3,350-year-old document found in Jerusalem

3,350-year-old document found in Jerusalem

Examination of the material of the fragment by Prof. Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University shows that it is from the soil of the Jerusalem area and not similar to materials from other areas, further testifying to the likelihood that it was part of a tablet from a royal archive in Jerusalem containing copies of tablets sent by the king of Jerusalem to Pharaoh Akhenaten in Egypt.

www.jerusalemdispatch.com...

that's way cool - that is a long time ago!

but i'm confused about something. i read the article two or three times trying to clarify it for myself but didn't have any success.

if the tablet contains cuneiform, then why is it thought to be from a royal in Jerusalem to an Egyptian pharaoh?

where does the Akkadian fit in that scenario?

reply to post by queenannie38


The kings of the caananite city states were client kings to the egyptian pharao at the time.
A large cache of clay tablets from the period were discovered in egypt and are called the armarna lettersAmarna letters.
they represent diplomatic correspondence between the caananite and syrian ruler to thier egyptian overlords.

And as the article says ahkkadian was the language of diplomacy for the era.

Its a fascinating find

reply to post by punkinworks10


ah!

okay - the diplomatic language. somehow i missed that.

thank you punkinworks10!

it is fascinating, especially now that it makes sense to me. i wasn't having the best day today as far as cognition.

but geez, that's quite a combination of languages, then, just between Pharaoh and his Semitic vassals: Hieroglyphic, Proto-Canaanite, and Cuneiform.

or maybe they had scribes that did that kind of thing for them...probably they did. and that in itself would be a full time job and then some, especially if you were expected to take care of the clay tablet supply, too.

and then the scribe might even need a caddy.

This is an interesting find. I look forward to more details being presented in the future.

I wished to offer the following for consideration.

3350 years ago, would place the timeframe about 150 years after the Hyksos explosion, which to some, (myself included), would have been the "Exodus" of Israel, as a people, from Eygpt. So having correspondences which shared common linguistics would not have been such a strange occirance. Israel, as a people would have both an understanding of the Akkadian, which came from Abraham, as well as the cartouche of the Egyptian's.

There have been various finds of this sort of cross culture with Egyptian found in Israel, and Babylonian texts in Egypt.

Hope to see more about this though.

Ciao

Shane

reply to post by Shane


yes!

i was thinking of those things but lack the expertise to say anything guaranteed not to prove faulty!

i didn't look up the time line but i know there are already links between the three groups, or cultures. makes me think there is a lot more to the story than we assume already.