Did somebody say, "She-ba?" Who's calling me, and what do you want?
Posted on 01/24/2010 3:50:06 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Did somebody say, "She-ba?" Who's calling me, and what do you want?
btt
The article is online, no longer members-only. Worked for me anyway.
[Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY] The Amarna letters are a collection of more than 300 cuneiform tablets discovered at el-Amarna in Egypt in the late 1800s. Dating to the Late Bronze Age (1500-1150 B.C.E.), the archive consists of royal correspondence of Pharaoh Amenophis III (1391-1353 B.C.E.) and his son, Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenophis IV, 1353-1337 B.C.E.) with local rulers of various Canaanite city-states. This tablet (catalogued as EA 289) and several others were sent to the pharaoh by 'Abdi-Heba, the ruler of Urusalim (Jerusalem), indicating that there was a significant city at the site in the 14th century B.C.E. However, excavations in Jerusalem have produced only meager finds, leading some archaeologists to conclude that Jerusalem was merely a small outpost or fortified estate during the Late Bronze Age, rather than a flourishing city. So what happens when the historical record and the archaeological evidence seem to contradict each other? According to author Nadav Na'aman, we get a more accurate picture of what the ancient world was like when we consider both texts and the results of archaeological excavations.
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