 the amarna letters (sometimes amarna correspondence or amarna tablets) archive, on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic correspondence between the egyptian administration and its representatives in canaan and amurru during the new kingdom. the letters were found in upper egypt at amarna, the modern name for the egyptian capital of akhetaten (el-amarna), founded by pharaoh akhenaten (1350s â 1330s&nbsp;bc) during the eighteenth dynasty of egypt. the amarna letters are unusual in egyptological research, because they are mostly written in akkadian cuneiform, the writing system of ancient mesopotamia, rather than that of ancient egypt. the known tablets total 382: 24 tablets had been recovered since the norwegian assyriologist jÃ¸rgen alexander knudtzon's landmark edition of the amarna correspondence, die el-amarna-tafeln in two volumes (1907 and 1915). the correspondence spans a period of at most thirty years. ==the letters==  these letters, comprising cuneiform tablets mostly written in akkadian â the regional language of diplomacy for this period â were first discovered around 1887 by local egyptians who secretly dug most of them from the ruined city (they were originally stored in an ancient building that archaeologists have since called the bureau of correspondence of pharaoh) and sold them on the antiquities market. once the location where they were found was determined, the ruins were explored for more. the first archaeologist who successfully recovered more tablets was william matthew flinders petrie in 1891â92, who found 21 fragments. Ãmile chassinat, then director of the french institute for oriental archaeology in cairo, acquired two more tablets in 1903. since knudtzon's edition, some 24 more tablets, or fragments, have been found, either in egypt, or identified in the collections of various museums.moran, p.xv the tablets originally recovered by local egyptians have been scattered among museums in germany, england, egypt, france, russia, and the united states; 202 or 203 are at the vorderasiatisches museum in berlin; 80 in the british museum; 49 or 50 at the egyptian museum in cairo; seven at the louvre; three at the pushkin museum; and one in the collection of the oriental institute in chicago.moran, pp.xiii-xiv the full archive, which includes correspondence from the preceding reign of amenhotep iii as well, contained over three hundred diplomatic
14th-century_BC_works 2nd-millennium_BC_works Akkadian_literature Amarna_letters Diplomatic_correspondence Egyptian_Museum Fertile_Crescent