The Trowel vs. the Text: How the Amarna letters challenge archaeology

Biblical Archaeology Review ^ | Jan/Feb 2009 | Nadav Na'aman

[SunkenCiv]

Caught Between A Rock And A Reed's Trace. 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. [ildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY]

[SunkenCiv]

from the new issue.

[SunkenCiv]

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[the_Watchman]

1450 B.C. was around the time that Joshua was leading the Jews across the Jordan into the land that would be known as Israel. It was another 400 years after the period of the Judges before a Saul became the first king of the Jews.

When Joshua entered Israel the Bible says that the king of Jerusalem was Adonizedek. See Joshua 10:1. The area of Israel seemed to be ruled by a bunch of city states rather than being a country ruled from Jerusalem. Even the Jewish King David, while establishing Jerusalem has his capital, did not totally subjugate the entire country under his rule.

[JoeProBono]

Speedwriting Tablet

[ckilmer]

can you post the rest of the article

[Peelod]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_letters

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[Fred Nerks]

THE DEFINITIVE EL AMARNA LETTERS HISTORY

...Having wholeheartedly embraced Velikovsky’s biblical-Egyptian synchronisations of the golden age of Solomon with the 18th Egyptian dynasty era of Hatshepsut (’Queen Sheba’), and Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, with Thutmose III (pharaoh ‘Shishak’), I am chronologically obliged now also to accept his alignment of the El-Amarna [EA] pharaohs, Amenhotep III and IV [Akhnaton], with the approximate split kingdom era of the mid-C9th BC kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat.

As a consequence of this revised scenario I shall have to face, not only

1 the awkward Assyro-Babylonian challenges with which Velikovsky found himself confronted, but also

2 the additional factor - arising from the new location of Hammurabi in D - of how to integrate the Hammurabic succession (5 kings) into this seemingly already cluttered eastern (Assyro-Babylonian) sector.

History

Magician-like, the Russian-Jewish polymath Immanuel Velikovsky had, in his first volume of historical revision [1], spirited pharaohs Amenhotep III and his son Akhnaton, and their contemporaries, down through the tunnel of time, from approximately 1400 BC, to bring them to the full light of day about half a millennium later, in the mid-C9th. The more than 380 letters, discovered in the “House of Correspondence of Pharaoh” at el-Amarna, Akhnaton’s personal city, provided the abundant historical data over which Velikovsky was able to wield his magician’s wand. Thus he wrote [2]:

The searching rod in my hand is the rod of time measurement. I reduce by six centuries the age of Thebes and el-Amarna, and I find King Jehoshaphat in Jerusalem, Ahab in Samaria, Ben-Hadad in Damascus. If my rod of time measurement does not mislead me, they are the kings who reigned in Jerusalem, Samaria, and Damascus in the el-Amarna period...

http://www.specialtyinterests.net/elamarna_period.html#pm1

[blueplum]

bump

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Abdi-heba was actually the mayor of Paris at the time. He just claimed to be boss at Urusalim because it got him foreign aid, which went to a post office box there. In Amarna nobody was looking too closely at these things.

[grey_whiskers]

Like, *PING*, dude.

[SunkenCiv]

I’d have to type it in. I do subscribe, but I’m not too sure A) I have access to the online archive as a consequence, and B) well, I hate it when the SWAT team comes in through every door and window and slams me face down on the floor for violating copyrights. ;’) ;’D :’D

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[ckilmer]

Ok. Thanks for the thought.

[SunkenCiv]

You’re most welcome.

[YOUGOTIT]

Very good post. Thank you.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[SunkenCiv]

One of *those* topics.

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join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe

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[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Seems like a good time to post this in the right topic as an update The article is now available online to non-members/subscribers. I believe. Worked for me.

[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.

• Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History [113-156] by Immanuel Velikovsky
• New Evidence for Ages in Chaos by Immanuel Velikovsky
• The Tombs at the Argive Heraion by Immanuel Velikovsky