Image Details

Cuneiform correspondence. This 14th-century B.C. tablet bears a letter from ‘Abdi-H|eba, king of Jerusalem, to the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. Discovered at Tell el-Amarna, in Egypt, along with 350 other letters belonging to Akhenaten and his father, the tablet is one of six missives that specifically mention Urusalim, or Jerusalem. Although excavations in Jerusalem have produced very few remains from the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages, the Amarna letters, like the Stepped-Stone Structure, are a strong indication that Jerusalem was far more significant than the Biblical minimalists believe.