Ayyab was a ruler of Aštartu (present day Tell Ashtara) south of Damascus. According to the Amarna letters, cities/

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 since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

s and their kings in the region — just like countries to the north, such as

Hatti Hatti may refer to *Hatti (; Assyrian ) in Bronze Age Anatolia: **the area of Hattusa, roughly delimited by the Halys bend **the Hattians of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC **the Hittites of ''ca'' 1400–1200 BC **the areas to the west of the Euphrat ...

of the Hittites, fell prey to a wave of attacks by

Habiru Habiru (sometimes written as Hapiru, and more accurately as ʿApiru, meaning "dusty, dirty"; Sumerian: 𒊓𒄤, ''sagaz''; Akkadian: 𒄩𒁉𒊒, ''ḫabiru'' or ''ʿaperu'') is a term used in 2nd-millennium BCE texts throughout the Fertile Cr ...

raiders. The Amarna correspondence

corpus Corpus 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 linguistics Music * ...

covers a period from

1350 Year 1350 ( MCCCL) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * January 9 – Giovanni II Valente becomes Doge of Genoa. * May 23 (possible date) ...

–

1335 BC Year 1335 ( MCCCXXXV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * May 2 – Otto the Merry, Duke of Austria, becomes Duke of Carinthia. * July ...

. Another ruler of Aštartu cited in the Amarna letters is

Biridašwa Biridašwa (Sanskrit: "Prītāśva," "whose horse is dear" (Mayrhofer II 182)) was a mayor of ''Aštartu'', ( Tell-Ashtara), south of Damascus, (named Dimasqu/Dimašqu), during the time of the Amarna letters correspondence, about 1350–1335 BC ...

. The letters do not clearly indicate their title, leading some scholars to describe them as kings of Damascus (Dimašqu) while others believe they were high Egyptian officials, possibly mayors.Wayne Thomas Pitard
''Ancient Damascus: A Historical Study of the Syrian City-State from Earliest Times Until Its Fall to the Assyrians in 732 B.C.E.''
Eisenbrauns, 1987. p. 67.

Ayyab's letter EA 364

Ayyab is the author of only one letter to the Egyptian

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until th ...

, letter EA 364-( EA for 'el

Amarna Amarna (; ar, العمارنة, al-ʿamārnah) is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Ph ...

').

Title: ''Justified war''

:To the king, my lord: Message of ''Ayyab'', your servant. I fall at the feet of my lord 7 times and 7 times. I am the servant of the king, my lord, the dirt at his feet. I have heard what the king, my lord, wrote to me through Atahmaya. Truly, I have guarded ''very carefully'', (i.e. ''Ma- GAL, Ma- GAL''), he ''citie'' of the king, my lord. Moreover, note that it is the ruler of Hasura who has taken 3 cities from me. From the time I heard and verified this, there has been waging of war against him. Truly, may the king, my lord, take cognizance, and may the king, my lord, give thought to his servant. —EA 364, lines 1-28 (complete) Ayyab's name is referred to in only one letter of the Amarna letters

, one of two letters by

Labaya Labaya (also transliterated as Labayu or Lib'ayu) was a 14th-century BCE ruler or warlord in the central hill country of southern Canaan. He lived contemporaneously with Pharaoh Akhenaten. Labaya is mentioned in several of the Amarna Letters (abb ...

's son:

Mutbaal Mutbaal ( Akk. "man of Baal") was a Canaanite king of the Amarna Period. He is identified in the Amarna letters as a son of Labaya, the ruler of the hill country north of Jerusalem, including the territory in the vicinity of the city of Shachmu ( ...

of the city, ''Pihilu'', modern

Pella, Jordan Pella ( gr, Πέλλα, ) was an ancient city in what is now northwest Jordan, containing ruins from the Neolithic, Chalcolithic,Bronze Age, Iron Age, Canaanite, Hellenistic and Islamic periods. It is located in a rich water source within the ea ...

. The letter is EA 256, title: ''"Oaths and denials"'', (the oaths and denials by Mutbaal). See: "Tenuous identifications with Biblical figures": Labaya-(Mutbaal letter 256).

References

Moran, William L. William Lambert Moran (August 11, 1921 – December 19, 2000) was an American Assyriologist. He was born in Chicago, United States. In 1939, Moran joined the Jesuit order. He then attended Loyola University in Chicago, where he received his ...

''The Amarna Letters.'' Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 1992. (softcover, ) Canaanite people Amarna letters writers 14th-century BC rulers 14th-century BC people {{AncientEgypt-stub

Ayyab's letter EA 364

Title: ''Justified war''

See also

References