Note 15 — Chapter VII

Among the royal letters from Tell el-Amarna are eleven which directly concern Babylon. Two of these are drafts, or copies, of letters which Amenhetep III. despatched to Kadashman-Enlil of Babylon (cf. Kundtzon, op. cit., pp. 60 ff., 74 ff.); three are letters received by Amen-hetep III. from the same correspondent (op. cit., pp. 66 ff., 68 ff., 72 ff.); five are letters written by Burna-Buriash of Babylon to Amen-hetep IV. or Akhenaten (op. cit., pp. 78 ff.); and one is a letter from Burna-Buriash, which may have been addressed to Amen-hetep III. (op. cit., 78 f.). We also possess a letter, from a princess in Babylon to her lord in Egypt, on a purely domestic matter (op. cit., pp. 118 ff.), as well as long lists of presents which passed between Akhenaten and Burna-Buriash (op. cit., pp. 100 ff.); one of the letters also appears to be a Babylonian passport for use in Canaan (see below, p. 225, n. 3). The letters thus fall in the reigns of two Kassite rulers, Kadashman-Enlil I. and Burna-Buriash, but from one of Burna-Buriash's letters to Akhenaten we gather that Amen-hetep III. had corresponded with a still earlier king in Babylon, Kara-indash I.; for the letter begins by assuring the Pharaoh that "since the time of Kara-indash, when their fathers had begun to correspond with one another, they had always been good friends" (cf. Knudtzon, op. cit., pp. 90 ff.). We have recovered no letters of Kurigalzu, the father of Burna-Buriash, though Amen-hetep III. maintained friendly relations with him (see below, p. 224). In a letter of Amen-hetep III. to Kadashman-Enlil reference is also made to correspondence between the two countries in the time of Amen-hetep III.'s father, Thothmes IV. (op. cit., p. 64 f.).