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Amarna Archive

The Tell-El-Amarna archive has been mentioned before. To refreshen your memory,the Amarna archive was found in currentday El-Amarna. The entire archive consistsof 382 clay tablets written in Akkadian, the lingua francaof the time. Most of the

tablets are letters written by vassal kins of Ey!t, the small kindoms in the "evant,includin #yblos. A smaller number of letters are !art of a corres!ondence betweenthe reat !owers of the time, namely Mitanni, $atti, Assyria and #abylonia. %e havedecided to sinle out this !eriod in the history of #yblos because a staerinamount of &' letters in the Amarna corres!ondence are written by the kin of #yblos,(ib-Addi, in a time of e)treme !olitical u!heaval, which makes the *onesided-corres!ondence e)tremely interestin.

+irst, lets look at the !olitical situation of the time. The Amarna archive is athcentury archive, and it only contains the international corres!ondence receivedby Ey!t over the course of about 2' years, namely from 3/2 until 33/. At thattime the ma! of the Ancient 0ear East is dominated by the followin territorial states1

Ey!t, Mitanni, Assyria, #abylon and $atti. !eakin in terms of !ower, these statesare euals and refer in their corres!ondence to each other as such, referrin to eachother as brothers. The "evantine reion is still dominated mostly by small kindoms,little more than city-states4 The reat !owers of the time do not allow either one of theothers to directly incor!orate these smaller states into their em!ire. They are verymuch a buffer, mostly between Ey!t and $atti. These smaller states are, however,vassals of either the Ey!tian or $attian kins.

The !roblem is that even thouh these bi states arent stron enouh to takeon one another in a direct confrontation, that wont sto! them from tryin to e)tendtheir influence at the e)!ense of other states. They do so by stealin each othersvassals. 5n the !eriod in which the Amarna archive was written the influence of Ey!ton the "evantine states dwindles and $atti manaes to steal a lot of vassals fromEy!t. Aainst this !olitical backdro! we will look at some of the letters written by(ib-Addi, kin of #yblos

5f you look at the ma!, you can see that #yblos initially is on the border of theEy!tian influence s!here. (ib-Addi is a vassal of Ey!t, kin of #yblos. As 5vementioned before, he has written some &' letters to !haraoh Akhenaten, mostlyaskin for military hel! and warnin the !haraoh of vassals bein disloyal.

Rib-addi spoke to his lord, the King of Lands:May the Mistress of Gubla 6/7grant power to my lord. t the feet of my lord, my sun, !

fall down se"en times and se"en times. Let the king, my lord, know that Gubla, yourhandmaid from ancient times 67, is well.

The first thin that immediately becomes a!!arent in this letter introduction is thesubservient tone (ib-Addi takes on. The letter introduction is a standard one, used inmost letters from vassals of Ey!t, when they address the !haraoh. (ib-Addi isestablishin himself as a less !owerful lord, de!endent on his lord in his letterintroduction.

#owe"er, the war of the $piru 6&7against me is se"ere. %&ur' sons %and' daughtersare gone, %as well as' the furnishings of the houses, because they ha"e been sold in

(arimuta to keep us ali"e. My field is )a wife without a husband,) lacking inculti"ation. ! ha"e repeatedly written to the palace regarding the distress afflicting me,

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. . but no one has paid attention to the words that keep arri"ing. Let the king heed thewords of his ser"ant........... *hey . . . all the lands of the king, my lord. duna, theking of !r+ata 67, mercenaries ha"e killed, and there is no one who has said anythingto bdi-shirta 687, although you knew about it. Miya, the ruler of rashni, has takenrdata and behold now the people of mmiya ha"e killed their lord so ! am

frightened.

Let the king, my lord, know that the king of #atti has o"ercome all the lands thatbelonged to the king of Mittani or the king of ahma 67the land of the great kings.bdi-shirta, the sla"e, the dog, has gone with him. end archers. *he hostilitytoward me is great. ................ and send a man to the city of . . . ! will . . . his words.

