these the king of Alashia addresses Pharaoh as brother", and in letter 27 of the Tell el Amarna Correspondance he proposes a treaty of alliance between them. With letter 27 he sends the new Pharaoh ,,a flask which is filled with good oil to pour on (your) head, now that you have ascended the throne of your kingdom". Anointing as king therefore seems to have been not only a Jewish custom, but it also appears to have been the act of recognition of a king by his neighbours. It also seems to have been the act of appointment to the throne by the overlord, for this custom is again referred to in letter 37 where Thothmes III is said to have established the writer's grandfather in Nuhašši over the kingdom and poured upon his head oil", and perhaps yet again in letter 141. Alashia was moreover a state the government of which required officials under the king and we find the minister" of Alashia, writing to the minister" of Egypt, no doubt one of the viceroys such as the formidable Yankhamu. Just as the king considered himself the equal of the Pharaoh, so did his minister consider himself the equal of the Pharaoh's minister, whom he also addresses as brother". " § 33. There was much intercourse between Egypt and Alashia, messengers coming and going continually, though they were liable to be retained by the other king even as long as three years, which perhaps gives point to the oft repeated request for speed. So intimate was the knowledge by one state of the affairs of the other that the Pharaoh had evidently taken it for granted that the king of Alashia would know that he was celebrating a „sacrificial feast", and had felt aggrieved at Alashia's ignorance1). The intercourse was not confined to the kings only, but was shared in by their respective peoples, for we find letter 25 largely concerned with the winding up of the estate of an Alashian, who had died in Egypt. This intercourse lasted even as late as 1100 B. C., for when shipwrecked on the shores of Alasa-Alashia Wenamon expects as a matter of course to find a native who can speak Egyptian, and in this he is not disappointed, but is immediately answered in his own language by one out of the crowd2). This intercourse of the peoples was of a commercial nature, the exchange of commodities not being confined to the mutual courtesies of the courts, and we find a great part of the correspondance of the king of Alashia refers to his merchants. In Letters 25, 29, 33, the king appears as taking a fatherly interest in the welfare of his people, and is solicitous that their business may be expedited, and requests that the Pharaoh will let not his customs officer come too near them". He appears to have been genuinely anxious to foster his country's trade, both by his proposed treaty and by his letters of recommendation, which he sent with his merchants in the hopes of smoothing their road. § 34. From all this we may almost believe that the remark of Wenamon's to the queen of Alasa was not mere flattery, but may have been quite genuine. He says "I have heard as far as Thebes, the abode of Amen, that in every city injustice is done, but that justice is done in the land of Alasa" (only). The Tell el Amarna Letters some 250 years earlier, certainly seem to be in accord with this sentiment, and it is possible that the justice of Alasa had become proverbial in the Ancient East. Yet the people were not contented, for we find in letter 25, that they had quarrelled with their king over the export of Alashian timber to Egypt. Alashia may have been subject to a good deal of Assyrian influence at this time, for we find that when the king wishes to speak of the pestilence in letter 25 he personifies it as the hand of my lord Nergal", the Assyrian god. This would agree to Alashia's connection with Singara, but on the other hand it must not be forgotten that Niebuhr remarks) that the Alashian scribe is proud of his accomplishments in cuneiform, and trots out his whole vocabulary unhampered by grammar", in which case the expression may quite possibly be only an idiom, the knowledge of which he was glad to have a chance of airing. § 35. In letter 28 we have the truly oriental reply to a complaint of the Pharaoh that the Alashians had joined the Lukki (?) in a raid on Egyptian territory. What Oriental could refrain from reproaching the complainer with Alashia's Why does my brother say that to me? As if my brother did not know that I would never do that". Or again is not the Alashian „You are not acquainted with the people of my land; they have not done these things" mutatis mutandis the invariable reply of any headman of any village to any complaint of any sort? The prominence of women in Alashia is noticeable in the finding there of a queen-not a king-into whose presence Wenamon is brought), and in this connection may be mentioned again the solicitude