#tadukhipa

There he stood - the first man in this strange country who ever showed kindness to her. Tadukhipa still remembered the boy he was almost ten years ago. She still remembered the girl she was then. When looking at her own refection on the water, she now saw a woman grown and when looking at him she saw the man she never saw before...

Letter from Tushratta to Amenhotep III

Mitannian, about 1370-1350 BC From Tell el-Amarna, Egypt

Diplomatic links between Mesopotamia and Egypt

This clay tablet is part of a collection of 382 cuneiform documents discovered in 1887 in Egypt, at the site of Tell el-Amarna. They are mainly letters spanning a fifteen- to thirty-year period. The first dates to around year 30 of the reign of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC), and the last to no later than the first year of the reign of Tutankhamun (1336-1327 BC). The majority date to the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) (1352-1336 BC), the heretic pharaoh who founded a new capital at Tell el-Amarna.

This letter is written in Akkadian, the diplomatic language of Mesopotamia at the time. It is addressed to Amenhotep III from Tushratta, king of Mitanni (centred in modern Syria). Tushratta calls the pharaoh his 'brother', with the suggestion that they are of equal rank. The letter starts with greetings to various members of the royal house including Tushratta's daughter Tadu-Khipa, who had become one of Amenhotep's many brides. Diplomatic marriages were the standard way in which countries formed alliances with Egypt.

Tushratta goes on to inform Amenhotep that, with the consent of the goddess Ishtar, he has sent a statue of her to Egypt. He hopes that the goddess will be held in great honour in Egypt and that the statue may be sent back safely to Mitanni.

Gender: Female

Pronunciation: ta-dhu-HE-pa

Origin: Hurrian

Meaning: Meaning unknown