Doubtlessly one of the most fascinating corpora of Akkadian attestations is the Tell El-Amarna corpus, containing the strikingly one-sided correspondence of the Pharao’s subjects in the levant to him. Amarna was established as the capital of Pharao Akhenaten; the correspondence attested spans (at most) from the latter periods of his reign up to the fifth year of Tutankhamun, likely comprising somewhere between 15 and 30 years of correspondence (Moran 1992: xxxiv).
Today’s centre of attention is Rib-Ḫadda who was the king of the city of Byblos around the mid-14th c. BCE., and the author of a remarkable 67/382 Amarna letters, though his pleas to the pharao go much beyond the confines of just the Amarna corpus (Liverani 1971). At that time, the Levant was going through great unrest due to a group of people(s) labelled as “Ḫapîru,” which were laying waste and terrorising the region; but also due to the political unrest they created between the established rulers of the region trying to deal with their threat. NB: The etymology of Ḫapîru is likely the root √ʾpr ‘dust’, i.e., the “dusty ones”.
So Rib-Ḫadda, too, was among the Levantine rulers who suffered the terror of the Ḫapîru. Losing battles left and right, he feared for his city, crown, and life. Vassal to the Egyptian empire, Rib-Ḫadda wrote to the Pharao time and time again, begging, asking, demanding protection or at the very least help in the battle against the Ḫapîru. But to his great chagrin, Rib-Ḫadda rarely ever received an answer; even scarcer the times, in which his pleas were answered with Egyptian assistance.
This is one of the first Rib-Ḫadda letters I read, and it remained memorable for several reasons. For one, the narrative: “Hi, so I lost everything you gave me because these Ḫapîru attacked again. Please send me the troops needed to protect your (my) cities, and also some stuff to feed ’em cause I’m poor. If you don’t, then my main adversary, that dog, will get everything, and do you really want that to happen?”
Rib-Ḫadda sent many of those letters, each a little more panicked than the previous. On various occasions, he even threatens the Pharao that if he isn’t helped, he will gather his loyalty circle and leave.
If in two months there are no regular troops, then I will leave the
city and I will go away so that I will stay alive while I do as I please!(EA 82:41-46, Rainey 2014: 489)
As the letter below also shows, one of Rib-Ḫadda’s main adversaries was Abdi-Aširta, an Amorite man of no certain origin (Rainey 2014: 18), who has banded together with the Ḫapîru. Egypt seemed quite reluctant or at the very least slow in offering Rib-Ḫadda any help in dealing with him; hardly surprising, as it later turned out that Abdi-Aširta ended up securing property, coastal towns, and Egyptian arms and ships for his sons, in what appears to have been an “under-the-table arms deal” (Rainey 2014: 19)!!
Rib-Ḫadda’s desperate pleas were not ungrounded. On multiple occasions men of his own palace and kin tried to wrestle him out of his throne. In one letter, he even explicitly mentions an assassination attempt (EA 81). He ended up outliving his external enemy Abdi-Aširta, but fell victim to the latter’s eldest son, Aziru. After abandonning his city due to a lost conflict with his own brother, he sought out Aziru, in an attempt to forge an alliance. Aziru handed him over to local rulers, likely to be executed (Rainey 2014: 20).
But the corpus is not interesting solely for its contents, it is also a treasure trove of linguistic insight into Ancient Near Eastern multilingualism. The language of the corpus is also known as Canaano-Akkadian: Rulers wrote “Canaanite in Akkadian”. A few fun examples of Canaano-Akkadian features can be found in the following letter, too. For instance, l. 18 features the particle ianu “is not”, which may be also known from Hebrew אין /ein/ or Ugaritic ỉn of the same meaning. The Standard Akkadian / East-Semitic equivalent would have been lâšu/laššu, deriving from la išu, lit. ‘NEG has’.
Canaano-Akkadian furthermore features VSO, which we also observe here, against the East-Semitic SOV word order. While some verbs are inflected as in Akkadian, a few uncareful colloquialisms reveal verbs inflected as in other Canaanite languages, like yu-wa-š[i-ra] ‘may he send’ in l. 29.
The Amarna letters are available to read online on ORACC here. Enjoy!
