Patriarchal Palestine

by A. H. Sayce

His first letter is to protest against Khu-n-Aten's mistrust of Gebal, which he calls "thy city and the city of [thy] fathers," and to assert roundly that "Aziru is in rebellion against the king my lord." Aziru had made a league (?) with the kings of Ni, Arvad, and Ammiya (the Beni-Ammo of Num. xxii. 5) (See above, p. [64].), and with the help of the Amorite Palasa was destroying the cities of the Pharaoh. So El-rabi-Hor asks the king not to heed anything the rebel may write about his seizure of Zemar or his massacre of the royal governors, but to send some troops to himself for the defence of Gebal. In a second letter he reiterates his charges against Aziru, who had now "smitten" Adon, the king of Arka, and possessed himself of Zemar and the other towns of Phoenicia, so that Gebal "alone" is on the side of the king, who "looks on" without doing anything. Moreover a fresh enemy had arisen in the person of Eta-gama of Kadesh, who had joined himself with the king of the Hittites and the king of Naharaim.

Letters to Khu-n-Aten from Akizzi the governor of Qatna, which, as we learn from the inscriptions of Assur-natsir-pal, was situated on the Khabûr, represent Aziru in the same light. First of all, the Egyptian government is informed that the king of the Hittites, together with Aidhu-gama (or Eta-gama) of Kadesh has been invading the Egyptian territory, burning its cities, and carrying away from Qatna the image of the Sun-god. Khu-n-aten, it is urged, could not allow the latter crime to go unpunished. The Sun-god had created him and his father, and had caused them to be called after his own name. He was the supreme object of the Pharaoh's worship, the deity for whose sake Khu-n-Aten had deserted Thebes.

The Hittite king had been joined in his invasion of Syria by the governors of some otherwise unknown northern cities, but the kings of Nukhasse, Ni, Zinzar (the Sonzar of the Egyptian texts), and Kinanat (the Kanneh of Ezek. xxvii. 23) remained faithful to the Egyptian monarch. The rebel governors, however, were in the land of Ube,—the Aup of the hieroglyphics,—which they were urging Aidhu-gama to invade.

Another letter brings Aziru upon the scene. He is accused of having invaded the land of Nukhasse, and made prisoners of the people of Qatna. The Pharaoh is prayed to rescue or ransom them, and to send chariots and soldiers to the help of his Mesopotamian subjects. If they come all the lands round about will acknowledge him as lord, and he will be lord also of Nukhasse; if they do not come, the men of Qatna will be forced to obey Aziru.

It is probable that the misdeeds of Aziru which are here referred to were committed at the time he was in Tunip, professedly protecting it against Hittite attack. It would seem from what Akizzi says, that instead of faithfully performing his mission, he had aimed at establishing his own power in Northern Syria. While nominally an officer of the Pharaoh, he was really seeking to found an Amorite kingdom in the north. In this he would have been a predecessor of Og and Sihon, whose kingdoms were built up on the ruins of the Egyptian empire.

A despatch, however, from Namya-yitsa, the governor of Kumidi, sets the conduct of Aziru in a more favourable light. It was written at a somewhat later time, when rebellion against the Egyptian authority was spreading throughout Syria. A certain Biridasyi had stirred up the city of Inu'am, and after shutting its gate upon Namya-yitsa had entered the city of Ashtaroth-Karnaim in Bashan, and there seized the chariots belonging to the Pharaoh, handing them over to the Beduin. He then joined the kings of Buzruna (now Bosra) and Khalunni (near the Wadi 'Allân), in a plot to murder Namya-yitsa, who escaped, however, to Damascus, though his own brothers turned against him. The rebels next attacked Aziru, captured some of his soldiers, and in league with Etu-gama wasted the district of Abitu. Etakkama, however, as Etu-gama spells his own name, professed to be a loyal servant of the Egyptian king, and one of the Tel el-Amarna letters is from him.

We next hear of Namya-yitsa in Accho or Acre, where he had taken refuge with Suta, or Seti, the Egyptian commissioner. Seti had already been in Jerusalem, and had been inquiring there into the behaviour of Ebed-Tob.

The picture of incipient anarchy and rebellion which is set before us by the correspondence from Phoenicia and Syria is repeated in that from the centre and south of Palestine. In the centre the chief seats of the Egyptian government were at Megiddo, at Khazi (the Gaza of 1 Chron. vii. 28), near Shechem, and at Gezer. Each of these towns was under an Egyptian governor, specially appointed by the Pharaoh.