of the king for a widow of one of his subjects. Perhaps it is more than a co-incidence, that the treaty made by Alashia's neighbour the king of Kheta with Rameses II bore on one side of its seal a likeness of the king embraced by his god, and on the other side a likeness of the queen embraced by a goddess 3), thus giving the queen an equality with the king, a prominence in public affairs rare among Oriental nations. This is only equalled by the regular public appearance of Nefertiti with Akhenaton, and the importance given to Tii by Amenhotep III. The last piece of information, which can be gathered from Egyptian sources about Alashia, is a list of personal names. They occur in letter 26 and as rendered by the cuneiform syllabary come down to us as:-Pa-aš-tum-mí-í. Ku-ni-í-a. I-til-lu-na. . . . gur-ru-um-ma. 1) The Tell el Amarna Period p. 13. 2) BAR IV, 591. - 3) BAR III, 391. Uš-bar-ra. Bí-il-ra-am, to which must be added the name of Wenamon's queen of Alasa rendered in Egyptian as Ḥ3-ty-b31). Of these names Paštummi has been compared to the Cretan лάoτas or to such names as Eлaoтos etc; Kunia to Kertas (?); Itilluna to Evrέ220v etc; and Usbarra to the Thracian Σπαράδοχος, and the Carian Σπαρύδιγος (?) 2). § 36. The sum of the foregoing then is this. That the connection of the lands of Alashia and Asy with Cyprus rests on insufficient evidence, but that on the contrary there is a strong presumption that they are both continental countries. For the sake of clearness the various points leading to these conclusions are recapitulated here under their proper headings. 1. The evidence for the identity of Alashia with Cyprus has been shown to be insufficient in the case of the: copper § 14: identity of name with Elishah § 9; title Aaotoras and the names Alasso and Ailasyka and Arsus § 8; to which must be added the absence of silver and gold § 30 note. 2. The presumption in favour of the mainland is shown in the case of Alashia by the: copper export from N. Syria § 14; absence of native cuneiform in Cyprus § 10; neighbours in the Lists § 12; political connections with the mainland § 13. 3. The evidence for the identity of Asy with Cyprus has been shown to be insufficient in the case of the: identity of the names Seb, Sebynai with Asy § 17; copper § 18; regular omission of the word island § 21; to which must be added the objections raised by various scholars § 19; and the absence of silver and gold § 30 note. 4. The presumption in favour of the mainland is shown in the case of Asy by the: copper export from N. Syria § 18; 2) Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln, (Weber's notes), p. 1083. 5. Having shown Alashia to be a mainland country, she was further shown to be: on the coast § 11; north of Arvad § 12. 6. Having shown Asy to be a mainland country, she was further shown to be: north of Alashia § 23; in connection with the West §§ 23. 24; probably a coast country § 28. 7. This brought her position about the mouth of the Orontes River, where was found the modern name (el 'Asy), ancient Αξιος § 29. Thus then Alashia becomes identified with the coast north of Arvad, and south of the mouth of the Orontes, while Asy is the country about the mouth of this river. § 37. As a last word on Asy and Alashia, it is only fitting to take the same subject as that with which this article was begun, namely the copper, which is the crux of any Asy-Alashia question. Having re-established these countries on the mainland by the help of their chief product-copper-it may well be asked, whether it is only a coincidence that their position turns out to be in the neighbourhood of that deducible for a land called in the Tell-el-Amarna Letters Nu-ha-aš-ši, (Nukhashi)1) which also turns out to be the district in which Thomson found copper deposits which had once been worked at Riha; and whether it is only a coincidence that this name of the neighbour of Asy and Alashia should so closely resemble the Hebrew nekhoshet copper, as Weber suggests), or whether it does not rather imply, that this district was so well known as the home of this metal, as to be actually called "The Copper Land". Finally my thanks are due to Prof. J. L. Myres for much kindly interest and advice, to Mr. F. Ll. Griffith for guidance with the hieroglyphs, to Prof. W. M. F. Petrie for suggestions as to the form, in which the information should be presented, and last but not least to Miss Bertha Porter for an ever ready help in the finding and sorting out of various publications of texts. Oxford. 1) In Tell el Amarna letter 47 Tunip appears to be in the land of Nukhashi, as the Hittite king is reported to be stationed here and to be threatening Tunip. For the position of this city see § 23. 2) Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln, Lieferung XII, p. 1105. N. B. The map is by Darbishire and Stanford Ltd. |