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Akhnatens letters
*These are five of the Amarna letters in the british museum
The Amarna letters features letters directed to Akhnaten and before him his father about the fall of conquered terratories in Caanan and Syria to the kingdoms of the Mitanni, the Babylonians and the Hittites.
These letters are featured in the opera Akhnaten in the third act and are transcribed from Samuel A.B Mercers translation from his 1939 book "Mercer, The Tel-el-Amarna Tablets". The book is hard to find so I cannot connect the letters to their correct tablets at this time but I will when I get ahold of the book.
The letters are used to paint a good picture of the severe losses Egypt suffered during Akhnaten and his ancestors reign. His descendants in the 18th dynasty mitigated the issue but the 19th dynasty namely Seti I and Ramesses II probably reclaimed the most.
Letter No. 1: I have written repeatedly for troops, but they were not given and the king did not listen to the word of his servant. And I sent my messenger to the palace, but he returned empty-handed - he brought no troops. And when the people of my house saw this, they rediculed me like the governors, my brethren, and dispised me.
Letter No. 2: The king's whole land, which has begun hostilities with me, will be lost. Behold the territory of Seir, as far as Carmel; its princes are wholly lost; and hostilities prevail against me. As long as ships were upon the sea the strong arm of the king occupied Naharin and Kash, but now the Apiru are occupying the king's cities. There remains not one prince to my lord, the king; every one is ruined. Let the king take care of his land and let him send troops. For if no troops come in this year, the whole territory of my lord, the king, will perish. If there are no troops in this year, let the king send his officer to fetch me and his brothers, that we may die with our lord, the king.
Note: Naharin meant the land of the Mitanni claimed by Thutmose III in his military campaign.
Letter No. 3: Verily, they father did not march forth nor inspect the lands of the vassal-princes. And when thou ascended the throne of thy father's house, Abdashirta's sons took the king's lands for themselves. Creatures of the king of Mittani are they, and of the king of Babylon and of the king of the Hittites.
Letter No. 4 Who formerly could have plundered Tunip without being plundered by Thutmose III? The gods of the king of Egypt, my lord, dwell in Tunip. May my lord ask his old men if this not be so. Now, however, we belong no more to our lord, the king of Egypt. And now Tunip, thy city, weeps and her tears are flowing and there is not help for us. For twenty years we have been sending to our lord, the king of Egypt, but there has not come to us a word - no, not one.
Vessel sherd. Mitanni ca. 15th–14th century BCE/ Mesopotamia, Tell al-Rimah .
Mitanni is such an interesting ancient Middle East civilization because everyone has heard of the Egyptians and Babylonians, most of you surely have heard in passing about the Hittites, the Assyrians, Mycenaean Greece... and Mitanni was a civilization on par with all those I mentioned, in ancient correspondence it was treated as an equal of the Egyptians and Hittites (the two "superpowers" of the region before the Bronze Age Collapse, when you read about them it's almost like you're rading about the US and the USSR), it was apparently powerful, they invented the spoked wheel which made their chariot stronger, and there's something very interesting that they worshiped Indo-Aryan deities like Mitra, Indra, Varuna... but that's about all we know. They ruled over early Assyria even, they were powerful and well known, but that's all we know.
It's like in the future, we were talking about great nations of the XXth century and we knew about USA, China, Japan, and then some references to one called "Russia" or "URSS", but that's all we knew about them.
They're like that Tartessos, that bronze age extremely rich iberian-phoenician civilization in southern Spain mentioned as a place of great riches that might have been the inspiration for Atlantis. (Oh you didn't know about the bronze age extremely rich iberian-phoenician civilization in southern Spain mentioned as a place of great riches that might have been the inspiration for Atlantis? Now you do).
Mythraism
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Mitanni
The Kingdom of Mitanni, known to the people of the land, and the Assyrians, as Hanigalbat and to the Egyptians as Naharin and Metani, once stretched from present-day northern Iraq, down through Syria and into Turkey and was among the greatest nations of its time, though today it is largely forgotten.
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The Battle of Megiddo, 16 April 1457 BC
Lion statue Glazed ceramic Excavated at Nuzi (Iraq), Ishtar Temple Mitannian, ca. 1600-1400 BCE Penn Museum, 31-40-1
