THE Semitic Assyrians and the Semitic people of other portions of Mesopotamia, had adopted the cuneiform script and the Turanian syllabary as early as the days of Sargon. From this time onward, and until the days of Assyrian and Babylonian supremacy, these signs were the common medium of literary intercourse among the nations of western Asia and expressed various languages and dialects.

The famous documents recently found in Egypt, known as the “Tel-el-Amarna” letters, indicate the extensive use of cuneiform writing in the fifteenth century before Christ, or about seven hundred and twenty years after Abraham.

The story of the discovery of these documents is still another among the many romances which archÆology so constantly and so unexpectedly presents.

The site of the modern Arab village, Tel-el-Amarna, is about one hundred and ninety miles south of Cairo, on the eastern bank of the river Nile.

The mountain chain which here follows the course of the river, recedes at this point in the form of a bay, and upon the sandy plain thus partially enclosed, many interesting remains appear, indicating the site of an ancient city.

The tombs on the hillside have long been of special interest to Egyptologists.

This city was known to have been the royal residence, and for a time the capital of Egypt, under Amenophis IV, the ninth king of the eighteenth dynasty. This king, son of Amenophis III and Queen Teie, a princess of Mitanni, was through several generations of maternal descent more Asiatic than Egyptian.

The royal house of Mitanni—the Aram-Nahairam of the Hebrews—had given in marriage several successive princesses to the kings of Egypt. Tothmes III, during his wars of conquest in western Asia, had obtained a princess of Mitanni in marriage, and this alliance was further cemented by the Egyptian kings, his successors, to the period of Amenophis III, the father of Khu n Aten, Amenophis IV.

These frequent alliances had brought about an inclination for the gods of the Mesopotamian mothers, and after while this younger son of the royal house of Egypt, openly professed his adoption of the worship of Aten, the supreme Baal of the Semitic people of Asia, and attempted to substitute this for the worship of Amon, the god of Thebes. He erased the name of the Egyptian god from the monuments and temples wherever found. This so aroused the indignation of the powerful priesthood devoted to the worship of Amon, that Amenophis found it necessary to leave for a time the capital of his kingdom at Thebes and to found another elsewhere.

This was established on the site of the modern Tel-el-Armana. The king took to himself a new title, Khu n Aten, “The Splendor of the Sun’s Disc,” by which name also he designated his new city. His reign after this seems to have been of short duration. After him, two or three princes of his house succeeded him, but with him Egyptian supremacy in western Asia was at an end and the subject provinces of Syria and Palestine passed out of Egyptian hands and rule.

The mummy of this monarch has recently been found in a royal sepulcher of the kings of Thebes with those of other kings of this ancient dynasty.

The revolt against the heretical king was extensive and Egypt was distracted with civil wars. The adherents of the ancient religions soon brought the worship of the new heresy to an end, and Rameses, first king of the nineteenth dynasty, restored the worship of Amon and the ancient gods of Egypt, with all power and dignity and brought with him a return of peace.

Such was the aversion of the Egyptian people for the capital of the heretic king, that, although his city was built almost entirely of sun-dried bricks, it has suffered less from the ravages of time than the more solidly constructed cities of Thebes and Memphis.

Prisse D’Avennes, who gives a description of the site of Khu n Aten, says that the principal streets of the city are distinct and the greater buildings can in part be traced. And again, that some of the buildings of sun-burnt brick are the best preserved and most ancient dwellings in the valley of the Nile.

In 1887 some clay tablets of peculiar and foreign character were found in these ruins in company with Egyptian relics. These tablets resembled for the most part small pillows of clay and they were inscribed with cuneiform characters. With them were found a few larger tablets, some small cylinders also inscribed in cuneiform, and seals and other relics with hieroglyphic inscriptions.

The ruins where they were found were at first supposed to have been the remains of the royal residence, but further examination indicates this structure as the depository of the royal archives, the abode of the king’s scribe and custodian of documents. It was near the palace though not of it. A portion of these documents were placed in the museum at Cairo, some were obtained for the British Museum, and the remainder by the Royal Museum of Berlin. They include in all three hundred letters from kings of Babylonia, Assyria, Mesopotamia and northern Syria, and from subject princes and governors in Palestine and throughout Canaan.

