Published on November 12, 2025 (Episode 432)
Introduction
While sailing down the Nile in 1887, the English linguist and semi-invalid Archibald Henry Sayce stopped at Tell el-Amarna. There among the ruins of the short-lived capital of Pharaoh Akhenaten he noticed the foundations of a large building newly exposed by local laborers. A few months later someone—or many someones—uncovered hundreds of clay tablets inscribed with wedge-shaped characters never before seen in Egypt.
Sayce had stumbled upon the “Amarna Letters”: a cache of royal correspondence from the fourteenth century BC, written in cuneiform on behalf of the pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. The tablets revealed the workings of an ancient world of diplomacy, alliances, and intrigue—an international network that linked Egypt, Babylonia, the Hittites, and the petty kingdoms of Canaan.
My guest, Eric H. Cline, tells the story of the Amarna Letters in his new book Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed (Princeton University Press, 2024). He traces the illicit nineteenth-century excavations that brought the letters to light, the rival scholars who raced to decipher them, and the remarkable portrait of the Late Bronze Age that emerged—a world at once distant and hauntingly familiar.
About the Guest
Eric H. Cline is Professor of Classics and Anthropology and Director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at George Washington University. An archaeologist and historian of the ancient Mediterranean, he is the author of 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed and After 1177 BC: The Survival of Civilization. This is his third appearance on Historically Thinking.
For Further Investigation
Eric H. Cline, Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed (Princeton University Press, 2025)
—, After 1177 BC: The Survival of Civilizations (Princeton University Press, 2024)
—, 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton University Press, 2021)
—, Digging Deeper: How Archaeology Works (Princeton University Press, 2020)
William L. Moran, ed. and trans., The Amarna Letters (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992)
Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook, eds., Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginnings of International Relations (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)
Amanda Podany, Warriors, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East (Oxford University Press, 2022)
Node XL Pro—”Dive into advanced social network analysis to Gain comprehensive insights effortlessly”. Equally useful for 21st century digital media, or 15th Century BC letters written on clay tablets.
Related Episodes
The End of the World As They Knew It—Eric Cline on the collapse of Mediterranean civilization
The First Dark Ages?—Eric Cline on whether or not the collapse of ancient civilizations led to “the First Dark Ages”
The Mysteries of Very Ancient Greece—Dimitri Nakassis on the the Mycenaean Age, before it all went pear-shaped
Weavers, Scribes, and Kings—Amanda Podany on 3,000 years of history in the Near-East
Reflection Questions
What made the discovery of the Amarna Letters such a transformative moment for archaeology and for ancient history?
How do these tablets reveal the diplomacy and politics of the Late Bronze Age?
In what ways do the Amarna Letters remind us that the concerns of ancient rulers—alliances, resources, prestige—are still our own?
Tags: Eric H. Cline; Amarna Letters; Bronze Age; Archaeology; Diplomacy; Historically Thinking
