An Amarna letter from Gezer

Yapahu, ruler of Gezer, needed help from the Egyptian king. His appeal travelled as writing pressed into clay. The tablet dates to the fourteenth century BC and addresses Amenhotep III or Amenhotep IV. Look at the small wedge-shaped marks. They are Babylonian cuneiform, used for diplomatic exchanges across the region. A ruler in Gezer could send a message to Egypt’s court through that shared written practice. The marks on a small tablet carried relations between people separated by a much larger distance. This letter belongs to the Amarna archive, which contains far more correspondence than the Museum object you see here. It records political dependence and a request for assistance. The surviving exchange brings a moment of that relationship into view, while leaving questions about the wider events and some of the people mentioned in the correspondence. The clay is small enough to take in at a glance. Reading it was a specialised task.