Archiv orientalni Quarterly Journal of African and Asian Studies Volume 73 (2005) ISSN 0044-8699 Published quarterly, beginning in 1929, by the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for the study of the history, economy, culture and society of African and Asian countries. All Communications (manuscripts, books for review, subscription orders, and inquiries) should be addressed to the Editorial Office: Pod vodarenskou vézi 4, 182 00 Praha 8-Libei, Czech Republic Tel.: [+420] 266052483, Fax: [+420] 286581897 e-mail: aror@orient.cas.cz; http://www.orient.cas.cz Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Stanislava VavrouSkova Executive Editors: Peter Pudik and Jan Zoupina Editorial Board Jan Betka (Prague) Dagmar Markova (Prague) Xénia Celnarova (Bratislava) Milos Mendel (Prague) Zdenka Hefmanova (Prague) Wolf B. Oerter (Prague) Blahoslav Hruska (Prague) Jaroslav Oliverius (Prague) Ludék Hiebigek (Prague) + Stanislav Segert (Los Angeles) LuboS Kropaéek (Prague) Zbigniew Stupski (Warsaw) Anthony V. Liman (Vancouver) Jaroslav Vacek (Prague) Olga Lomova (Prague) Rudolf Vesely (Prague) Jaromir Malek (Oxford) Ladislav Zgusta (Urbana) All rights reserved. Copyright © 2005 by the Orientalni istav AV CR. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval System or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Editors. The responsibility for facts and opinions expressed in this publication rests exclusively with the authors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors. fARCHIV ORIENTALNI 73, 2005 + 397 A Comment on the Opening Passages of the Amarna Letters — Its Structure and Its Address Jana Myndtova The first group of the so-called Amama Letters was discovered, probably, in 1887." Almost from the start the letters enticed philologists, historians, and archaeologists, as well as other scholars interested in the ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern cultures of the middle 2nd millennium B.C. Even today, more than one hundred years after its discovery, the Amama corpus continues to stimulate discussions and opinions. The many reasons for this rest upon the fact that this particular corpus still represents one of the largest sources of epistolary documents exchanged among the Great Powers and minor local rulers during the Late Bronze Age across an extensive region. Among the not-so-often-discussed aspects in the Amarna Letters js their formal structure,? which is what links the corpus with most of the other similar corpora. From the first look at the Amarna Letters, it is easy to see that the formal structure is very similar to other letters written in Peripheral Akkadian. However, most of the attention has been paid to the letters found in the archives of Ugarit, with the discussion of formal structure limited to several short laconic statements and general descriptive comments. For example, John Huehnergard’s description of the opening passages of letters includes: Most of the Akkadian letters exhibit a common format (see Ah! 1973; Yamada 1992). They begin with an address, which gives the identities of the sender and the addressee, in the form of a command to the scribe/messenger: in its simplest form, ‘Say to [the addressee]; thus/word-of [the sender)’ or the inverse, ‘Thus/word-of [the sender]; say to [the addressee]’. Normally the party that appears first in the address is the one with a higher social rank (Nougayrol 1955, 2-3). There usually follows a salutation, which may contain any or all of the following elements: a statement of obedience if the sender is of lower social rank than the addressee; an invocation of divine blessing. A salutation is omitted in letters from the Hittite overlord. Following the salutation there may be a stereotyped statement of the sender’s well-being and a polite request for news of the well-being of the addressee. Then comes the body of the letter.> Atpresent, the only systematic study devoted mainly to the epistolary documents written in Peripheral Akkadian remains the unpublished dissertation of Sally W. Ahi,‘ which concentrates on the structural and lexical correspondences of Akkadian398 + JANA MYNAROVA and Ugaritic letters found at Ugarit. The clear structural resemblances between the epistolary documents found at Ugarit and the Amarna corpus allows us to use the terminology created by S. W. Ahl. Before we review this terminology, it is important to note that there are 382 documents in the Amarna corpus. However, not all of the texts can be classified as letters; those that are not letters are not included in the analyzed group of texts. The texts that are beyond the scope our