Although in cuneiform script, these characters varied with the locality from whence they came. The indications are that this system of writing had been long in use throughout western Asia.

The language chiefly used in these documents was the Semitic Babylonian, in the syllabary of the older Turanian form. In one or two cases the writer uses the Babylonian script to express his native language, the speech of the locality from whence the letter was sent, but these instances are rare.

In one letter from Tushratta, or Dusratta, king of Mitanni, the first seven lines are in Assyrian, but after this the remaining five hundred and five lines are in his native language, the speech of Mitanni, a language as yet unknown, having never been translated.

The meanings of a few words have been determined by Dr. Sayce and other scholars and the indications are that the language was a Mongol dialect, akin to the Accadian. The similarity of some words to those used by the Hittite prince, Tarkondara, who also writes about this time to Amenophis III, indicates this to be of the same family of speech.

The writing of this document is syllabic; and in the older cuneiform, with very few determinatives.

In some later explorations at Tel-el-Amarna Mr. Petrie came upon some fragments of other tablets in cuneiform which proved to be dictionaries. “In one case the dictionary expresses Semitic Babylonian and Sumerian, and as the Sumerian words are written phonetically as well as ideographically, it would appear that Sumerian must have been still a living language.”

On one of these later found tablets, Babylonian words are given to explain words of two other languages, one of which Mr. Boscawen thinks to be old Egyptian. If this is the case it is the only instance in the Tel-el-Amarna collections where this appears. In no other portion of this correspondence is the language of Egypt used.

Throughout the vast region represented by these letters, including various races and forms of speech, from the upper Euphrates to Babylonia; from northern Syria to southern Palestine; everywhere, the Babylonian language and Babylonian script were the common medium of literary intercourse in this correspondence.

The fact that many of these letters seem to have been individual productions and not the work of special schools of scribes indicates the widespread influence of Babylonian culture, and the opportunities for education existing throughout the Orient in the century before the Exodus.

There are evidences that the schools and libraries of the ancient cities of Mesopotamia had their counterparts in the cities of southern Palestine; as for instance Kirgath-Seper, “The City of Books,” to which we find later reference as Kirgath-Sanneh, “The City of Instruction.”

The glimpses afforded of social and political conditions in various localities at the period of this correspondence are of historical importance, furnishing data and verifying documents found elsewhere, of the same persons and events.

We have in the Tel-el-Amarna collection, letters from Burraburyash and his father, kings of Kardungyash or Babylon, to Amenophis III of Egypt, in which reference is made to the Egyptian princess, sister of Amenophis, wife of the king of Babylon.

Burraburyash also wants gold, “much gold” from the Egyptian king, for the building of his temple, and complains that this does not come to him in sufficient quantities.

There is one letter from the king of Assyria and many letters from Tushratta, or Dusratta, king of Mitanni. These latter refer chiefly to the princesses of Mitanni, wives of the Egyptian kings, Queen Teie, mother of Amenophis IV, and the princess Kirghipa, whose magnificent dowry occupies a great portion of some of the largest tablets in the collection. The lists include horses and a chariot covered with gold, ornaments of silver and gold of finest Babylonian workmanship, decorated with precious stones and rich garments of variegated stuffs.

Upon the death of Amenophis III, this princess became the wife of Amenophis IV, his son, who thus continued his alliance with the powerful and wealthy Tushratta, king of Mitanni.

Some of the most interesting letters in the collection are from Syria and Palestine, from the native princes and governors of cities, at this time subject to the Egyptian kings.

The correspondence of Ebed-tob, priest king and governor of Jerusalem, is of special interest. Jerusalem was at this time a city of the Amorites, a Semitic people of Palestine and its name in these documents is Uru-Salim, signifying “The City of the god Salim,” or the “God of Peace.”

Ebed-tob impresses the fact upon his royal correspondent that though subject to the Egyptian king, he is king of Uru-Salim by an oracle of the god of Salim. He was thus priest king of the city by divine appointment and not by heredity. This statement suggests that earlier king of Jerusalem, Melchizedek, who, as king of Salem and priest of the “Most High God,” comes forth with bread and wine and blessings for Abraham, the Deliverer of the country from its foes; the Restorer of Peace.

