Achshaph (; in LXX ) was a royal city of the

Canaanites {{Cat main, Canaan See also: * :Ancient Israel and Judah Ancient Levant Hebrew Bible nations Ancient Lebanon 0050 Ancient Syria Wikipedia categories named after regions 0050 0050 Phoenicia Amarna Age civilizations ...

, in the north of

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

(Josh. 11:1; 12:20; 19:25). The name means "sorcery".

Location

Achshaph was in the eastern boundary of the tribe of Asher. There are several opinions as to its exact location, including Tell Keisan, Tell Regev, Tell Harbaj and Tell an-Nakhl. In the Greek

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, in various manuscripts, depending on the passage, its name is given in the forms ''Azeiph,'' ''Achsaph,'' ''Achas,'' ''Keaph,'' ''Achiph,'' ''Acheib,'' and ''Chasaph.''

History

The 1350 BC Amarna letters has

Endaruta Endaruta was the ruler of Achshaph-(''Akšapa'' of the letters), in the 1350- 1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence. Endaruta was the author of EA 223 ( EA for 'el Amarna') of the letters. He is only referenced in two other letters EA 366 and ...

as the 'mayor' of Akšapa (Achshaph).Biblical Achshaph is Akshapa according to Endaruta is mayor of Akshapa according to In this time period, the Habiru are attacking

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...

s, and

Abdi-Heba Abdi-Ḫeba (Abdi-Kheba, Abdi-Ḫepat, or Abdi-Ḫebat) was a local chieftain of History of Jerusalem, Jerusalem during the Amarna period (mid-1330s BC). Ancient Egypt, Egyptian documents have him deny he was a mayor (''ḫazānu'') and assert he ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, Surata of Acco,

Šuwardata Šuwardata (''Shuwardata''), also Šuardatu, is understood by most scholars to be the king of the Canaanite city of Gath (Tell es-Safi), although some have suggested that he was the 'mayor' of ''Qiltu'' ( Keilah?, or Qi'iltu), during the 1350- 13 ...

of Qiltu (?), and Endaruta are aiding each other. Only one extremely short letter–EA 223 ( EA-el Amarna) is written from Endaruta of Akšapa, and it is a one sentence topic: formulaic introduction">Prostration formula">formulaic introduction... '' "Whatever the king (i.e.

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

), my

lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage o ...

, orders, I shall prepare." '' But one perfectly preserved letter from Pharaoh, to Endaruta of Akšapa is known, EA 367. Its topic is ''to guard'' (and defend) Akšapa and to prepare for "troop arrivals"-(the archer-forces). The third and only other reference in the Amarna letters

corpus Corpus (plural ''corpora'') is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of ...

is from letter EA 366 (from Šuwardata of Qiltu (?)), and the letter states: :'' "...only '

and I have been at war with that 'Apiru. Surata, the ruler of

Akka Akka or AKKA may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Akka (film), ''Akka'' (film), a 1976 Indian Tamil film * Akka (TV series), ''Akka'' (TV series), a 2014–2015 Indian Tamil soap opera * Akka, a character in the children's novel ''The Wonderful ...

, and Endaruta, the ruler of Akšapa, these two also came to my aid, ..." ''

References

* Moran, William L. ''The Amarna Letters.'' Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 1992. (softcover, )

External links

* {{Eastons, Achshaph Canaanite cities Former populated places in West Asia Amarna letters locations