analysis include several lists of gifts and other items as well as a group of letters without introductory passages. These particular texts are usually considered to be continuations of the letters, cf. EA 101, EA 113, EA 134, EA 236, EA 237, EA 245, and EA 251. Unfortunately, the opening passages are quite often either fragmentary or almost completely destroyed and the original composition of the pertinent parts of the letters cannot be reconstructed. However, by elimination of all substandard documents, we can establish a relatively homogeneous corpus of 296 epistolary texts suitable for our analysis. Nevertheless, even within such a well-defined corpus, the individual documents differ in their state of preservation. Another distinction can be drawn from the presence or absence of statements of provenance in the opening passages. The Structure The analysis of the structure of the opening passages of the letters suggests that the Amarna corpus can be — according to the presence or absence of the prostration act — split into two main clusters of documents. Our analysis thus confirms the division presented in 1907 by J. A. Knudtzon.5 Knudtzon’s division was postulated based upon his subjective evaluation of the social position of both the sender and the addressee. Later, other scholars accepted an identical approach that has subsequently been employed in the two most recent translations of the letters‘ as well as in the theoretical symposium of R. Cohen and R. Westbrook’ The relevant groups of letters are consecutively indicated as “international” and “vassal”* correspondence or optionally as “international” and “imperial,”® respectively. Under the term “international” correspondence we find the epistolary documents exchanged among members of the so-called “Great Powers’ Club.” Several topics dominate the exchange of communication, with the most frequent including texts on the exchange of gifts, solving legal and business matters, or negotiations concerning royal marriages. The “vassal” or imperial letters are representative of administrative documents directly pertinent to the functioning of the Egyptian administration in the Syropalestinian region. In most cases, these letters contain questions related to the solving of petty local disputes and conflicts or with the delivering of various commodities to the Egyptian military. Local conflicts are interpreted by the senders to be steps against the will of the Egyptian king. Thus it is obvious that this kind of division of the Amarna corpus to a great extent rests upon the subjective feeling of the author. A similar division can be employed using the relative social position of both parties , i.e. the rank of the sender and theA Comment on the Opening Passages of the Amarna Letters — Its Structure and Its Address * 399 addressee. With this in mind, three distinct categories can be defined: the Great Powers (Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Hatti, and Mitanni), the independent states (AlaSiya and Arzawa), and finally the rest, i.e. vassal states. The individual entities were classified into the relevant categories according to the relative importance of their rulers and their role in the broader political context. To avoid a subjective evaluation and further similar division of the individual correspondents and their social position, it is useful to establish a division based on more formal criteria. This division can be done using the structure of the opening passages of the epistolary documents.'° Throughout the Amarna corpus there are opening passages consisting of two separate elements: the address and the prostration formula. However there is evidence that this kind of opening passage was used across the entire Syro-Palestinian region; we can therefore conclude that this kind of opening passages is not conditioned by the geographical distribution of its correspondents. Nevertheless, the social position of both correspondents allows us to identify, almost exclusively, this group of letters with the vassal or imperial correspondence (see above). Nevertheless there is a distinct group of letters within the corpus where a different social status of the correspondents is slightly blurred. From the content of this subset of letters, it is clear that a sender occupies a formally lower position than the addressee cf. EA 44 (from Hatti), EA 45 and EA 49 (both from Ugarit), and EA 59 (from Tunip) but he still gives an overview of his own state. The prostration formula also appears in combination with other elements, such as a request for a divine blessing, an explicit expression of the sender’s dehonestation, or a wish of well being to the addressee, which in some cases is extended to other members of the addressee’s household. Rather a rare element constitutes the report of the sender’s personal state. There is also a unique combination of elements within the opening passage in EA 100 (from Irqata), where a traditional binominal scheme address and prostration is preceded by a nominal sentence confirming the origin of the particular tablet, cf. DUB-pi an- nu-t DUB-pi URU:ir-ga-ta “This tablet is a tablet of Irqata” (EA 100:01-02). In the context of the composition of the opening passage, only two letters, written by the king of Ugarit (EA 45 and EA 49), contain the rather unusual combination of address + prostration + wish of well-being, which is also extended to the members of the addressee’s household and family. !' The last component represents a connecting piece between the vassal and international correspondences within the corpus. A uniform structure is also found among the letters from Byblos and Tyre. The letters from Byblos reveal a combination of following the elements: address + prostration + gods’ blessings or address + gods’ blessings + prostration;"? the letters from Tyre are characterized by two structures similar to each other: address + prostration + dehonestation of the sender and address + dehonestation of the sender + prostration. Unfortunately, we do not have any further epistolary documents from later periods and with identical places of origin as we have among the Ugaritic corpus and the limited number of available texts available for analysis docs not allow us to reach any definite conclusions. The important prostration formula is omitted only400 + JANA MYNAROVA rarely within the vassal correspondences, in EA 96 (from Sumur'’) and EA 97 (from Beirut). Both cases — letter EA 96 was written by an army officer to Rib-Hadda of Byblos, EA 97 was written by officer Yappah-Hadda to officer Sumu-Haddi — include opening passages that contain a request for the gods’ concern. The passages - DINGIR MEIS] me Su-lum-ka_ §u-I{ulm E-ka li-Sa-al, “May the god(s) show concern for your well being (and) the well being of your household” (EA 96:04-06) and [DINGIR.MJES 5u-lum-ka li-[i8-al/, “May the god(s) show concern for your well being” (EA 97:03) — have no exact parallel within the Amarna corpus nor in the texts from Ugarit. The request for the divine blessings is limited entirely to the Byblos corpus and also, in this case, has no parallel in correspondences written in Peripheral Akkadian within this period. However, a similar phrase can be observed in the Late Egyptian letters'* and the fact that the Egyptian phraseology infiltrated’ into the Akkadian letters not only of an Egyptian provenance’ is well attested for instance in the letters from Tyre.'’ As already mentioned, in the letters from the 18® Dynasty a request for divine blessings can be found in the following form: GN'® di.f/di.sn n.k hst, “(May) GN(s) gives/give you support.”"? However most of the preserved Egyptian royal correspondences originated during the 19" Dynasty, so postulating a direct relationship between the Egyptian letters and the Akkadian letters of Egyptian origin within the Amarna corpus is almost impossible. Within the international correspondences, i.e. between the Great Powers and socially equivalent partners, the most simple opening passage consists of two elements: an address and a wish of well-being to the addressee with the latter part often modified by a statement of the sender’s well being and, as the case may be, also by an extension of well being to the members of the addressee’s family and court. However there are also two exceptions to this rule within the vassal correspondences: EA 166 and EA 170 (both from Amurru), though in both cases the choice of the alternate opening is pertinent to the social position of both correspondents, as neither of them is the king of Egypt. There is a certain uniformity recognizable within the international letters of Egyptian provenance; this is represented in the Amara letters by a group of texts that contain the most complicated opening structures, consisting of six individual components.” However, it should be noted that later Ramesside correspondences in Akkadian do not follow the same pattern as in the present corpus and that the Amarna structure is usually replaced by a quinary scheme of address + statement of sender’s well being + comment on well being of other members of sender’s household + a wish of well being to the addressee + a wish of well being to the addressee extended to other members of his household.” The Address As far as the categories of Sally W. Ahl” are concerned, the most usual composition of an address is when the sender identifies the addressee before the sender identifies himself (= Ahl type 2), i.e. ana PN, umma PN,;” this type of address is used in between correspondents with distinct social relationship: the sender has a lowerA. Comment on the Opening Passages of the Amana Letters — Its Structure and Its Address * 401 status than that of the addressee. In the Amarna corpus, this type of address appears in approx. 