VII. The Arzawan Letters and other Hittite Notes

Extract

In the new volume of the Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler der königlichen Museen zu Berlin (Heft xii, 1915) Dr. Otto Schroeder has published a revised copy (No. 202) of what is known as the Second Arzawa Tablet found at Tel el-Amarna and now in Berlin. As I was the first to point out many years ago (Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, xi, 1889), the text of the tablet, like that of the First Tablet addressed to the king of Arzawa, is in the Hittite language. The revised copy of the Second Tablet is a great improvement on what has been previously at our disposal, and with the help of the Hittite Vocabularies (for which see JRAS. October, 1914) and various other tablets from Boghaz Keui, it is now possible to present a translation of it. The tablet contains a letter from a Hittite named Labbaya who was employed in escorting the caravans from Khalirabbat or Eastern Cappadocia to Canaan, and who with his two sons was accused of intriguing with the enemies of the Pharaoh and even occupying Canaanitish cities. We hear a good deal about him in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, which includes two letters from him in Semitic Babylonian, rebutting the accusations that had been brought against him and protesting his fidelity to the Egyptian Government.