The Amarna Letters are a body of 14th-century BCE correspondence exchanged between the rulers of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. They are perhaps the earliest examples of international diplomacy while their most common subjects are negotiations of diplomatic marriage, friendship statements, and exchanged materials.
Where are the Amarna letters?
The letters were found in Upper Egypt at el-Amarna, the modern name for the ancient Egyptian capital of Akhetaten, founded by pharaoh Akhenaten (1350s–1330s BC) during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.
How were the Amarna letters discovered?
The Amarna Letters were discovered in 1887 by a village woman digging ancient mud-brick for use as fertilizer. They are an important record of Egypt during a period of 15 to 30 years during the later part of Amenophis III’s (1391-1353 BC) rule and the rule of Akhenaten (1353-1336 BC).
What text was written during the Amarna?
New Kingdom Amarna Period: The Great Hymn to Aten.
What is the importance of the Amarna letters?
The Amarna Letters provide invaluable insight into the nature of diplomatic relations among the great nations and petty states of the 14th century bce, as well as an incomplete and tantalizing hint of the strategic maneuvering that occupied them.
How many Amarna Letters are there?
The Amarna letters are unusual in Egyptological research, being mostly written in Akkadian cuneiform, the writing method of ancient Mesopotamia that was used in international diplomacy in the second century B.C.E. The known tablets currently total 382 in number.
What does the name Amarna mean?
The name that the ancient Egyptians used for the city is transliterated in English as Akhetaten or Akhetaton, meaning “the horizon of the Aten“. …
What is the city of Amarna?
Amarna is the modern Arabic name for the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten, capital of the country under the reign of Akhenaten (1353-1336 BCE). The site is officially known as Tell el-Amarna, so-named for the Beni Amran tribe who were living in the area when it was discovered.
Why does Egypt fall?
The empire spanned over 3,000 years. … However, history shows that even the mightiest empires can fall and after 1,100 BC, Egypt went into decline. There were several reasons for this including a loss of military power, lack of natural resources, and political conflicts.
What is characteristic of the Amarna style?
It is characterized by a sense of movement and activity in images, with figures having raised heads, many figures overlapping and many scenes busy and crowded. The human body is portrayed differently; figures, always shown in profile on reliefs, are slender, swaying, with exaggerated extremities.
Who is the founder of Atenism?
Atenism was one of the earliest monotheistic religions. It was the worship of the light emanating from the sun god (or rather sun disk), Aten. It was started by the 18 dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaten.
What do the Amarna letters tell us about international trade and diplomacy in the 14th century BCE?
The Amarna Letters are a body of correspondence exchanged between the Pharaoh of Egypt, his client kingdoms, and the other Great Powers of the Near East. … The Amarna Letters provide critical insight into the diplomatic protocol of the Great Powers during this time.
What theme seems most central in the palette of Narmer?
The central theme of the palette seems to be the king’s recurring victory over his enemies. King Narmer is also shown wearing two different crowns that are believed to represent the uniting of Upper and Lower Egypt.
What art was the Amarna period best known for?
The Amarna Period is characterized by religious and artistic innovation. Learn how to distinguish the main features of art from the reign of Akhenaten from earlier and later Egyptian art. The Amarna Period is known for its religious iconoclasm.
Who led the Amarna revolution?
Amarna style, revolutionary style of Egyptian art created by Amenhotep IV, who took the name Akhenaton during his reign (1353–36 bce) in the 18th dynasty.
Where did Osiris go?
Osiris’ body traveled out to sea and eventually his coffin became lodged in a great tamarisk tree growing near Byblos in Phoenicia.
Why was ritual so important in ancient Egypt?
The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of funerary practices that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. These rituals included mummifying the body, casting magic spells, and burials with specific grave goods thought to be needed in the afterlife.
Who is Amun the Egyptian god?
Amun, god of the air, was one of the eight primordial Egyptian deities. Amun’s role evolved over the centuries; during the Middle Kingdom he became the King of the deities and in the New Kingdom he became a nationally worshipped god. He eventually merged with Ra, the ancient sun god, to become Amun-Ra.
What is armana?
Armana is a genus of moths of the family Noctuidae. … Both the genus and the species were first described by Swinhoe in 1890.
Who was Aton?
Aton, also spelled Aten, in ancient Egyptian religion, a sun god, depicted as the solar disk emitting rays terminating in human hands, whose worship briefly was the state religion. … Aton creates the son in the mother’s womb, the seed in men, and has generated all life.