89 percent of all the analyzed documents. In this type of address, the addressee, as well as the sender, is usually introduced by the genitive form of the person’s name and an appropriate title.‘ The other type of address identified by Ahl, where the sender of a letter identifies himself before identification of the addressee (=Ahl type 1), ic. wnma PN, ana PN,,* which appears in only three letters, EA 34 (from AlaSiya), EA 1 (from Egypt), and finally EA 41 (from Hatti), represents only slightly over one percent of all analyzed epistolary texts. Nevertheless, the meaning and usage of this type of address — fully recognized by J. Nougayrol in 19557 within the corpus of Akkadian letters found in Ugarit, i.e. that this type of address is used between two correspondents who are socially equal or in letters addressed by a superior to his inferior — are also employed in the same way in the Amarna corpus.”’ Analysis of the distribution of individual types of address reveal eight distinct types where, in most cases, the choice of a particular type does not depend upon the provenance of the individual text.” A certain geographical singularity can be observed only with the texts EA 260, EA 317, and EA 318 (from Bit Tenni”, type 3); EA 68, EA 74, EA 76, EA 78, EA 79, EA 81, EA 83, EA 88, EA 89, EA 92, EA 105-107 (all from Byblos, type 7); and finally EA 94, EA 108, EA 116, EA 119, EA 121-123 (all from Byblos, type 8). However, the non-existence of parallel corpora from other time periods does not allow us to decide whether this local tradition was maintained over a longer period than the one reflected in the Amarna letters Among the analyzed epistolary documents reviewed in this essay, the addressee is called regardless of the type of address used by the scribe. The identity of the addressee is introduced by a prepositional phrase, identical to the one in the Akkadian letters found at Ugarit. We can easily distinguish the simple type of the identification of the addressee consisting of the prepositional phrase followed by a personal name and/or a title. The composite type, on the other hand, also contains other nominal phrases. In contrast to the type of address, the selection of individual components within this part of the opening passage, i.e. the identification of the addressee, offers relatively rich comparative material. There are three main categories recognizable in the identification of the addressee — “functional,” “diplomatic,” and “honorific.” The same assertion is valid also for the identification of a letter’s sender.” The Amarna corpus does not demonstrate any significant distinction from the other corpora, i.c. both the Akkadian and Ugaritic correspondences from Ugarit and the Akkadian letters from Boghazkéi or other places contain as the most often used identifier of the sender a personal name, the recipient’s function, a declaration of the inferior position to the addressee and optionally by a family metaphor expressing a social enlistment within the frame of the communication. However, there are still several examples in the Amarna corpus where the harangue of the sender or the addressee differs from the other corpora; in some of them, it is extremely difficult to determine the origin of these phrases while others bear clear geographic origins.402+ JANA MYNAROVA Conclusion We can confirm that the structure of the opening passages from the Amara corpus contain many individual elements strictly defining the social position of both correspondents. Analysis of the structure reveals that, at a minimum, in five cases” a particular composition is used within the group of texts that have identical places of origin; in two other groups the relevant texts originated within a relatively restricted geographic area.