Inscribed in Clay: Provenance study of the Amarna tablets and other ancient Near Eastern texts

Yuval Goren, Israel Finkelstein, Nadav Na'aman

Research output: Book/ReportBookpeer-review

Abstract

The publication is a synthesis of the results of a study that approaches the problem of locating the provenance of the Amarna Tablets from a new angle. Through mineralogical and chemical analyses of samples from over 300 tablets housed in museums in Berlin, London, Oxford and Paris, the project aims at pin-pointing their geographic origin and clarifying the geographic history of the ancient Near East. It launches a new analytical tool for resolving historical problems that have haunted research for decades. In the case of the Amarna archive, the introduction of this scientific technique helps to clear up the controversy over the location of Alashiya and Tunip, opens the way to track the territorial expansion of the kingdom of Amurru, enables reconstruction of the territorial disposition of the Canaanite city-states of the Late Bronze Age and sheds light on the Egyptian administration system in Canaan.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationTel Aviv
PublisherEmery and Clair Yass Publications in Archaeology
Number of pages386
ISBN (Print)9652660205, 9789652660305
StatePublished - 2004

Publication series

NameMonograph Series of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University
No.23

Keywords

  • Tell el-Amarna (Egypt) -- Antiquities
  • Cuneiform tablets
  • Akkadian language -- Texts
  • Ceramic materials
  • Middle East -- Antiquities
  • Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C. -- Sources
  • Eretz Israel -- History -- To 70 A.D. -- Sources
  • Middle East -- History -- To 622 -- Sources
  • Assyro-Babylonian letters
  • Egypt -- History -- New Kingdom, ca. 1550-ca. 1070 B.C
  • Tell el-Amarna tablets

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