Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTERS FROM ASIATIC VASSALS 39 pected and unusual gentleness. It is quite possible that Nimmuria had ordered the images in question to be made for his worthy friend without giving any formal promise to send them, and that as soon as Tushratta learned what had happened, he promptly interposed with a lie, in hope of appealing to Napkhuria's sense of the fitness of things. That, however, was expecting too much. IV. Letters From Asiatic Vassals. Four-fifths of the number of letters consist of reports and communications from Egyptian governors, military commanders, magistrates, and other officials in Western Asia. The form of address from these subordinates to the Pharaoh is naturally very different from " Royal Brother," and in hurried announcements it is often contracted. Written in full the long formula runs: " To 'he king, my lord, my gods, my sun, the sun of heaven; Yitia, prefect of Askelon is thy servant, the dust at thy feet, the servant of thy horses. At the feet of the king my lord seven times and again seven times I prostrate myself upon my back and upon my breast." The importance of these letters, however, consists in the substance of what they report and inwhat they tell us as to the doings of the writers. They are the data by reason of which the Tell el Amarna archives constitute a unique store of historical material for the study of the history of civilisation. Warlike expeditions among the vassal chiefs were the order of the day. Most dangerous of all the chiefs was Aziru, prefect of the land of the Amorites, whose territory included the district north of Damascus and part of the valley of the Orontes. In the hope of founding an independent kingdom, Aziru had swiftly seized on the dominions of all the chiefs on his northern boundary, and in this actio...