** However, almost all groups of letters strictly reflect a variant on the social position of the sender and the addressee. The opening passages of all letters, traditionally grouped into the vassal category of correspondence, contain a prostration formula, expressing the socially inferior position of the sender towards the addressee. A kind of transitional type between the vassal and the international correspondence has been identified in letters from Ugarit and which contain a structure consisting of the following four elements: address + prostration + wish of well-being to the addressee + extension of the addressee. This combination of elements is unique within the analyzed corpus. The first part of the opening passage is in all cases formed by an address, to which the variability is not so wide. Considering the composition of the Amarna corpus, the vassal letters in particular, it is not surprising to find primarily the type Ahl 2, where the first place is occupied by a prepositional phrase identifying the socially superior addressee followed, in some cases, by the imperative form gibi-ma and a personal name or the function of the addressee, introduced by the particle umma. The formal analysis leads us to the conclusion that, in most cases, the selection of a type of address is not qualified by the provenance of the particular text. This integral part of all address types, including some greeting formulae, indicates a sender and an addressee; such an identification of both correspondents provides rich material for comparisons. While some of the titles and epithets of the addressee and the sender are mandatory to the sender or the addressee and are systematically used throughout the Syropalestinian region, some honorific titles and epithets allow us to postulate provenance even for those letters that do not explicitly mention a place of origin; this is because there is a distinct group of epithets within the Amama letters that have a known geographic distribution. The sources for the epithets used in the analyzed corpus are not limited to the original Mesopotamian tradition but extend also to the Anatolian and Egyptian repositories. Notes ) Foran extensive discussion on the discovery of the archive see especially Jorgen A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln. Anmerkungen und Register bearbeitet von O. Weber und E. Ebeling. Band I; William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters; Frederick J. Giles, The Amarna Age: Western Asia. With a Chapter by J. Basil Hennessey and some translations by A. B. Knapp, 17-40. This article arises from an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation devoted to the study of the salutation formulae in the Akkadian letters within the Amama archive, cf. Mynéfova, J., Zdravici formule v periferni akkadstiné. (Greeting formulae in peripheral Akkadian).A Comment on the Opening Passages of the Amara Letters — Its Structure and Its Address * 403 John Huehnergard, “The Correspondence of Ugarit, Il. The Akkadian Letters,” 375-376. Sally S. Ahl, Epistolary Texts from Ugarit: Structural and Lexical Correspondences in Epistles in Akkadian and Ugaritic. See Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln. Band 1, 19ff. Moran, The Amarna Letters, and Mario Liverani, Le lettere di el-Amarna. Vol. 1, Le lettere dei “Piccoli Re,“ vol. 2, Le lettere dei “Grandi Re." Raymond Cohen, and Raymond Westbrook, The Amarna Diplomacy. The Beginnings of International Relations. See especially Kevin Avruch, “Reciprocity, Equality, and Status- Anxiety in the Amara Letters,” Ibid, 154-164; Cohen, R. and Westbrook, R., “Introduction,” Ibid, 1-2, 6-9; Alan James, “Egypt and Her Vassals: The Geopolitical Dimensions,” Ibid, 112-124; Mario Liverani, “The Great Powers’ Club,” Ibid, 15-27, cf. esp. 15, 18 and 20; Rodolfo Ragionieri, “The Amama Age: An International Society in Making,” Ibid, 42-53. Westbrook, “Intemational Law in the Amarna Age,” Ibid, 28-41; Carlo Zaccagnini, “The Interdependence of the Great Powers,” Ibid, 141-153. Moran, The Amarna Letters, xxii-xxxiii. Cohen, and Westbrook, “Introduction,” .1-2. There are altogether nineteen different types of the opening passages, cf. (1) address, (2) address + prostration, (3) address + prostration + gods’ blessing, (4) address + prostration + sender's dehonestation, (5) address + prostration + wish of well-being to the addressee, (© address + prostration + wish of well-being to the addressee + a wish of well being to the addressee extended to other members of his household (7) address + prostration + wish of well-being to the addressee + statement of sender’s well-being, (8) address + gods’ blessing + prostration, (9) address + sender’s dehonestation, (10) address + wish of well-being to the addressee + prostration, (11) statement of the origin + address + prostration, (12) address + gods’ concer, (13) address + confirmation of sending the tablet, (14) address + wish of well- being to the addressee, (15) address + wish of well-being