What’s the meaning of an ankh?
The ankh symbol—sometimes referred to as the key of life or the key of the nile—is representative of eternal life in Ancient Egypt. … It could also have a more physical connotation: the ankh may represent water, air, and the sun, which were meant to provide and preserve life in Ancient Egyptian culture.
Is Amarna in the desert?
Amarna occupies a large bay of almost flat desert hemmed in for much of its perimeter by cliffs that rise by approximately 100 metres to a high desert plateau.
Who built akhetaten?
It was created by Egypt’s heretic king, Akhenaten for his revolutionary religion that worshiped Aten during the Amarna Period. The ancient capital of Akhetaten lies some 365 miles south of Cairo in a natural amphitheater between inhospitable cliffs.
How long was Amarna occupied?
For a brief, 17-year period, the center of Egypt was Amarna, a small city on the banks of the Nile, about 218 miles (350 kilometers) south of Cairo. In a few years, temples, court buildings and housing complexes sprung up. At one time, 20,000 to 30,000 court officials, soldiers, builders and servants lived in the city.
Who destroyed Egypt?
In the mid-fourth century B.C., the Persians again attacked Egypt, reviving their empire under Ataxerxes III in 343 B.C. Barely a decade later, in 332 B.C., Alexander the Great of Macedonia defeated the armies of the Persian Empire and conquered Egypt.
What killed ancient Egypt?
Then, around 2200 B.C., ancient texts suggest that Egypt’s so-called Old Kingdom gave way to a disastrous era of foreign invasions, pestilence, civil war, and famines severe enough to result in cannibalism.
When did Babylon invade Egypt?
After the fall of Assyria in 612 B.C., the major foreign threat to Egypt came from the Babylonians. Although Babylonia had invaded Egypt in 568 B.C. during a brief civil war, the countries formed an alliance in 547 B.C. against the rising threat of a third power, the Persian empire—but to no avail.
What called hieroglyphics?
hieroglyph, a character used in a system of pictorial writing, particularly that form used on ancient Egyptian monuments. Hieroglyphic symbols may represent the objects that they depict but usually stand for particular sounds or groups of sounds.
What made the Amarna Period art unique?
The children of Nefertiti and Akhenaten were given oddly-shaped heads when depicted in art. In addition, art of the Amarna period was unusual in that it depicted familial scenes such as this. … The Amarna period’s style of portraiture accentuated certain features, resulting in a caricature.
When did Akhenaten change his name?
Akhenaten the Heretic 1352–1336 BC. Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten and defied tradition by establishing a new religion that believed that there is but one god; the sun god Aten.
Who is the first god?
Brahma | |
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God of Creation, knowledge and Vedas; Creator of the Universe | |
Member of Trimurti | |
A roundel with a depiction of Brahma, 19th century | |
Other names | Svayambhu, Virinchi, Prajapati |
What is the oldest religion?
The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as Sanātana Dharma (Sanskrit: सनातन धर्म, lit.
Did Akhenaten have sons?
Akhenaten’s son, Tutankhaten, restored the disgraced Amun as king of the gods, and he renamed himself Tutankhamun to honor Amun.
How does diplomacy work among nations?
diplomacy, the established method of influencing the decisions and behaviour of foreign governments and peoples through dialogue, negotiation, and other measures short of war or violence. … Historically, diplomacy meant the conduct of official (usually bilateral) relations between sovereign states.
How does diplomacy work?
Diplomacy is accomplished by negotiation, or bargaining. Usually, each group in a negotiation will ask for more than they expect to get. They then compromise, or give up some of what they want, in order to come to an agreement. Often, an outside diplomat will help with the negotiations.
What is ancient diplomacy?
Such interconnectedness was diplomatically vital. Unlike modern diplomacy, the main characteristic of the ancient Greeks’ diplomacy was public negotiation. They also made treaty ratifications by exchanging solemn public oaths. The Greek City-States depended on ‘ proxenos ‘ and heralds to conduct their diplomacy.
Is Menes a narmer?
Narmer is often credited with the unification of Egypt by means of the conquest of Lower Egypt by Upper Egypt. While Menes is traditionally considered the first king of Ancient Egypt, Narmer has been identified by the majority of Egyptologists as the same person as Menes.
Who is the artist of Narmer Palette?
Narmer Palette | |
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Identification | CG 14716 |
What story does the palette of Narmer tell?
The Narmer Palette is intricately carved to tell the story of King Narmer’s victory in battle and the approval of the gods at the unification of Egypt.