The Assyrian form, Sar Salim, “King of Salem,” is identical with the Hebrew Sar Shalom, “Prince of Peace.” This again illustrates the application by Isaiah of the title of “Prince of Peace” to that later “Prince of the House of David,” who, in a higher spiritual sense than his great prototype, Melchizedek, was yet to be to all nations and people “King of Salem” and “Prince of Peace.”

The most remarkable event in the history of archÆology has its connections with the Tel-el-Amarna discovery.

Among the letters in this collection addressed to Amenophis IV, from the governors of cities in southern Palestine, are those from the governor of Lachish. This dignitary was named Zimrida and his dispatches to the king of Egypt were chiefly upon the political conditions of his province, its dangers from approaching foes and the necessity of relief from Egypt.

It seems that Zimrida was in greater danger from foes within than without, for in one of the later letters from Ebed-tob, he alludes to the murder of Zimrida by servants of the Egyptian king.

The discovery of these cuneiform tablets from southern Palestine had strengthened the growing convictions of Prof. Sayce that lying beneath many of the tels or mounds that marked the sites of ancient cities throughout southern Palestine, other similar treasures were buried. The name Kirgath Sepher, “Book Town,” was strongly suggestive, and acting upon these impressions he urged the Palestine Exploration Fund to undertake explorations in this region.

The Tel-el-Amarna letters were discovered in 1887. It was not, however, until 1890 that the officers of the Palestine Exploration Fund were able to obtain the necessary permission from the Turkish government, or to secure the services of the distinguished explorer, Dr. Petrie, for the work. This gentleman began excavations in the month of April of that year.

After some days of examination of various tels in this region for the site of Lachish, he decided to commence work at the tel or mound Tel-el-Hesy, so called from the river Hesy which flows by the hill on which the mound is located. It is about seventeen miles to the east of Gaza. The natural eminence upon which it is situated rises to a height of forty feet above the valley. Above this the mound consists of a succession of town levels, the one above the other, sixty feet higher, from which a commanding view of the region is obtained.

Fortunately for the explorer, the turbulent stream flowing over these declivities has cut this tel on the eastern side from top to bottom, leaving the whole face exposed and revealing distinctly the various city levels of the several periods of occupation. The commanding position of the site, the fine springs of water, gushing from the hillsides, and the rapid stream, affording an abundance of fresh, sweet water, the locality agreeing in so many particulars with the site of ancient Lachish, the evidences also in the hillside of the existence at various periods of ancient important cities, justified his convictions which subsequent discoveries verified.

After some months of excavation, Dr. Petrie was obliged to discontinue his work here for engagements elsewhere, leaving further explorations in the hands of Mr. Bliss.

^[4]The result of Dr. Petrie’s labors had been to establish known facts in the history of ancient Lachish. The lowest and earliest town must have been of great strength and importance. The remains of the walls are twenty-eight feet and eight inches in thickness, of bricks unburnt, with two successive patchings of rebuilding occupying thirty-nine of the sixty feet in the height of the mound. At this level the fragments of pottery were distinct and peculiar, very different from the relics of the cities above and which, from relics elsewhere obtained, give the period of their use and manufacture at 1500 B. C.

The next level indicated a barbaric invasion when rude huts were piled up, to fall soon after into ruin. After this comes successive strata of Jewish cities until about 400 B. C., since which time Lachish passed out of history and no later relics are found.

Of these things Dr. Petrie says: “The Amorite pottery extends from 1500 B. C., to 1000 B. C. Phoenician and Cypriote begins about 1000 and goes to 700 B. C. Greek influence then begins and continues to the top of the town.”

Upon leaving, he pointed out to Dr. Bliss the indications that the lower portions of the tel would bring to light the ruins of a city destroyed by the invading Israelites.

Among the early relics found by Mr. Bliss, when the lower stratum of cities was more thoroughly explored, were a number of Egyptian beads and scarabs of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, on one of which the name of Queen Teie, wife of Amenophis III and mother of Amenophis IV, appears.

There were also a number of seal cylinders, some of Egyptian and some of Babylonian manufacture, of the same period or earlier.