to the addressee + a wish of well being to the addressee extended to other members of his household, (16) address + statement of sender’s well-being + wish of well-being to the addressee, (17) address + statement of sender's well-being + wish of well-being to the addressee + a wish of well being to the addressee extended to other members of his household, (18) address + statement of sender's well-being + a comment on well being of other members of sender’s household + wish of well-being to the addressee +a wish of well being to the addressee extended to other members of his household, and (19) address + statement of sender’s well-being + wish of well-being to the addressee + a wish of well being to the addressee extended to other members of his household + statement of sender’s well-being + a comment on well being of other members of sender’s household. For an extensive discussion on this particular phenomenon see Jana Myndtova, “Ugarit. ‘Intemational’ or ‘Vassal’ Correspondence?” For the succession of these elements and its dependency upon the social status of the addressee, see cf. Moran, The Amarna Letters, xxix-xxx. CE. Yuval Goren, Israel Finkelstein, and Nadv Na’aman, Inscribed in Clay. Provenance Study of the Amarna Tablets and other Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 116. However, an invocation of deities can be observed also in the Old Babylonian letters from the tani archive from Rimah, cf. Stephanie Dalley, “Old Babylonian Greetings Formulae and the Iltani Archive from Rimah,” 79-88. The influence of an Egyptian epistolography upon the Amarna letters was identified by M. Liverani in 1971, ef. Egyptian in.tw nk si pn n dd hr dd in Akkadian a-nu-ufm-mJa DUB- pa anf-nJa u'5-0° e-bi-la-ku gd-bé-e [a-n]a k[a]-a-5a (EA 99:*04-*06); a-nu-ma DUB-pa an-na-a us-te-bi-la-ku qd-bé-e a-na ka-a-Sa (EA 367:03-04); a-nu-um-ma DUB-pa an-ni- la-ku a-na qd-bé-e a-na ka-a-fa (EA 369:02-04) and a-nu-'ma’ DUB-pa an-404+ JANA MYNAROVA tna'-a "uS-te-bi-la-ku qa-bé-e a-na ka-a-ia (EA 370:02-04). For a parallel to this phrase in Egyptian royal epistolography, see the copy of the letter of Amenhotep II to the Nubian viceroy Usersatet, written on a stele (MFA no. 25.632), cf. Urk. IV, 1343-1344, The text EA 96, however, was sent by an Egyptian military officer. For more on the influence of the Egyptian Hymn to Aten and EA 147, see cf. Cecilia Grave, “On the Use of an Egyptian Idiom in an Amama Letter from Tyre and in a Hymn to the Aten,” 205-218. For a similar phenomenon, see especially Zipora Cochavi-Rainey, “Egyptian Influence in the Akkadian Texts Written by Egyptian Scribes in the Fourteenth and Thirteenth Centuries B.C.E.,” 57-65; Cochavi-Rainey, “Tenses and Modes in Cuneiform Texts Written by Egyptian Scribes in the Late Bronze Age,” 5-23; Cochavi-Rainey, “The Style and Syntax of BA 1,” 75-84; Cochavi-Rainey, “Egyptian Influence in the Amarna Texts,” 95-114. According toAbd el-Mohsen Bakir, Egyptian Epistolography from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-first Dynasty. 55-64, the gods’ names attested to in this formula are Amon (Amenre), Ptah, Atum, Hathor, Merseger, Sakhmet, Khnum, Satet, Anuket, and the Ogdoad. See pBM 10102, pBM 10103 and pBM 10104. 2 Cf. note 10, type 19. For more on the Ramesside correspondence, see Elmar Edel, Die dgyptisch-hethitische Korrespondenz aus Boghazk6i in babylonischer und hethitischer Sprache. Band , Umschriften und Ubersetzungen. ‘Al, Epistolary Texts from Ugarit: Structural and Lexical Correspondence in Epistles in Akkadian and Ugaritic, 69-82. The first prepositional phrase ana PN, can be followed by an imperative with an enclitic particle, ie. gibi-ma. ‘The personal name and title can be further extended by other epithets expressing a superior or inferior position, respectively. ‘The origin of this type of address comes from the Old Babylonian antecedent, which also has a parallel within Old Assyrian material from the formula enma PN, ana PN, gibi-ma. For further discussion, cf. Slanski, K., “A Note on the Coordinating Particle -ma in the Old Akkadian Letter Greeting Formula”, Israel Oriental Studies, 18 (1998), pp. 9-17, see esp. pp. 9-10. Jean Nougayrol, Le Palais royal d’Ugarit III. Textes accadiens et hourrites des archives est, “ouest et centrales, avec des études de G. Boyer et E. Laroche 2-3. ‘The text EA 1 was sent by the king of Egypt to the king of Babylonia, EA 34 is addressed by the king of Ala8iya to the king of Egypt and EA 41 was written by the king of Hatti to the Egyptian king, The attested types of address are: (1) ana PN, umma PN,,(2)anaPN, qibi-maumma PN, (3) ana PN, PN, igbi, (4) umma PN, ana PN,, (5) umma PN, ana PN, qibi-ma, (6) PN, gibi- ma/qibi-mi ana’ PN,, (7) PN, igbiana PN,, (8) PN, iStapar ana PN, Already Knudtzon, without any concrete mentioned reason classed EA 317 and EA 318 among the texts from the southwestem Palestine and separate them from the remainig EA 260, cf. