Amarna Letter EA 362: Rib-Addi of Byblos to the Pharaoh
Unknown · Late Bronze Age II, reign of Amenhotep IV Akhenaten, circa 1353 to 1337 BC
A clay tablet the size of a hand, covered on both faces with tightly packed cuneiform. It is a letter, written in the Akkadian of international diplomacy, from Rib-Addi, king of Byblos on the Lebanese coast, to the pharaoh of Egypt. Its opening lines follow the required etiquette: Rib-Addi to the king my lord, seven times and seven times I fall at the feet of my lord. Then the tone changes to alarm. If the pharaoh does not send troops, we are dead and the city of Gubla, that is Byblos, will be taken. Look at the density of the signs; the scribe had a great deal to say.
The tablet belongs to the Amarna letters, the diplomatic archive of Akhenaten found at Tell el Amarna in Egypt in the eighteen eighties. Rib-Addi wrote more letters than any other correspondent, over sixty, most of them pleading for help against the expanding kingdom of Amurru and its ruler Aziru. Egypt largely ignored him and he eventually lost his throne. The Louvre purchased this letter in nineteen eighteen. Its voice, anxious and repetitive, is one of the most human in the whole archive, a small king watching his world collapse.
Did You Know? Rib-Addi of Byblos sent the pharaoh more than sixty letters begging for help, and this is one of them.
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