Page:Biblical Libraries (Richardson).djvu/122

This page has been validated.

BIBLICAL LIBRARIES

(the Hittite version). It may be added that while the Hebrew version is not original but transmitted the place and manner of keeping the originals is indicated: they were kept in the Ark and were located wherever the Ark was. It is worth remembering too that archives of the same date though not connected have been found in Cretan excavations.

The archives of King Akhnaton (c. 1360 B.C.) at Amarna contained the royal foreign correspondence on clay tablets. The inscription "Place of the records of the palace of the King" has been found and some hundreds of tablets have been recovered. These according to some (Maspero) had been stored in clay jars and according to others (Weber) were in wooden boxes with alabaster labels bearing the kings' names. The bulk of the collection was lost after rediscovery by an unfortunate series of events. These tablets are mostly in Babylonian lan-

[92]