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafein, 1320-1321 and 1348-1349. Areliable evidence for the Syrian origin of this group of documents provided Pinhas Artzi by his orthographic, grammatical and palacographical analysis, using also stylistic and formal criteria, of. Pinhas Artzi, “Some Unrecognized Syrian Amarna Letters (EA 260, EA 317, EA 318),” 163-171. It is not the aim of this article to provide a complete discussion of individual titles and epithets present in the Amara letters. Based upon a family metaphor, of. for example “my father,” “my son,” “my brother,” etc. In both main types of address, the sender is introduced by the phrase umma PN,, sometimes extended by an enclitic particle -ma with the last element of the phrase indicating direct speech. 8 2 a Fy‘A Comment on the Opening Passages of the Amama Letters ~ Its Structure and Its Address * 405 Cf. address + prostration + gods” blessing (from Byblos), address + prostration + wish of well- being to the addressee + extension of the addressee (from Ugarit), address + gods’ blessing + prostration (from Byblos), address + confirmation of sending the tablet (from Egypt) and address + statement on sender’s well-being + wish of well-being to the addressee + extension of the addressee + statement on sender’s well-being + extension of the sender (from Egypt). However, a similar declaration cannot be postulated with the other five types due to the limitation of the analyzed material. Cf. address + prostration + wish of well-being to the addressee (from Amurru and Ugarit), and address + gods’ concern (from Sumur and Beirut). 2 List of References Ahl, Sally W. Epistolary Texts from Ugarit: Structural and Lexical Correspondences in Epistles in Akkadian and Ugaritic, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Faculty of the Graduate Schools of Arts and Sciences, Brandeis University, Department of Mediterranean Studies 1973. Artzi, Pinhas. “Some Unrecognized Syrian Amarna Letters (EA 260, EA 317, EA 318). Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27 (1968): 163-171. Avnuch, Kevin. “Reciprocity, Equality, and Status-Anxiety in the Amara Letters.” In The ‘Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginnings of International Relations, edited by Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, 154-164, Bakir, Abd el-Mohsen Egyptian Epistolography from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-first Dynasty. [Bibliothéque d’étude, 48] Cairo: Institut frangais d’archéologie orientale, 1970. Cochavi-Rainey, Zipora. “Egyptian Influence in the Akkadian Texts Written by Egyptian Scribes in the Fourteenth and Thirteenth Centuries B.C.E.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 49 (1990): 57-65. —. Tenses and Modes in Cuneiform Texts Written by Egyptian Scribes in the Late Bronze ‘Age.” Ugarit-Forschungen 22 (1990): 5-23. —. “The Style and Syntax of EA 1.” Ugarit-Forschungen 25 (1993): 75-84. —_ “Egyptian Influence in the Amarna Texts.” Ugarit-Forschungen 29 (1997): 95-114. Cohen, Raymond — Westbrook, Raymond. “Introduction.” In The Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginnings of International Relations, edited by Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, 1-12. Dalley, Stephanie. “Old Babylonian Greetings Formulae and the Iltani Archive from Rimah.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 25/2 (1973): 79-88. Edel, Elmar. Die dgyptisch-hethitische Korrespondenz aus Boghazkbi in babylonischer und hethitischer Sprache. Band I, Umschriften und Ubersetzungen. [Abhandlungen der Rheinisch- Westfilischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 77]. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994. Giles, Frederick J.. The Amarna Age: Western Asia. With a Chapter by J. Basil Hennessey and some translations by A. B. Knapp {The Australian Centre for Egyptology Studies, 5] Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1997. Goren, Yuval - Finkelstein, Israel - Na’aman, Nadav. Inscribed in Clay. Provenance Study of the ‘Amarna Tablets and other Ancient Near Eastern Texts. [Emery and Claire Yass Publications in ‘Archaeology, Monograph Series. 23] Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University/Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, 2004. 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