A Letter from Tushratta to Tiye

EA 26

To Tiye[1], Lady of Egypt. Thus speaks Tushratta, King of Mitanni

Everything is well with me. May everything be well with you. May everything go well for your house, your son[2], may everything be perfectly well for your soldiers and for everything belonging to you.

You are the one who knows that I have always felt friendship for Mimmuriya[3], your husband, and that Mimmuriya, your husband, on his part always felt friendship for me. And the things that I wrote and told Mimmuriya, your husband, and the things that Mimmuriya, your husband, on his part wrote and told me incessantly, were known to you, Keliya and Mane. But it is you who knows better than anybody, the things we have told each other. No one knows them better [...]

You should continue sending joyful embassies, one after another. Do not suppress them.

I shall not forget the friendship with Mimmuriya, your husband. At this moment and more than ever, I have ten times more friendship for your son, Napkhuria[4].

You are the one who knows the words of Mimmuriya, your husband, but you have not sent me yet the gift of homage which Mimmuriya, your husband, has ordered to be sent to me. I have asked Mimmuriya, your husband, for massive gold statues [...] But your son has gold-plated statues of wood.As the gold is like dust in the country of your son, why have they been the reason for such pain, that your son should not have given them to me? [...] Neither has he given me what his father had been accustomed to give.

[1] Tiye: Wife of Amenhotep III
[2] Tiye's son: Akhenaten
[3] Mimmuriya (Nimmuaria, Nibmuaria): Amenhotep III Neb-maat-re
[4] Napkhuria: Akhenaten Nefer-khepru-re

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