EA 79
| Obv. | 1 | [IRi-i]b–dIŠKUR iq-bi | Rib-Ḫadda has spoken |
| 2 | [a-na EN-]šu šàr KUR.KUR.KI LU[GAL GA]L | To his lord, the king of the lands, great king | |
| 3 | [šàr ta]-am-ḫa-ra dNIN | King of battle: (May) the lady | |
| 4 | [ša U]RU Gub-la ti-di-in4 | of the city of Byblos give | |
| 5 | [KAL.G]A a-na šàr-ri EN-ia | Strength to the king, my lord | |
| 6 | [a-na G]ÌR.MEŠ EN-ia dUTU-ia | At the feet of my lord, my sun, | |
| 7 | ˹7˺-˹šu˺ 7-a-an am-qú-ut li-ma-ad | Seven times and seven times I have fallen. Be informed | |
| 8 | i-nu-ma iš-tu ka-ša-ad | Since the arrival of | |
| 9 | IA–ma-an-ap-pa a-na mu-ḫi-ia | Amanappa to me | |
| 10 | ka-li LÚ.MEŠ GAZ.MEŠ na-˹ad˺-nu | All the men of the Ḫapîru turned (~gave) | |
| 11 | pa-ni-šu-nu a-na ia-ši a-[na] | Their faces towards me | |
| 12 | KA \ pí-i IÌR-a–ši-ir[-ta] | At the instigation of Abdi-Aširta | |
| 13 | ù yi-ìš-me EN-li | So may my lord hear | |
| 14 | a-wa-teMEŠ ÌR-šu ù [uš-si-r]a-ni | The words of his servant and send me | |
| 15 | LÚ.MEŠ ma-ṣa-ar-ta a-[na] | Garrison troops for | |
| 16 | ˹na˺-ṣa-ar URU LUGAL a-d[i] | The protection of the city of the king until | |
| 17 | [a-]˹ṣa˺ ÉRIN.MEŠ pí-ṭá-ti | The coming forth of the regular army. | |
| 18 | [šum-m]a ia-nu ÉRIN.MEŠ pí ‹pí›[-ṭá-ti] | If there are no regular troops, | |
| Lo. ed. | 19 | [ù] in4-né-˹ep˺-šu ka-[li] | Then all of the lands20 |
| 20 | [KUR].MEŠ a-na LÚ.M[EŠ G]AZ.MEŠ ši-me | will be turned19 into (those) of the Ḫapîru. Listen! | |
| Rev. | 21 | [ìš-]˹tu˺ ṣa-ba-at URU ˹É˺-ar-[ḫa] | Since the capture of (my) city Bīt-Arḫa |
| 22 | [a-na] pí-i IÌR-a–ši-ir-ta | At the instigation of Abdi-Aširta, | |
| 23 | [ù] ˹ki˺-na-na tu-ba-ú-na | They are striving likewise | |
| 24 | [i-p]u-ša URU Gub-la ù | To do to the city of Byblos and | |
| 25 | URU Baṭ-ru-naKI ù in4-[né-ep-šu] | The city of Baṭruna and | |
| 26 | ka-li KUR.KUR.MEŠ a-na LÚ.MEŠ GAZ.MEŠ | All the lands will be turned25 into the Ḫapîru! | |
| 27 | 2 URU.KI.MEŠ ša ir-ti-ḫu a-˹na˺ [ia-ši] | There are two cities that remain to me | |
| 28 | ù tu-ba-ú-na la-˹qa˺-šu[-nu] | And they are seeking to take them | |
| 29 | ìš-tu qa-at šàr-ri yu-wa-š[i-ra] | From the hand of king. May my lord30 | |
| 30 | EN-li LÚ.MEŠ ma-ṣa-ar-˹ta˺ | send29 garrison troops | |
| 31 | a-na 2 URU-ni-šu a-di a-ṣí É[RIN.MEŠ] | To his two cities until the coming forth of regular32 troops | |
| 32 | pí-ṭá-ti ˹ù mi-im-ma˺ | and may something | |
| 33 | yu-da-na-ni a-na a-˹ka˺-li-šu-nu | be given to me for their food. | |
| 34 | ia-nu mi-im-ma a-na ia-ši | I have nothing | |
| 35 | ki-ma MUŠEN ša i-na lìb-b[i] | Like a bird that inside | |
| 36 | [ḫ]u-ḫa-ri \ ki-lu-bi ša-ak-na-at | A cage is placed, | |
| 37 | [ki-]˹šu˺-ma a-na-ku i-na | Thus am I inside | |
| 38 | [URU] Gub-laKI ša-ni-tam | The city of Byblos. Furthermore, | |
| 39 | [šum-m]a la-a i-le-e | If the king40 is unable | |
| 40 | [šàr-r]u la-qa-ia ìš-tu | To take/free me from | |
| 41 | [qa-at] na-ak-ri-šu | The hand of the his enemies, | |
| Up. ed. | 42 | [ù] in4-né-ep-ša-at | Then will be turned |
| 43 | [ka-l]i KUR.KI.MEŠ | All the lands | |
| 44 | [a-na IÌR-]A-ši-ir-ta | To Abdi-Aširta | |
| Left ed. | 45 | [mi-nu š]u-ut UR.GI7 ù | What is he, the dog that |
| 46 | [yi-ìl-]qú KUR.KUR.MEŠ šàr-ri ˹a˺[-na] | he takes the lands of my king for | |
| 47 | [ša]-šu | Himself? |
Adapted from Rainey, A. F. 2014. The El-Amarna Correspondence (2 vol. set): A New Edition of the Cuneiform Letters from the Site of El-Amarna based on Collations of all Extant Tablets, pp. 474-477. Leiden: Brill.
A bonus anecdote: In the letter EA 144, Zimreddi, the ruler of Ṣidon, writes to the Pharao with a similar, if not worse degree of chutzpah: After losing all the cities he had been entrusted with to the Ḫapîru, he asks the Pharao to send him more troops, as well as a general to lead the troops (ll. 26-27) in his stead, insisting that he is the only ruler who may keep the cities from being captured in the future. Daring!
References
Liverani, Mario. 1971. Le lettere del faraone a Rib-Adda. Oriens Antiquus 10, 253ff.
Moran, William L. 1992. The Amarna Letters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rainey, A. F. 2014. The El-Amarna Correspondence (2 vol. set): A New Edition of the Cuneiform Letters from the Site of El-Amarna based on Collations of all Extant Tablets. Leiden: Brill.
Iris Kamil 