Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
At Last, November 9, 2002
This review is from: The Amarna Letters (Paperback)
If you've been tantalized over the years by references to the Amarna Letters in scholarly works, and disappointed by the few examples in Pritchards, here they are, finally and completely, in all their repetitious, formulaic, fragmentary glory. This isn't exactly light reading, due ancient prose style, the condition of the tablets and the limitations of the translators, but the letters do provide a unique window into a small period of the Bronze Age. Particularly compelling (and annoying!) are the 70 or so letters of the perpetually beleaguered mayor Rib Hadda, who was apparently under siege and begging for help from Pharaoh for several years straight. Besides letters from mayors of towns under Egypt's influence, there are some from Assyrian kings, and a couple from Pharaoh himself. Fundamentalists often refer to the references to the Apiru in these letters as evidence of the Hebrews, but once you read these, it becomes apparent that the Apiru designate mercenary outlaws who ranged throughout Canaan, Syria and Anatolia. Why anybody would want to claim that these Bronze Age Hole-In-The-Wall- James-Gang-type outlaws were God's chosen people is a mystery to me. Anyway, it was great to finally read these letters for myself.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Necessary tool for historical studies of Egypt, Israel, ANE, March 13, 2003
This review is from: The Amarna Letters (Paperback)
Tel El Amarna is the modern name of where the Nile capital of Egypt once stood. Egypt was briefly ruled from this location by Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1352 - 1336 B.C. 18th Dynasty). Amenhotep, meaning "Amon is satisfied", took on the name Akhenaton, "he who is serviceable to Aton", when he exalted Aton by making the cult of the sun disc the primary religion of Egypt. Under Akenaton the capital city of Egypt was moved from Thebes to Akhetaton, "the horizon of Aton." This new capital city was later abandoned by Tutankhamen when Egypt returned to her old orthodoxy. Akhetaton was never re-occupied in any significant way, and in her ruins were found hundreds of administrative documents known as the Amarna tablets (the first batch found in 1887 by locals). These cuneiform (wedge-writing) tablets are, primarily, communications from Asiatic kings to Egypt. Moran has done a superb job in giving the English speaking world access to the Amarna letters. To my knowledge, this book is the first single volume collection of these important letters in English! Moran is to be thanked. Among other things, these letters are useful to the historian for studies of Canaan during the Israel conquest period. For example, the letters are full of requests for help from Canaanite kings to Egypt concerning a mysterious people called the ha-BI-ru (Hebrews?). Note: To assist us in reading these letters in terms of the ha-Bi-ru and their relationship to Israel, we have three informative articles by M. G. Kline published in the Westminster Theological Journal in issues 18, 19 and 20. He concludes that the ha-Bi-ru are a "scourge employed by Yahweh to chastise the Israelites for their failure to prosecute the mandate of conquest." From Moran's work, other Biblical connections await the careful reader. For example, in reading one of the letters, I came across the phrase referring to the realm of the "Great King" as existing "from the rising of the Sun to its setting." Which is an idea that shows up almost word for word in Malachi and one of the Psalms. If I were industrious, I could work on the underlying languages to see if the connection is valid; at this point I should note that the Amarna letters are available on the internet in transliterated form -- produced by Shlomo Izre'el and located on the Tel Aviv University web site. This simple example, however, should give one an idea of the potential of Moran's work for the non-specialist (of which I am one). Outside of Biblical studies, the Amarna letters provide a rare glimpse of Egypt in her relations with vassals, allies and enemies. The letters are not only informative, but even entertaining at times as we get to see kings wrangling over gift-wives and diplomatic miscues. In the first section, Moran gives an introduction to the history of the letters and the site itself. However, for a more readable introduction, see Pfeiffer's, Tell El Amarna and the Bible. For the specialists, Moran has provided technical footnotes throughout; his translations are defended where needed. All in all, this book seems indispensable to anyone who would want to investigate the Amarna tablets (from the casual historian to the advanced linguist).
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My curiosity is satisfied!, February 7, 2006
This review is from: The Amarna Letters (Paperback)
As Professor Moran points out in his preface, his main objective was to provide an up to date translation of "the entire corpus of Amarna letters which reflects the advances of the last 75 years." Indeed there is little or no explanation about the meanings of the events referred to in these letters. On the other hand, my somewhat incompatible objective in buying this book, was to go to the source in order to satisfy myself about the veracity or otherwise of the interpretations of some of these letters by other historians. However, and possibly because of their repetitive nature, I did get a picture of what was going on in the area of what is now Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, during the last years of Amenhopis III and his son Akhenaten,
For me, a thorough reading of the 27 page Introductory chapter and its 140 notes turned out to be absolutely essential reading to get a general idea of the historical context of these letters. This introduction covers the following topics:
Discoveries and publications
The Archive
Language and Writing
The International Correspondence
The Vassal Correspondence
Chronology
with copious notes on the various theories and points of disagreement between many of the eminent of the scholars who have studied the tablets.
The book includes detailed translations of those tablets which are letters and inventories between the contemporary rulers and Egyptian vassals with the Pharoahs who resided at Akhetaten, the ruins of which are to be found at the site of El Amarna where the tablets were found, and which is about 190 miles south of Cairo on the East bank of the Nile River. Many of the tablets are incomplete or badly damaged, and of the 382 tablets discovered, the translations of about 350 are included in this book, with about 25 of these being too fragmentary for translation. Those which are excluded are not related to historical events and cover such topics as myths, epics, syllabaries, lexical texts, a god list, and 15 which are still to be deciphered.
Most of the letters included in the book were sent to the Pharaoh, with only a handful being from the Pharaoh. 44 are classified as International correspondence, with the rest being Vassal correspondence from rulers of various cities in the region. The contents of many of the letters from rulers of these vassal cities are subservient acknowledgements of orders received from the "Chief Executive", but a large number are complaints about other rulers and the depredations of the 'Apiru, which are either a justification as to why the orders have not been followed, or are an urgent request for help to deal with these marauders. Some of them are quite amusing, others are quite pitiful, and I found the laconic titles which Professor Moran has assigned to the letters to be very appropriate and often very amusing.
The translations are difficult reading because of the often uncertain reading of the contents of each tablets, The notes attached to each translation deal with difficulties in deciphering individual signs, in determining the meanings of words, in grammatical uncertainties, gaps in the texts, scribal style and errors, and discussion of some of the differing translations of sentences. There are occasional notes on the meanings of some expressions but this is rare. The notes, therefore, may be a helpful explanation to those scholars who are experts in the translation of ancient documents of the Near East, but unfortunately they were not very helpful to a non expert like myself. One thing I did get out of the notes, however, was a much improved vocabulary of words with a grammatical meaning! Incidentally, Volume I of Anthology of Texts and Pictures of the Ancient Near East (ISBN: 0691002002) does include the W F Albright translation of about 20 of these letters, which have a slightly different style but otherwise only a few differences from the translations in this book
What I found most helpful in understanding the text was an extensive index broken down by personal names, divine names, and geographical names, with each entry having a short description of who, what, where, and how. The map showing the location of those vassal states whose sites have been identified was also a useful aid in understanding the geographical context of the correspondence.
In summary, this book satisfied my curiosity on the contents of the Amarna letters, I learned a lot from reading it, and I have a much greater appreciation of the difficulties in obtaining an accurate translation and an appropriate interpretation of the texts. This will be a good reference book if I decide to investigate the subject further. If you are a student and have the same urge as myself to know more about the actual contents of these letters, then this book may be for you. If you are more interested in an interpretation of the content (which may or may not be the most correct one) you might do better by looking elsewhere.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