The most wonderful discovery, however, was to come, verifying the predictions of Prof. Sayce and the judgment of Dr. Petrie, but in a way to astonish even these eminent scholars to whom all things seem possible. This was the discovery of a clay tablet inscribed in cuneiform characters similar in size, form and other peculiarities, to the letters from Lachish in the Tel-el-Amarna documents.

It is written in the Babylonian language and with the Babylonian syllabary, and what is still more astonishing, the name of Zimrida appears upon it.

It proves to be a letter addressed to an Egyptian officer, received at Lachish about the time Zimrida’s letter was sent to the king of Egypt. In this the name of Zimrida, who, according to the Tel-el-Amarna dispatches was governor of Lachish, is twice mentioned.

Here in Canaan, deep beneath the remains of many cities, and there upon the banks of the Nile, these two fragments of a correspondence have lain through many centuries, waiting the time when this long forgotten story might be read and explained.

The Lachish letter was claimed at once by the Turkish government, and those who have attempted its translation have been obliged to do this from squeezes or impressions of the original document, which in some cases are imperfect, as some of the characters are partly obliterated or on the edges of the tablet. Quite enough, however, is apparent to identify the date and significance of the documents.

The Tel-el-Amarna documents also indicate in a way the date of the Exodus. They at least prove, of the periods sometimes assigned, when this could not have happened, and to point to the probabilities when it did.

In the letters from southern Canaan we have a distinct view of Palestine before its occupation by the Children of Israel. They had not taken possession of Lachish, nor had they entered Jerusalem. At this time Palestine and all Syria were under Egyptian domination.

The governors of many of the cities were often times native Egyptians, and Egyptian garrisons were stationed at all important points for their protection.

From the time of Thotmes III, of the eighteenth dynasty, to the close of the reign of Amenophis IV, this state of affairs had continued and during this period no Egyptian king corresponds to the Pharaoh of the Oppression.

At the time of the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites and their occupation of its cities, the domination of Egypt had ceased. This did not occur until the close of the eighteenth dynasty.

When the nineteenth dynasty came in, with Rameses I, a new order of things arose. The reaction against the heresies of Amenophis extended to all Asiatic influences, and the Semitic people throughout the realm found in Rameses and his immediate successors the Pharaohs who “knew not Joseph.”

Again, in certain of these letters from southern Palestine, there are references to the “Khabiri” who were threatening these cities, and in the Khabiri some scholars read the word Hebrews and their approaching invasion of Palestine.

This would place these letters at the close of the “Wandering in the Wilderness,” instead of earlier. Against this view is urged that the political conditions of Canaan at the time of this correspondence do not agree with those of the Israelitish invasion of Canaan.

The word Khabiri signifies “confederates.” They are probably the people of Hebron, one of the old Amorite cities, and confederated against the alien Egyptian authorities, with their stronghold at Hebron.

In the letters of Ebed-tob to the king of Egypt, he complains of certain officials in the neighboring cities who are conspiring with the Khabiri, the most dangerous foe to the constituted authorities in that part of Palestine.

The preservation of these documents among the archives of the Egyptian king show that these appeals were received. The evidences are that they were sent to Amenophis IV near the close of his reign. Then civil war, which continued for some time after his death, and during the reign of his immediate successors, made it necessary to recall the Egyptian troops abroad, and the strongholds of Egyptian rule in Asia soon surrendered to native and foreign claimants of Syria and Canaan.

It is scarcely possible, in so brief a sketch, to give an estimate of things indicated, or the historical importance of these documents. The most striking of the things indicated is the large range presented of Babylonian influence and culture.

This is not more noticeable in the countries bordering upon the Euphrates valley than it is throughout the region lying along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and the western slopes of Amanus, from northern Syria to the valley of the Nile.

From Tyre and Sidon, Beyrut and Joppa, Gaza and Askalon, Jerusalem, Lachish and other ancient cities of Syria, Palestine and Canaan, letters were addressed to the king of Egypt; not in the language of Egypt, nor yet of Syria or Canaan, but in the language and script of Babylonia.

This is hardly what might have been expected. We might have expected, for instance, the speech of the Semitic people of Syria or Canaan—this older Hebrew—to have assumed Hebraic forms; that older Phoenician script for which scholars are so earnestly searching. Or we might reasonably have supposed that documents from this region and at this time would have been expressed in the written forms of the hieroglyphic system of Egypt; but this was not the case.

