The Tell El-Amarna letters and the traffic of women in Canaan

Abstract

The 382 letters found at Tell El-Amarna reveal not only information about the Egypt's administrative political during the Late Bronze Age, but also information about the international transactions involving human lives. The purpose of this essay is to show, through the lines of El-Amarna's letters, how the traffic of women from Canaan to Egypt during this period worked. We have two situations: one is the traffic of women between Egypt and the great kingdoms, such as Assyria, Babylon and Mittani, and the other is the traffic of women from the city-states of Canaan to Egypt. In the first case, the traffic was through alliances between the kings that involved the marriage with the daughters of the royalty, which were sent to the harem of this or that king. In the second case, we have two situations again. The first is the sending of women, mostly teenagers, from city-states to Egypt. That is, the sending of women to Egypt for various purposes was one of the duties of the Canaanite vassal kings. The second situation is the purchase of women as skilled labor. In this case, women were trained and prepared for service in court and then sold.