This is John Batchelor, a conversation with my colleague Eric Klein, an archaeologist, teaches at George Washington University.

The man has led me to the 12th century and before, 12th century BC and before, the seven civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean,

that were globalized for trade and balanced out for war fighting, that before

that period, the peak bronze age was a time when Egypt in the south, along the Nile,

and the Hittites in the north in central Anatolia, where Turkey is today, were the two

superpowers and client kings, vassal kings

in between, including the city of Jerusalem, the city of Tyre, the city of Sidon, many are still

there, some or not. Gaza was once upon a time in this peak bronze age, and what was discovered in

late 19th century, 1887, were tablets, several hundred tablets

that were the correspondence between Vassal Kings and the Pharaoh.

A glimpse like a time machine into 12th and 13th and 14th century BCE, and the wars along the Levant.

What's fresh here, as Eric introduces us to, the new translations.

They're interpreting Acadian and written in Cuneiform, the scratching on clay tablets.

Much new information coming about the relationship of superpowers, of trade, of daily life, of romance, of how kingdoms dealt with each other.

This is 18th Dynasty, the new kingdom, before Troy, before everything that we consider history, but this is a glimpse. Here's Eric.

Much more tonight and next week. Yes, absolutely. I would say you can split this into two

major periods. There's 1887 when they're discovered right up through about 1915 when they were all published, all translated, and they were out there.

And then there's a hiatus, really, in terms of translation and serious scholarship, until 1960s, 1970s, and then 1980s, we begin getting a slew of more recent translations.

Moran came out with his, Rainey came out with his, and now Jake Lowinger and Tyler Yoder

are coming out with theirs. We now are in a newissance period, if you will,

of studying the Amarna archives. There's a

lot of people out there

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