Amarna letter: Royal Letter from Ashur-uballit, the king of Assyria, to the king of Egypt

In the fourteenth century B.C. the state of Assyria emerged as a dominant power in the northern part of Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq. This letter, written on a clay tablet in the Assyrian language using the cuneiform script, was sent by Ashur-uballit (ca. 1365-1330 B.C.) to the king of Egypt in a gesture of friendship. He writes:

"Say to the king of the land of Egypt: Thus Ashur-uballit, the king of the land of (the god) Ashur. For you, your household, for your land, may all be well. I have sent my messenger to you to visit you and to visit your land. Up to now, my predecessors have not written; today, I have written to you. I send you a splendid chariot, 2 horses, and 1 date-stone of genuine lapis lazuli as your greeting gift. Do not delay the messenger whom I have sent to you for a visit. He should visit and then leave for here. He should see what you are like and what your land is like, and then leave for here."
(adapted from Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Vol. I, No. 102)

The newly powerful king of Assyria could not lay claim to the same historical prestige as the king of Egypt, so although it was common practice in letter writing to define the relationship between addressee and sender, Ashur-uballit avoids such terms. Instead, he offers typical expressions of good wishes and notes that his message arrives with gifts, an incentive for the development of friendly relations. Such "greeting gifts" are known from the archaeological record of the ancient Near East and Egypt and include portable luxury objects and imported raw materials discovered in royal palaces.

Unlike modern heads of state, kings of the ancient world rarely met face-to-face. This letter shows that Ashur-uballit expected a report from his messenger on the exotic land of the king he would never meet, a kind of encounter by proxy. By forging ties through travelling objects and messengers, the kings of the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean could begin to imagine themselves as part of a family – a "brotherhood" of rulers.

Ashur-uballit’s letter is one of several hundred discovered in the late 1800s at the Egyptian capital of Amarna. Known today as the Amarna Letters, the missives were written within a forty year period by rulers from across the ancient Near East. They provide insight into international relations during the latter half of the second millennium B.C., a time during which rulers of states and cities interacted in both peaceful trade and war.

Elizabeth Knott, Research Associate, Ancient Near Eastern Art, 2016

Purchased by the Museum from Maurice Nahman, Cairo, 1924.

Hayes, William C. 1959. Scepter of Egypt II: A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom (1675-1080 B.C.). Cambridge, Mass.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 295–96, fig. 182.