sm ANEW TRANSLATION OF THE AMARNA LETTERS 578 A New Translation of the Amarna Letters*) Introduction This long awaited volume was published to celebrate the first centennial anniversary of the discovery of the Amarna tablets. William Moran, the great master of Amarna studies, has supplied us with a new edition of these widely known texts. A hundred years of research and about 40 years of personal acquaintance with the Amarna material have yielded an impressive volume of thoroughly revised translations of the Amarna letters. “These translations should, and undoubtedly will, be used by new generations of students of the Ancient Near East as authoritative, up to date translations. They should also be used by Amara specialists as an impetus for a further deepening of our knowledge of these texts. “The Amarna letters, as is well known, are thus named ‘after the site Tell el-Amarna (in Egypt) in which they were discovered. These letiers were sent to the Egyptian Pharaohs ‘Amenophis ITI and his son Akhenaten around the middle of the I4th century B.C. The correspondents were other Kings, namely kings of Babylonia, Assyria, Hatti and Mitanni, minor kings and rulers of the Near Bast at that time, and vassals of the Egyptian Empire. ‘The first Amarna tablets were discovered by local in- habitants in 1887. They still form the majority of the corpus, as subsequent excavations in the site, already in the last decade of the 19th century, and later in this century, hhave yielded less than 50 out of 382 tablets which form the ‘Amama corpus known to date. ‘Almost immediately following their discovery, the ‘Amana tablets were deciphered, studied and published, ei ne 1M, te tt te oe gumena rah severe ees Spuand Guideomens Sees Reese tian pee Street BES Rae irae cae Sena and their enormous importance has been acknowledged. This was not an easy task. The Amara tablets, written in Akkadian cuneiform, presented many features which were strange to the other Akkadian dialects. This was especially ‘manifest in the leters sent from Canaan, which were written, in a mixed language (Canaanite-Akkadian), In his chapter on the el-Amarna tablets for The Cambridge Ancient History, Albright wrote: “Because of the nature of this jargon, it is not enough for the would-be interpreter to know Akkadian; he must also be a specialist in Hebrew and Ugaritic, and above all he must be so familiar with all the letters that he knows what, to expect from their writers” (Albright 1966 [=bibl. 12]*), p. 4). This last demand, namely the need to be familiar with all the letters in order to be able to know what to expect from. their writers, means, in effect, to be acquainted with the grammar of these letters’ language. Indeed, one should acknowledge the utmost importance of sound linguistic, analysis of any corpus of texts in order to achieve @ sound iterpretation and translation of its contents. ‘What has been done in this area in the past century? The first decade of the 20th century witnessed Kaudt- zon's great achievement in the publication of his monumental edition of the texts, still the standard classic edition in use today (Knudizon 1915 [=bibl. I11/2}; the first volume, which includes the texts and their translations, was published in 1907). At that time the scholarly world also benefitted from the studies of Bohl (1909 [= bibl. V/A/2)), Ebeling (1910 [=bib. V/A/3]; also in Knudtzon 1915 [bibl. 11/2), pp. 1358-1583) and Dhorme (1913-1914 [=bibl. V/A/4),, ‘who gave us the first descriptions of the language of these texts. These scholars also took some notice of the mixed nature of the Canaano-Akkadian dialectal continuum in which the majority of letters were written. The third decade of this century has yielded some more discoveries in Tell el Amarna itself, where new texts have been unearthed and published (later compiled, together with other Amara tablets that were not published by Knudzton, in Rainey 1970 [=first edition of Rainey 1978 [=bibl. 1I/3)). The linguistic research continued, however, only in a series of papers by Albright (eg. bibl. V/A/5-9) ‘Albright had paved the way for Moran, who, in his doctoral dissertation accomplished in 1950, was the first to see the systemic nature of the mixed language of the Amarna letters from Canaan (Moran 1950a [= bibl. V/B/ 19)). In this study Moran presented for the first time a thorough and detailed penetrating description of the syntax of the largest Canaanite subcorpus of the Amarna letters, namely that of Ribhaddi of Byblos. In a series of papers published in the 50's, 60’s and in the 70's, Moran, followed by Rainey and his students, showed that the language of the Amarna letters from’ Canaan should be studied for its own sake, in order to yield a better understanding of the texts (e.g, Moran 1950b, 1951, 1953, 1960 [=bibl. V/B/20-23]; Rainey 1971, 1973, 1975, 1978 bl. V/B/30-33]; Izre'el 1978 [= bibl. V/B/9)). Other studies of various kinds have expanded our knowledge and understanding either of various non-Canaanite subcorpora +) This notation refers to the introductory Amarna bibliography which fs given atthe end ofthis paper. Read: bibliography) (section) I (item) 2.579 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS XLVII N° 5/6, September-November 1990 580 of the entire Amarna corpus (as in Adler 1976 [= bibl. V/B/ I), or of the historical contents (as in Na'aman 1975 bibl. IX/14). Between Knudtzon’s times and today, continued linguistic research has advanced our knowledge also of other Ak- kadian dialects, both of the core and of the periphery. We are now in a better positon to evaluate the differences and variation among the standard Akkadian dialects of the core, between standard and Peripheral Akkadian, and among the Peripheral Akkadian dialects themselves. This progress has proved very useful for the reevaluation and continued research of both the international and the ‘vassal letters discovered in Tell el-Amarna, which were ‘written in Middle Babylonian, Middle Assyrian, Peripheral ‘Akkadian dialects and what I would call Amarnaic, ie. the mixed dialects of the Canaanite Amarna letters. Professor