AMARNA LETTERS' INTERPRETATION

AMARNA LETTERS' INTERPRETATION

Another controversy that has emerged out of the translation and interpretation of the Amarna Letters is the question of who the ‘Apiru are. Many of the tablets from Syro-Palestinian vassals refer to a group of people called the ‘Apiru, who appear to have been widespread across the Near East throughout the 2nd millennium bc. Since the ﬁrst translations of the letters spelt the name Hapiru or Habiru, biblical scholars immediately began to explore the possibility that these were the ﬁrst references to Hebrews, some even speciﬁcally correlating references to ‘Apiru attacks with the account of Joshua’s invasion of Canaan. However, there has not yet been any conclusive proof that the ethnic terms ‘Apiru and Ibri (Hebrew) are linked etymologically, and it is not even clear whether ‘Apiru refers to an ethnic group, a social group, or an economic class (or all three), with one commentator suggesting that the term was synonymous with ‘social banditry’. As John Laughlin points out, in Archaeology and the Bible, ‘it is certainly true to say that not all ‘Apiru were Hebrews. Whether any Hebrews were ever ‘Apiru is, at the moment, an open question.’As well as giving insights into the political conditions of the time, the letters also shed light on trade relations and the values of particular commodities such as glass, gold, and the newly introduced iron, while the various forms of address employed in the letters indicate the standing of the writers vis-à-vis the Egyptian court. A very enterprising conference held in 1996 (and published in 2000, as Amarna Diplomacy, eds. Cohen and Westbrook) brought together historians, social scientists, and professional diplomats to discuss such topics as ‘international law in the Amarna age’, ‘diplomatic signalling’, and a ‘socio-psychological’ analysis of Amarna diplomacy. This innovative combination of expertise takes the study of the letters into areas not previously contemplated by Egyptologists.

Apart from being subjected to new textual analysis, the Amarna tablets have also begun to be studied from a more scientiﬁc point of view. Dr Yuval Goren, an Israeli geology lecturer, has used petrographic analysis to study the actual clay from which they were formed. The aim of his work is to compare the clays with the geology of various sites in the Mediterranean, the Near East, and North Africa in order to try to work out the places from which the letters were sent. Using this method, Goren tackled the question of the whereabouts of the kingdom of Alashiya, which was associated with the supply of copper to Egypt and other countries, and which might have been located in Cyprus, Cilicia, north-west Syria, or even southern Israel. The fabric of one of eight Alashiya letters in the British Museum looked quite different, suggesting that, unlike most of the tablets, it might not be an Egyptian-made local copy but might possibly be one of the original letters made from clay at Alashiya itself. It was made from a pinkish marly clay that includes many fragments of chlorite and dolerite, suggesting that the clay was obtained from a particular type of area dominated by igneous rock. Goren found that this helped to narrow down the likely choices to the Troodos massif on Cyprus, the region of Kizzuwatna in Anatolia and the Biabashin region of north-west Syria. He was then able to rule out ﬁrst Kizzuwatna, because it was governed by Egypt’s great rivals, the Hittites, and secondly the north-west Syrian area, because it seemed to be too geologically diverse to ﬁt the bill. On Cyprus, on the other hand, there was one region that ﬁtted the evidence in various ways. Geologically, the likely area was located between the doleritic Troodos mountains and the adjacent marly part of the island, which would have provided a pink clay with a mixture of dolerite and marly clay just like that of the tablet. Signiﬁcantly, this area of Cyprus is also the area in which copper was being produced from the Middle Bronze Age onwards. Cyprus itself had always been the favourite candidate for the location of Alashiya, but Goren’s analysis seems to provide good scientiﬁc support for the theory.