The problem of the use at this date of the script and language of Babylonia by the Semitic people of Syria and Canaan, must be referred to the extensive influence of Babylonian culture and power, which had been more or less dominant in Canaan from the period of Sargon I.

Of this, Prof. Sayce says:

“So long had this system of writing been adopted in western Asia, and so long had it had its home there, that each district and nationality had time to form its peculiar hand. We can tell at a glance by merely looking at the forms assumed, whether a particular document came from the south of Palestine, from Phoenicia or from northern Syria.”

Again, the prevalence of its use throughout the vast region represented by these documents, from the Persian Gulf to the mountains of Armenia, from beyond the Tigris to the Mediterranean Sea and from northern Syria to Arabia, implies the centuries.

It indicates that what our alphabetic system is to modern civilizations the Babylonian cuneiform was to the civilizations of western Asia in the century preceding the Exodus.

Another influence for the persistency and spread of the cuneiform writing, was due to the great libraries established in various cities, to which the people had access. These had existed from the earliest times in Babylonia, and undoubtedly spread with the spread of Babylonian influence and culture.

Of legendary libraries in Chaldea, Berosus tells of the antediluvian city Pantabibla, town of Books, and Sippara, also City of the Sun, where Xisthurus, the Chaldean Noah, buried his books before the Deluge, and from whence they were disentombed after the subsidence of the waters.

Of actual collections, literary remains from the library of Erech, the most ancient of Chaldean cities, give evidence of the antiquity of these institutions, as also others from Cutha, Larsa and various localities.

The library of Larsa, or Senkereh, was famous for its mathematical works, and here students of that science came from all parts of the country.

Some tablets from this library are now in the British Museum, among which are tables of squares, and there are traces of a Chaldean Euclid, with geometrical figures.

In Assyria, the great libraries established in various cities were at the expense of the libraries of Babylonia. They were founded by the kings of Assyria who became for the time masters of Babylonia.

For the enrichment of Assyria, the Babylonian libraries were despoiled of many treasures of which such books were selected and removed as would add to the glory of Assyria.

The books of the Assyrian libraries established in various cities consisted either of works from the older libraries or were copies of books left in their original homes.

The most ancient of the Assyrian libraries of which we have account, after that of the great Sargon, of Agane, was that of Calah. This city was founded by Shalmaneser, about 1300 B. C., but later on was laid waste during some invasions of Assyria. It was afterwards rebuilt by Assur-natsi-pal, king of Assyria, 885 B. C.

At this restoration of Calah, he founded the celebrated library in which, with other literature, was deposited the great work on astronomy, entitled the “Observations of Bel.” This work was first composed for the library of Sargon at Agane, and throughout Assyrian and Babylonian history had a wide reputation. It was translated in later times into Greek by Berosus, the Chaldean historian, from many copies of the work made for the great library of Assur-bani-pal, at Kouyunjik. Many fragments of these copies are now in the British Museum, but the table of contents which remains gives a good conception of the subjects treated in the original work.

Assur-bani-pal says of the founding of his royal library, that inspired by “Nebo, the prophet god of Literature,” and “his wife, Tasmit, the Bearer,” he had regard to the engraved characters of which, as much as was suitable on tablets, he had written and explained and placed in his library for the inspection of his subjects.

To this library, strangers from all countries were also admitted, and for their assistance in the study of literature and the translation of these documents, syllabaries were prepared in which the cuneiform characters were classified and arranged. With these were the phrase books and dictionaries presenting the ancient Accadian form of the word with its Assyrian equivalent.

By these means the modern student of cuneiform has been able to translate this long forgotten language as readily as the student of the period of Assur-bani-pal.

Like testimony from other localities is coming to light, of the literary activity which prevailed for long centuries—we may say milleniums—throughout the vast region affected by Babylonian influence. There were books and libraries everywhere, and those who could read and write them.

The imperishable nature of these baked clay records is yet to furnish other and greater surprises. Beneath the mounds which dot the plains and valleys of Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine, the treasures of many ancient libraries undoubtedly still await the spade of the explorer.