subdued various cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, and he also engaged in lion-hunting expeditions during his stay in those regions. He reigned thirty-four years, and was succeeded by his son, Amenophis IV., who introduced the heretical religion already alluded to. In the comparatively short reign of Amenophis IV. the Egyptian dominions in Western Asia seem to have begun to fall away from the supremacy of the Pharaoh.

CHAPTER VII.

THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS (continued).

LETTERS FROM MESOPOTAMIAN PRINCES TO THE KINGS OF

EGYPT.

THE purposes for which the kings of Mesopotamian States sent letters to the Pharaoh were the following: to strengthen their alliance with the most powerful monarch of the time, whose tributary States touched upon their own borders; and to acquire some of the gold which was so abundant in the land of Egypt, and in exchange for which they despatched valuable treasures of other sorts. In order to cement their friendship with their mighty neighbour, they often sent him their daughters in marriage, and these unions were the more readily accepted or proposed by the Pharaoh because these princesses brought with them from the banks of the Euphrates an exceedingly handsome dowry. Thus the custom of intermarriage between the royal families of Egypt and of Western Asia had already begun. As we have seen, Thothmes III. obtained the hand of a Syrian princess; in later times Rameses II. had a Hittite wife; and doubtless there were many other cases of the same sort. The Tell el-Amarna tablets show us

that Thothmes IV. married a princess of Mitâni, and that his son, Amenophis III., received two wives from the royal family of that country, in addition to the Mesopotamian princess Thi, who was his "great wife," or queen. One of these ladies, who was sent as a wife to Amenophis III. at the end of his reign, was on his death married to his son and successor, Amenophis IV. Her name was Tâtum-Khipa, and she was the daughter of the king Tushratta. The kings of Babylon also sent the ladies of their family to be the wives of the Pharaoh; both the sister and the daughter of Kallimma-Sin were espoused to Amenophis III. On the other hand, Egyptian princesses were also sent in marriage to foreign princes; for, just as Solomon won the hand of the "daughter of Pharaoh," and the Edomite prince Hadad was rewarded with the hand of the sister of Tahpenes, the Egyptian queen, so the daughter of Amenophis IV. became the wife of a son of Burraburyash, king of Babylon. The alliances by marriage between the royal houses of Egypt and Mitâni are all alluded to in a much mutilated letter from King Tushratta to Amenophis IV., from which a few extracts may, perhaps, be given here:

"[To Amenophis IV.] my son-in-law, whom I love, and who loves me: thus says Tushratta, the great king, the king of Mitâni, thy brother, thy father-in-law, who loves thee: 'It is well with me. May it be well with Thi [thy mother], with Tâtumkhipa, my daughter, thy wife; may it be well with thy children, thy great men, thy chariots, and thy horses .. and all that thou hast!

"The father of Nimmuriya [i.e., Thothmes IV., father of Amenophis III., and grandfather of Amenophis IV.] sent messengers to

Artatama, my grandfather, and asked for his daughter in marriage. My grandfather refused; he sent five times and six times, and my grandfather would not give her; he sent again, and under compulsion my grandfather gave her to him.

"The messenger of Nimmuriya [Amenophis III.], thy father, sent to Shutarna my father, and asked for my father's daughter, my own sister, in marriage. He sent five and six times, and under compulsion my father gave her to him. Nimmuriya also sent to me, and demanded my daughter in marriage. . and I gave her to him." "

The rest of the letter is too much mutilated to be fully understood or translated; but the fragments show that it was occupied with assurances of friendship to Amenophis IV., who had lately come to the throne, with expressions of grief over the death of Amenophis III.; with allusions to Thi, the queen-mother, who, as is usual in the East, held a position of great influence at the Court of her son, and with an enumeration of gifts sent to the king, his mother, and his wife.

The Princess Tâtum-khipa, Tushratta's daughter, who, as we have just seen, was sent in marriage to Amenophis III., and then handed over to his son and successor, took with her a dowry which might well induce the Pharaoh to make similar alliances with the wealthy princes of Mesopotamia, who were thus eager to purchase his friendship. The list of objects of which it was composed covers two large clay tablets, now in the Berlin Museum; they are among the largest tablets that have ever been found, and are covered with very minute writing; even in their present mutilated condition they contain about 600 lines. The title of the document runs as follows:

"This is the whole of the dowry which Tushratta, king of Mitanni, gave to Nimmuriya, king of Egypt, his brother and his sonin-law, when he sent Tatum-khipa, his daughter, to the land of Egypt to Nimmuriya to be his wife; on that day he gave it."

The dowry is composed of an immense number of vessels, instruments, furniture, and other objects of gold and precious stone, such as lapis-lazuli, besides many of silver and copper and a few of iron. In addition to these, there are horses, and a chariot adorned with gold, and garments of variegated stuffs; many of the metallic objects were evidently proofs of the great skill of the Mesopotamian smiths and jewellers, for some of them were made partly of gold and partly of silver, or of bronze overlaid with the precious metals, and they were often encrusted with precious stones.

The Princess Tâtum-khipa, who took this dowry with her to Egypt, is also mentioned by name in a letter from her father to the Egyptian queen-mother Thi, who, in consequence of the lady's marriage with Amenophis IV., had now become her mother-in-law. The salutations at the head of this letter have been given in a former chapter. The body of the document is very much mutilated; it was occupied with assurances of friendship towards Egypt, and mentions certain gifts sent by Tushratta to the queen.

Tushratta had also in a former year sent greetings to his daughter in a letter to Amenophis III., written quite at the end of the latter monarch's reign; the date is proved by a docket in Egyptian hieratic characters, painted with black ink at the end of the letter by the