Amarna Letters: Princess escort (2024-05-03)

Created by: Englund, Robert K.

Letter from Burnaburiash, a Babylonian king of the Kassite Dynasty, to Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), the Egyptian King

One portion of the Amarna corpus is composed of correspondence the pharaoh received from neighboring kingdoms in the ancient Near East. Tablets EA 1-14 are letters between Babylon and Egypt. This letter, published as EA 11, is from Burnaburiash II, a Babylonian king of the Kassite Dynasty, to the Egyptian King. The Harvard Assyriologist William L. Moran named this letter “Proper escort for betrothed princesses” after the topic of the letter’s content. In this correspondence, the Babylonian king asks the Egyptian king to arrange for a suitable royal escort for the Babylonian princess betrothed to the Egyptian king. He also asks that a good amount of gold to be sent to him. Lines 16-28 from the tablet (translation by Bill Moran): When I presented my daughter to Haamassi, your messenger, and to Miḫuni, the interpreter, they poured oil on the head of my daughter. But as to the one taking her to you, who is going to take her to you? With Ḫaya there are 5 chariots. Are they going to take her to you in 5 chariots? Should I in these circumstances allow her to be brought to you from my house, my neighboring kings would say, “They have transported the daughter of a Great King to Egypt in 5 chariots.” When my father allowed his daughter to be brought to your father, 3000 soldiers were with him. Sources: Moran, William L. 1992. The Amarna Letters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rainey, Anson F, William M. Schniedewind, and Zipora Cochavi-Rainey 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, 2014. CDLI reference: P271037

credit: Hilliker, Heidi