The Amarna letters are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru, or neighboring kingdom leaders, during the New Kingdom, spanning a period of no more than thirty years between c. 1360–1332 BC. The letters were found in Upper Egypt at el-Amarna, the modern name for the ancient Egyptian capital of Akhetaten, founded by pharaoh Akhenaten (1350s–1330s BC) during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.
Five Amarna letters on display at the British Museum, London
Amarna letter EA 153 from Abimilku.
Obverse
line drawing, Obverse
Canaan was a Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer.
The Ghassulian star
Ghassulian dolmen, Kueijiyeh hill near Madaba, Jordan
Violin-shaped female cycladic figurines
Canaanite Anra scarab showing Egyptian nswt-bjt and ankh symbols bordering a cartouche with an undeciphered sequence of hieroglyphs c. 1648-1540