$ere we et an inside lim!se into the !roblem we have !reviouslyaddressed. Mitannis !ower is wanin, Assyria and $atti are takin advantae of thissituation by anne)in !arts of what !reviously was Mitannis territory. $atti at thesame time is tryin to steal vassals from Ey!t. $ere, (ib-Addi of 9ubla is warnin

him about the threat $atti is !osin and that some of Ey!ts vassals, namely Abdi-Ashirta of Amurru, has sided with $atti, formally however, Amurru remains a vassalof Ey!t. 5f this is (ib-Addi tryin to damae the re!utation of Abdi-Ashirta or thatAmurru really did side with $atti, is unclear. Abdi-Ashirta and later his son A:iru, alsoa!!ear in the Amarna archive, so at least the !haraoh is under the im!ression thesekins are still his vassals. till, that doesnt sto! the Amurrian kins from tryin toe)!and their territory at the e)!ense of 9ubla. This conflict is central to the letters of(ib-Addi, most of his letters consist of com!laints about his onoin war with Amurru.

;n to another letter1

Rib-ddi says to his lord, the King of Lands, the Great King, the King of /attle:May the Lady of Gubla 6/7grant power to the king, my lord. t the feet of my lord, myun, ! fall down se"en times and se"en times. /e informed that sincemanappa$s 6

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directly, callin the !haraoh out on his nelect of the city. 0o matter how many letters(ib-Addi writes, thouh, the !haraoh does not answer his !leas. 5n one of (ib-Addisletters he even uotes a re!ly he did receive from the !haraoh, basically sayin =whyis this man botherin me with all these letters>?

5n the end (ib-Addis fate is a traic one. $e was de!osed and banished by his

youner brother 5llirabih, after (ib-Addi travelled to #eirut to conclude a treaty. @!onhis return he found out that 5llirabih had sei:ed !ower. $e was killed by Abdi-Ashirtasson, A:iru. This event is mentioned in letter &2, when Akhenaten writes to A:iru,only then he deems it fit to res!ond.

o, in short, what we see is that even thouh many of the "evantine kindoms arevassals of Ey!t, there is still strive amonst these cities. %hat is interestin to see isthat these "evantine states are allowed to have forein !olitics with one another. Thefact that (ib-Addi concludes a treaty with #eirut and that Amurru can actually e)!andits borders show that, to an e)tend, these vassals of Ey!t are still free to enae, toan e)tend, are !rime e)am!les of this matter. Akhenaten was not blind to forein

!olitics, as is seen in his letter to A:iru, when he scolds him for turnin (ib-Addi awayand havin !eaceful relationshi!s with enemies of Ey!t. Amurru will in the endswitch sides to $atti, when the $attian forces enter the reion. Ey!t does manae tohold on to its territories in the reion of 5srael. Evidence in #yblos itself shows that itsclose ties with Ey!t deteriorate, when Ey!t starts to favour idon and Tyre over#yblos.

0ekro!olis

urin the ark Ae that follows the colla!se of the reat #ron:e Ae em!iresaround 2'' #B, Ey!t loses all of its forein territories. The "evantine states arefree to develo! themselves and !rove to be e)tremely ada!table to this newsituation. The Choenician cities, as the 9reeks will call them, establish a tradenetwork that encom!asses most of the Mediterranean world, foundin cities likeBarthae D which was founded by Tyre . #yblos was also !art of this network. #aseson its role in this trade system, it was iven the name by which we know the citytoday1 #yblos. The 9reeks called the city #yblos, which literally means F!a!yrus.Thouh !roduced in Ey!t, #yblos !robably !osed as an intermediary in the trade in!a!yrus. Te)ts have been found attestin trade with Ey!t in which #yblos ivescedar wood and ets Ca!yrus in return. Throuh #yblos, the !a!yrus made its wayinto the 9reek world.

This trade network has reatly benefitted the s!read of a new ty!e of al!habet, areat innovation in the field of writin. Crior to the invention of the Choenicianal!habet, most systems used to render writin, were syllabic and !ictora!hic.Assyrian, the Lingua 0rancaof the time, uses both syllabic and !ictora!hic sins.To have a workin knowlede of the lanuae, you need to actively know about 8'sins, there are, of course, many more. ;n to! of that, the sins are verycom!licated. Thus writin in these cultures was mostly done by s!ecially trainedscribes. Then in the Choenician cities, an al!habet develo!s.

This al!habet consists out of 22 sins and only renders consonants. #ecause thisal!habet contains so few sins, it is much easier for reular !eo!le to learn and use it

actively. Thus, writin s!reads. This al!habet is the one the 9reek al!habet, and inturn the "atin al!habet is based on.

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The earliest known inscri!tion in this al!habet was found in #yblos. 5t was found inthe necro!olis of #yblos, which was e)cavated by Cierre Montet, who e)cavated in#yblos between