Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed

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Eric H. Cline

Love, War, and Diplomacy

The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed

Eric H. Cline

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English

Princeton University Press
11 November 2025

Ancient history: to c 500 CE; Prehistoric archaeology; Egyptian archaeology & Egyptology

From the acclaimed author of 1177 B.C., a spellbinding account of the archaeological find that opened a window onto the vibrant diplomatic world of the ancient Near East

In 1887, an Egyptian woman made an astonishing discovery among the ruins of the heretic king Akhenaten's capital city, a site now known as Amarna. She found a cache of cuneiform tablets, nearly four hundred in all, that included correspondence between the pharaohs and the mightiest powers of the day, such as the Hittites, Babylonians, and Assyrians. Love, War, and Diplomacy tells the story of the Amarna Letters and the dramatic world of the Bronze Age they revealed.

Blending scholarly expertise with painstaking detective work, Eric Cline describes the spectacular discovery, the fierce competition among dealers and museums to acquire the tablets, and the race by British and German scholars to translate them. Dating to the middle of the fourteenth century BCE and the time of Tutankhamun's immediate predecessors, Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaten, the Amarna Letters are the only royal archive from New Kingdom Egypt known to exist. In them, we learn of royal marriages, diplomatic negotiations, gift-giving, intrigue, and declarations of brotherly love between powerful rulers as well as demands made by the petty kings in Canaan who owed allegiance to Egypt's pharaohs.

A monumental achievement, Love, War, and Diplomacy transports readers to the glorious age of the Amarna Letters and the colonial era that brought them to light and reveals how the politics, posturing, and international intrigues of the ancient Near East are not so unlike today's.

By: Eric H. Cline
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780691274089
ISBN 10: 0691274088
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 11 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Eric H. Cline is professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University. His many books include 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed; After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations; Digging Deeper: How Archaeology Works; and (with Glynnis Fawkes) 1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed (all Princeton).

Reviews for Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed

""Lucid and authoritative. . . . Impressive scholarship illuminates the Bronze Age."" * Kirkus Reviews * ""Illuminating. . . . Cline persuasively argues that the Late Bronze Age—with its precarious interdependence—closely resembled the modern ‘globalized’ world. The result is both a remarkable glimpse into deep history and a savvy examination of an academic discipline’s evolution."" * Publishers Weekly *