Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-10-25
FOUND In ANCIENT EGYPT
Strange Relics of Forgotten Kings
Brought to Light.
Contests Of the Past-StorieS of Great
Babylonia, the Assyrian Mon
arch-The Old Union of Two
Great Families.
How Rulers Addressed One Another.

1
working at Tel 81 Amarna-a village in
Upper Egypt, on the right bank of the
Nile, and occupying the site of an ancient
Egyptian city-came across q consider
able number OF small clay tablets covered
with writing IN the peculiar cuneiform
! character. The announcement, naturally,
caused no little comment in scholarly
circles, says a writer in Harper's Weekly,
and. as result OF rather protracted ne
| gotietions, the Berlin Museum has been
fortunate enough to secure $50 of these
tablets. The mere existence of euneiform
inscriptions in Egypt Of undoubued au-
| thentlclty, and whose antiquity is attest
| ed by their having been found in the re-
glons of city began to be built, as we
! know from other sources, by King
Amepophis w., and abandoned soon
after his death, about 1900 years before
our era-this in Itself is fact of the
very highest significance; but interest in
the discovery Is greatly enhanced by the
contents of these tablets, which upon ex-
animation turn out to be of extreme
historical value. They form part of the
| official CORES pondence in the DAYS of
Amenophis ~, being letters addressed
to the king from Burnaburfash. the king
Of Babylonis; from Dushratta, the king
| of Militant Ca district to the northeast OF
Mesopotamia) and from various other
persons who are probably vassals of high
d1gnitaries in the service of the
Pharaoh
From the Egyption annals, as well as
from the cylinders deposited by the As
syrian kings in their palaces, we already
knew that the empires that once flour
ished IN the land of the Nile and the land
of ''tha two rivers" had at an early period
come into hostile conflict with one
another Thus, Thotmus l., who pre-
ceded the above mentioned Amenophia
by fully 100 years, speaks of having pene-
trated TO the land of "Naharina" and of
having imposed a tribute, among others
upon the king of Assyria. The tables
were turned in the twelfth century, when
Tiglethpileser T., one of the greatest of
Assyrlan kings, undertakes military
campaign against Egypt, which he de-
scrlbes at great detail. From this time
on there are frequent collisions which con-
tlnue though interrupted by long intervals
of peace, till the final destruction of the
AssyriaD kingdom by her old rival and
neighbor to the South, BabyIonia. It is
to be regarded as q particularly fortunate
circumstance that the tablets recently
discovered supplement our knowledge of
ancient international poiity by telling rs
something of the relation which existed
between Egypt and this very Babylonia.
ContemporaneUus with the Assyrian
dynaste in the north of Mesopotama, to
which ThOtmus I. has reference, there
ruled In the south set Of kings com
monty known as Cossaeans, who had in
vaded the land from the east, and had
wrested the scepter from the hands of
the native Babylonian chieftains. It Is
from ons Of these Cosseean kings,
Burnaburiash, that, found addressed to
Amenophis ". The picture here is quite
different one to that unfolded by the
relations between Eggpf and Assyria.
Conformably to the general character of
the Babylonians and of Babylonian ru-
lers, who were far less warlike than the
Assyrlans, We fud the two monarch's on
the most friendly terms with each other.
In these letters Burnaburiash sends
cordial greetings to his royal brother. re-
fers to the presents which he has for
warded, in return for which Amenophis
confirms the old agreements between the
two countries, and by way of confirming
their friendship it appears that Pharaoh
much like the heads of royal houses in
Egyptian princess for wife. It is not
difficult to find the political reason for
this demonstrative display of friendship.
Rabylonia at this time was hard pressed
by the Assyrian monarchs, and it was
natural for the Cossaens to look to Egypt
as support in the coming conflict, which,
despite al efforts, however, ended in the
complete overthrow of the Cossaean dy-
nasty, and in the loss for time of the
political independence of Babylonia. By
far the larger number of tablets, how
ever, are addressed to Amenophsis, |
father and son, by a ruler of whom up
to the present nothing whatsoever was
known. 1t is Dushratta styling him
self King of Mitanni, which appears
TO be only another name for the Prov
ince Naharina, roughly represented by
modern Kurdi3tan. Dushratta seems to
stand on different footing with the
rulers of Egypt from Burnaburiash, for to
ali appearances it is the Egyptian who
seeks the friendship of Dushratta-per-
haps as an ally against planned attack
upon Assyria-and asks for the hand of
Dushratta's daughter. Most of the letters
refer to this union between the two fami-
lies, to which. by the way, Egyptian
sources all refer. The terms in which
these ancient rulers addre ssed each other
resemble in their bombastic style those
employed in royal households in our own
days to a striking degree. One begins:
'To Nimmurija (e surname ofAmoDophis
ILL.,, the great King, the King of Egypt,
my brother, my son-in-law, whom 1 love
and who loves me;' speaks as follows:
"Dushratta, King of Mitanni, thy brother,
thy SON. in-law, whom thou lowest and who
loves thee. Peace to me, peace to my
brother-in-law, peace to thy house, to thy
consorts, thy Eobles, thy people, to thy
thy land"