CHAPTER V
Palestine at the Conquest
The evidence from Egyptian, Babylonian, Mitannian, Amorite, and Hittite documents, shows the existence of official chanceries and by implication of archives throughout the whole region of Syria and Palestine at the time when the "Hebrew" invasion of about 1400 B.C. began (Winckler, Tel-el-Amarna Tablets). Whether the Exodus was at this time or a century or two later is not very material at this point, for these conditions doubtless lasted until the Hebrew conquest whenever it was. The Tel-el-Amarna letters and the tablets from the Hittite archives at Boghaz Keuei (Winckler D O G Mitt 1907, No. 35) include actual letters from the princes, elders, and gov-
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