William Moran, highly esteemed as a master of both standard Akkadian and Amarnaic, took on himself the most diffcult task of giving us new translations of the ‘Amarna letters, Itis indeed he who, more than anyone else, hhas the proper qualifications to do it. We thank him for presenting us with these translations, which will become the new authoritative renderings of the Amarna letters The contents and the format of the book The book opens with an introduction to the corpus of the Amarna tablets, It gives a short survey of their discovery and publications, an account of the transactions of the tablets and their museum locations, an overview of the language and writing conventions, a discussion of the phrase- ‘ology used in the international and vassal correspondences, and an account of the chronological aspects of the Amarna archive. This introduction is a good résumé of what has ‘been hitherto achieved in Amarna studies, and offers very useful background information for the newcomer to this, field. It also shows, especially when one carefully reads the last section of the introduction, namely, that on the chrono- logical aspects, how much more can be done in the field (or, better: fields) of Amarna research, ‘After the texts follow maps, indices of proper names (personal, divine, geographical, and group names), and indices of all the Akkadian, Sumerian (logograms), West Semitic, Egyptian, Hittite and Hurrian vocables discussed within the notes. These indices are very useful for the serious student who seeks to study the texts in their original language. The present review will not offer different readings or renderings for Moran’s translations. Differing views concern- ing this or that passage will always remain. This is, indeed, cone of the great merits of a good scholarly work, that it inspires people to return to its subject matter and delve into it in enthusiasm. I am absolutely sure that the volume under review will spark renewed interest in these letters, ‘and many scholars will raise new suggestions for the inter- pretation of many parts in them. The point is, that an impressive piece of work like this can offer much more than availability of new translations of the Amama letters. Being the product of long term research and decades of intimate knowledge with the material, this translated and annotated corpus of texts presents a new phase in the study of the Amarna material ‘What I wish to do here is to present some of the esiderata for the future study of the Amarna tablets, for which Moran has now eased the task and opened new ways. But first, I would like to discuss some points concer- ning the contents and the format of the book under review. ‘The series in which this volume has appeared pre- scribed both its contents and its format. As for the contents, one should note that this volume does not include all the cuneiform texts found at Tell el-Amarna. It contains only the letters (and related inventories). At this juncture, fone should acknowledge the cooperation of V. Haas and G. Witheim, who translated the Hittite and the Hurrian letters, of the Amarna corpus Besides leters (which, indeed, form the main and essential part of the corpus), the Amarna archives comprise also texts related to the education of scribes in Egypt, including syllabaries, glossaries, lists and literary texts. These texts have not been included in this volume, and are still awaiting renewed study in the context of the Amara cuneiform corpus, as well as in the broader corpus of literary and scholarly Peripheral Akkadian texts?) Another issue which might be raised at this juncture is the existence of other texts, including letters, which are related to the Amarna corpus. These are the cuneiform texts discovered in Palestine, Lebanon and Southwest Syria, and dated roughly to the Amara period. One might raise the question whether these texts, and especially the letters, should not have been included in this volume, at least as an. appendix or a supplement (for a discussion of these finds in the Amarna context, see Edzard 1985 {= bibl. 1/6. ‘As far as the format is concerned, the main part of the volume contains the translated letters, annotated with many notes and comments. Moran has done @ wonderful job in presenting his completely revised translations for each of the Amara letters, be it royal letters, inventories, or letters, from the northern and Canaanite vassals. All his revisions are based on new reading suggestions. Thus, many passages and letters have come up with a completely new inter- pretation and setting thanks to Moran's work. In his notes, Moran presents many new readings based on collations he has made in the various museums where the Amarna letters are located (with some additional collations by the late E.l. Gordon). He has skilfully combined them with many insights raised by scholars who dealt with some of the letters previously. ‘What is missing are translterations. ‘Since Knudtzon’s edition, which is the last authoritative work on the Amarna tablets, appeared, many changes in reading have become available. Even transliteration practices, have changed. For the serious scholar and student who can, read Akkadian, even if only in transliteration, it has now become almost an impossible task to overcome the difficulties in tracing Moran’s underlying transliterations of the texts (many times given in the notes, but definitely not always) Knudtzon's transliteration can hardly be of help anymore. A volume of newly transliterated texts to comply with the new translations has thus become a necessity. In fact, @ computerized compilation of all the Amarna and related material is now being undertaken at Tel Aviv university 2) Cf, Artz’ response to Bézard's article in Biblical Archaeology Today (bit 1/6), pp. 2-273, with bibliography; Edzard, D.O., Amara. Die Unerarschen Texte. in: Proceedings of the Nin World Congres of Jewish ‘Stier. Panel Sessions: Bible and Ancient Near Eas Edited by Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, asisted by David’ Assaf Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1988. Pp. 27-33.