Book Review: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters

In an age of social media and 24/7 news coverage, politics has never felt more personal. Yet in his new book, Eric Cline argues that ancient rulers and diplomats were as invested as their modern counterparts in managing their own images, responding to perceived slights, and reading between the lines of official communication (even if dense cuneiform writing often made this difficult!). Cline’s book focuses on the Amarna Letters—an ancient archive of 382 clay tablets found at the Egyptian capital city of Akhetaten, modern Amarna. The bulk of the cuneiform tablets are of exceptional interest, as they constitute diplomatic letters […]