to be done immediately.
Every day we had worked steadily at the allotted task, had then handed in the books and gone forth together to enjoy a most companionable tea in the milk-shop; thereafter to walk home by way of Queen Square, talking over the day's work and discussing the state of the world in the far-off days when Ahkhenaten was king and the Tell el Amarna tablets were a-writing.
The spirit and gusto with which they took advantage of their opportunities would scarcely be believed by one who had not seen their works at Tell el Amarna. Some of their bas-reliefs are designed in almost correct perspective; and in all, the life and stir of large crowds are rendered with irreproachable truth.
In their Babylonian form the Tell el Amarna tablets are in the first place the product of the diplomatic custom of the time, but in many details of their contents they show that the civilisation of Western Asia had for centuries been based on a Babylonian foundation.
The importance of these letters, however, consists in the substance of what they report and in what they tell us as to the doings of the writers. They are the data by reason of which the Tell el Amarna archives constitute a unique store of historical material for the study of the history of civilisation. Warlike expeditions among the vassal chiefs were the order of the day.
Napkhuria did not even see the completion of his city at Tell el Amarna, for he died in 1370 B.C. His reform followed him, and the victorious champions of Amon could raze to the ground the hated City of the Sun’s Disk.
The greater number of these objects date from, and after, the first Saïte dynasty; but excavations in Thebes and Tell el Amarna have proved that the manufacture of coloured glass prevailed in Egypt earlier than the tenth century before our era.
The Prussian exploration expedition of 1842-45 gave special attention to this site, where indeed were found, about sixty miles south of Minieh, extensive ruins, beginning at the village of Haggi Kandil and covering the floor of a rock-bound valley named after the fellahin village, El Amarna.
"Who will be the first to consult Amarna, the Seeress of the Seven Veils?" intoned the now-returning Elfreda in solemn, sing-song accents. Very practically she added: "I just now took the trouble to find out her name." "Can she tell the past?" quizzed Sara Emerson skeptically. "She can. To Amarna the past is a freshly written page. From her occult vision nothing lies hidden.
In vol. ii. p. 205 et seqq. of his History of Egypt, Professor Petrie maintains the same views. The same volume also contains his earlier synopsis of the Tell el Amarna tablets. Professor Maspero’s account of the historical bearing of these tablets is worked into the second volume of his great Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient, which is entitled Les Premières Mélées des Peuples.
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