The Scribal Team of Rib-Hadda of Byblos

Rib-Hadda, ruler of Byblos (on the Lebanese coast), sent 70 letters to the pharaoh and his officials—by far the largest number of letters sent by a single ruler in the Amarna corpus. Juan Vita evaluated the paleography of the letters from Rib-Hadda, and he concluded that Rib-Hadda employed at least ten different scribes.^[1]

Given Byblos’ important location and history as a major port city, with access to inland trade, it is not surprising that the rulers of this city had their own scribal enclave. These scribes were highly skilled and well versed in the protocols on the period, and they wrote complex letters. They appear to have been trained in a similar way to write Akkadian and to format and lay out their letters.

Putting together the paleography and clay analysis of the tablet also clarifies where the tablets were written. Most of Rib-Hadda’s letters were written at Byblos. However, several letters (EA 78, 103, 126) were written from Ṣumur, no doubt, when Rib-Hadda consulted with Egyptian administrators.^[2] This means that some of the scribes working for the royal family traveled with Rib-Hadda and interacted with Egyptian officials and scribes at Ṣumur.

DeMagistis has argued that Levantine elites traveled to the nearest Egyptian base, which would explain why a scribe traveled over 50 km north, to confer with Egyptian officials.^[3] This distance would be more quickly traveled by sea, yet the venture still required effort and administrative coordination.

In addition, Vita’s study confirmed that some of the letters written for Rib-Hadda were not written at Byblos. At least two letters (EA 136 and 137) were written by scribes based at the nearby site of Beirut.^[4] This makes sense, since in one of these letters Rib-Hadda explains that a coup d'état in Byblos cause him to flee for his life:

^{EA 137:14–26} Furthermore, I myself went to ‘Ammunira and my brother, younger than me, alienated the city of Byblos in order to give the city to the sons of ʿAbdi-Ashirta because my brother saw that my amba‹ss›ador came forth empty handed, there being no garrison troops with him, and he reviled me. And thus, treason was committed and he expelled me from the city. May the king, my lord, not keep silence concerning the deeds of this dog!^[5]

Another letter (138), which is written like the other Byblian letters, was made from clay from the area around Beirut.^[6] Nevertheless, it was composed by one of Rib-Hadda’s own scribes (Scribe 4), showing that Rib-Hadda brought the scribe along when he took refuge with ‘Ammunira of Beirut.^[7] EA 136, however, was written by a local Beirut scribe, and shares features with the Beirut Amarna Letters.^[8]

Thus, three different profiles emerge from this small data-set for the scribes working for Rib-Hadda: those who stayed in Byblos; those who traveled on court missions to confer with Egypt at Ṣumur; and Scribe 8, who traveled to both Ṣumer and Beirut. This later scribe who may have been a close confident and court advisor, given that the scribe traveled to Ṣumer and also took refuge with Rib-Hadda during his exile.

The Bird Cage Metaphor

Rib-Hadda’s scribes developed unique letter headings, repeating similar metaphors and formulaic expressions, and even their own way of writing Akkadian. We can sometimes see this style in phrases or expressions used across various letters.

For example, one letter asking the pharaoh for help against the ‘Apiru, composed by Scribe 1, compares Rib-Hadda’s isolation in Byblos to that of a bird, stuck in a trap:^[9]

^{EA 74:42–48} Consequently, they have established an oath among themselves, and, consequently, I am very very fearful, [s]ince there is not a man who can rescue me [fr]om their control. Like birds that are placed inside a bird-snare (Can. gloss: bird-trap), so am I in Byblos. Why have you kept silent concerning your land?^[10]

The scribe writes the Akkadian term ḫu-ḫa-ri “bird snare” and then follows it with the Canaanite word ki-lu-bi (“bird cage), separating these two words with a scribal gloss mark (also known as a Glossenkeil).^[11] The “trapped bird” expression occurs in six more letters from Byblos (EA 78, 79, 81, 90, 105, 116), which were written by least four scribes at the site (=Byblos Scribes 1, 3, 6, and 8), and the Akkadian term is glossed with the Canaanite term in 5 of 7 attestations of this expression.^[12]

Scribe 3, for instance, uses this figurative language to describe how Rib-Hadda is “trapped” inside of Byblos, and follows it with another simile: the city’s agricultural zones are compared to a woman that has no spouse to provide for her or to care for her.

^{EA 81:34-41 (Scribe 3 of Byblos)} [N]ow, like a bird that is plac[ed] ins[ide a bi]rd-snare cage Can. gloss: bird-trap), [s]o are they in Byblos. Their [field] is the same as a husbandless wife [becau]se it is without ploughing. [Their sons, their] daughters, (and) the wood of their houses are used up [in consequence of] paying (them) [in]to the land of Yarimmuta [for] obtaining provisions for (lit. of) their life.

Scribe 6 of Byblos uses this same expression to describe how the city of Ṣumur, which was used by the Egyptians as a regional military base, is being “trapped” and attacked by the sons of ‘Abdi-Aširta:

^{EA 105:6-13 (Scribe 6)} Something else: The king should show concern for Ṣumur. Look, as for Ṣumur, like a bird that is placed <in> a bird-snare (Can. gloss: bird-trap), in this way is Ṣumur. The sons of ʿAbdi-ʾAširte from the land and the men of Arwada from the sea are against [it] day and night.

Why did four scribes at one site use the same metaphor? And if it was a common expression, why was a Canaanite translation necessary?

The similarities in the use and way of writing this expression suggest that reflect the scribes’ trained using lexical lists (i.e., the use of vocabulary lists written in cuneiform as a way to learn language but also orthography).^[13] In Mesopotamia, lexical lists are common and were used as part of scribal training, and many have Sumerian and Akkadian word pairs, and equivalences; in the west, scribes adopted this training technique and even innovated new lexical lists, adding columns in their own languages.^[14]

A small number of lexical lists, coupled with the evidence from the Canaanite Letters, suggest that scribes added Canaanite entries to their local lexical lists. So, it seems likely that the word pair ˹ḫu-˺ḫa-ri: ki-lu-bi in the Byblian letters was a pairing that was part of the local lexical list tradition used to train scribes at Byblos.