On the left: a 2400-year-old letter from Tushratta, king of Mitanni, to Amenhotep III requesting solid-gold statues as bride-price for his daughter. Right: another letter from Tushratta to Queen Tiye, complaining that the received statues were not solid gold, but merely gold-plated wood [3166×2500]
by Fuckoff555
8 Comments
The letter on the left is now housed at the British Museum, while the one on the right is now housed at the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago. Both letters are part of the Amarna letters found in Egypt.
Rich people and leaders, unchanged since biblical times.
If you can actually do math, it is more like an approximately 3,370 year old letter (1350 BC)
“Sir, all Bridal Registry complaints are resolved through Osiris. That office opens between the Twilight of Obelisks and the Asp of Thebes. Good day.”
“Did I stutter??” -King Tushratta
What I find really cool about cuneiform is not just that it is 5000 years old. But that it was used for 3000 years with multiple languages.
The Ancients podcast has a really cool episode on cuneiform:
https://shows.acast.com/the-ancients/episodes/how-to-write-cuneiform
Cuneiform tablets and complaining about getting scammed in a metal deal, name a more iconic duo.
The [text](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni_Letter) on the left is the longest surviving document in Hurrian, and is a primary source for our understanding of the language. Pretty cool.