Pharaohs' private letters expose how politics worked 3,300 years ago

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Sometimes, archaeologists stumble on not just one, or a few, but an entire cache of documents that utterly transforms their understanding of an ancient period, and whose fascinating details bring that distant time into sharp focus. The trove that transformed Egyptology is undoubtedly that of the Amarna Letters, 382 clay tablets considered the oldest documents of diplomacy ever found.

Written in the 14th century B.C., they consist of correspondence between the pharaohs and their rival kings, the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, and Mitanni, as well as letters from puppet kings under Egyptian rule. 

The letters open a window into 18th-dynasty Egypt and give a detailed snapshot of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East in the Late Bronze Age, just as Egypt was consolidating its greatness and the new power of Assyria was beginning to flourish.

The letters are not written in ancient Egyptian, but in Akkadian, a language spoken widely in ancient Mesopotamia. In the second millennium B.C., Akkadian became a lingua franca across the whole region, similar to the role English plays in international relations today. 

Some of the most revealing letters about kingship and power are those sent from Tushratta, king of Mitanni, whose expanding empire had a southern border with Egypt’s northernmost holdings in Lebanon.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2020/11-12/pharaohs-amarna-letters-expose-politics-3300-years-ago/