ABSTRACT
Almost exactly a century has elapsed since the discovery of the cuneiform tablets at El-Amarna, the site of the ancient city of Akhetaton, the short-lived capital of Echnaton. In these 100 years many studies have been devoted to all the aspects on which these letters threw new light, language, history, society, politics, etc. The letters could be roughly divided in two groups, namely, (a) the correspondence of the so-called Great-Kings (LUGAL GAL) with the Egyptian pharaohs and (b) the letters of the Palestinian vassals to their Egyptian overlord (Moran 1987:13ff.). Among the letters of the first group three letters were discovered which were written in a hitherto unknown language. According to its Akkadian address, EA 24 was written by the Mittannian king Tušratta. Therefore, the language employed in the letter was likely to be the language of the kingdom of Mittanni (Jensen 1890, 1891 and 1899; Sayce 1890 and 1900; Messerschmidt 1899; Knudtzon 1915:180). The other two, EA 31 and 32, represented the pharaoh’s correspondence with Tarhundaraba, the king of Arzawa, and the language of the letters was consequently called after that country (Knudtzon 1902). Later on, the languages in which these texts were written proved to be Hurrian and Hittite, respectively. In this contribution, which is dedicated to Prof. van Loon, I will concern myself with the Hurrian letter and the Akkadian letters of Tušratta. It is the Hurrian component in this contribution which comes closest to one of Prof. van Loon’s main interests, the Urartian language.
