Amarna letter EA 161

Amarna letter EA 161, titled: An Absence Explained, is a tall clay tablet letter of 8 paragraphs, with single paragraphing lines. The surface is somewhat degraded, but most cuneiform signs that remain (undamaged corners, or scrapes contain lost signs, added by context per translation), allow for a relative complete translation context for the letter, and the eight paragraphs. The clay tablet is no. BM 29818 at the British Museum; the number is visible at the top of the tablet, above Para I-(in black ink, the top half of the number visible).

The letter is about 3.5 in wide x 5-6 in tall, and probably slightly more than 1.0 inch thick. The text of the letter does not end at the right margin of the letter; instead the text appears to use the side of the clay tablet.

The Amarna letters, about 300, numbered up to EA 382, are mid 14th century BC, about 1350 BC and 25? years later, correspondence. The initial corpus of letters were found at Akhenaten's city Akhetaten, in the floor of the Bureau of Correspondence of Pharaoh; others were later found, adding to the body of letters.

Paragraph I is a very short introductory, salutory paragraph, with sections of the prostration formula, notably: 7 times and 7 times, God-mine, Sun-mine, I bow. The appellation "My Lord" is used here in Para I, and throughout the letter's paragraphs; my Lord is Lord-mine, and in EA 161 uses the sumerogram EN, for "Lord", with the possessive first person mine, ia (cuneiform). Many other Amarna letters use "be-li", or equivalent for 'lord', Akkadian language, bēlu. Cuneiform "ia"-(-iya) is still used today in world languages in Asia/Southeast Asia as -iya, as for example "TownXYZ-iya", "TownXYZ-mine". -Ia, or ia, is extremely common throughout the Amarna letters with one of the most common phrases being: King, Lord, mine, often at the very beginning of a letter (especially vassal city-states, Canaan), but will then be repeated throughout the letter.

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