Amarna letter EA 256


Amarna letter EA 256, in short EA 256, catalogued under the title Oaths and Denials, is one of a total of about 350 so-called Amarna letters, belonging to an official correspondence dating to the mid-14th century BC. The initial corpus of letters were found at Akhenaten's city Akhetaten, on the floor of the Bureau of Correspondence of Pharaoh; others were later found, adding to the body of letters.

Description

EA 256 is a square, mostly flat clay tablet letter written on both sides; it is also written on the bottom, top, and the last 3 lines are written on the left edge, where the start of lines on the obverse form a 'straight' margin.
The reverse of the letter, has a list of towns in, or associated with the Golan Heights. The surface of the letter is rough, or photos of the reverse especially, do not easily highlight the cuneiform characters.
The topic of the letter is the whereabouts of Ayyab, supposedly in Pella, Jordan.
Each text line was written with a horizontal line scribed below the text line, as well as a vertical left margin-line, scribe line on the obverse of the tablet. The letter contains 14 lines on the obverse, continuing on the bottom tablet edge to conclude at line 31 on the reverse, leaving a small space before the final tablet edge. At least 4 lines from the obverse intrude into the text of the reverse, actually dividing the reverse into a top half and bottom half, and even creating a natural spacing segue to the reverse's text, and the story.

Brief letter summary

Letter EA 256 is authored by Mutbaal, the son of Labaya, and written to the Pharaoh.

The letter

Translation

EA 252, letter two of two.
Obverse:
Reverse:

Akkadian text

The Akkadian language text:
Obverse: