APPENDIX V. CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY OF EGYPT, MESOPOTAMIA, AND BABYLON.

A very important addition to our chronological information with regard to the synchronous history of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia has been brought to light during this present year (1888) by the great discovery of cuneiform tablets at Tel-el-Amarna in Upper Egypt. These tablets consist for the most part of letters and dispatches sent to Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV by the kings of Babylonia and the princes and governors of Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia; some being addressed to Amenhotep IV (Khu-en-Aten) by Burna-Buryas, King of Babylonia, who lived about B.C. 1430. This gives us the date of the life and reign of Amenhotep IV, and consequently the approximate date of the foundation of the city known to us as Tel-el-Amarna, and of the establishment of the new religion of the Disk-worship; and it is the earliest synchronism yet established between the history of ancient Egypt and that of her contemporaries.

From these tablets we also learn that the consort of Amenhotep IV was a Syrian princess and daughter of Duschratta, King of Naharina (called in the tablets “the land of Mitanni”) on the Upper Euphrates. For a full and learned description of some of the most interesting of these newly discovered documents, see Dr. Erman’s paper, entitled Der Thontafelfund von Tell Amarna, read before the Berlin Academy on 3d May, 1888.

THE END.