3,257
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[File:Cuneiform.jpeg|thumbnail|Cuneiform Tablet]]
In fact, it was not just trade but also diplomatic correspondences that Akkadian influenced. In the court of Amarna, under the rule of Akhenaten (c. 1353-1336 BC), a large find of cuneiform Akkadian tablets had been found. These tablets demonstrate that Akkadian began to be used by royal courts in Cyprus, Egypt, Elamite Iran, Hittite Anatolia, the Mitanni in Syria and the Levant, the Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia, the Kassites in southern Mesopotamia, and many small semi-independent states in the southern Levant (modern Israel and Jordan).<ref> For more on the Amarna correspondences, see: Moran, William L. 1992. ''The Amarna letters''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.</ref> In addition, we know Akkadian began to be utilized in the Persian Gulf, such as in Bahrain and along the coastal regions, with the Kassites (from Babylon) controlling parts of this region and corresponding with it in Akkadian. <ref>For more information on the Kassite and their presence in the Persian Gulf, see: Potter, Lawrence G. 2010. ''The Persian Gulf in History''. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, page 35.</ref> By the late 2nd millennium BC, we see the language of Akkadian economically uniting a very wide area, while allowing common communication between very disparate people groups and states.
However, one fatal flaw of the Akkadian language was its complexity. Often the tablets at Amarna show mistakes in the utilization of the complex syllabic and logogramic writing system. It is likely very few people at court or withing different societies understood Akkadian or the written language of Akkadian. In addition, the cuneiform wedges are best suited for clay tablets, which required knowledge in how to create such tablets properly. Many tablets at Amarna, for instance, are not made very well. In summary, scribes who had to utilize Akkadian needed long periods of training, effectively making Akkadian limited in its usage given its complexity and time investment. Even within southern Mesopotamia, the homeland of the language, the number of people who would have written the language would have been very limited during the peak of the language.<ref>For ideas on literacy in Mesopotamia, see: Dalley, Stephanie. 2005. ''The Legacy of Mesopotamia''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>
