The Tell el-Amarna letters show that, long before the invasion by Joshua, it was occupied by the Egyptians, and was probably a stronghold of considerable importance, as it formed a good strategical position in the hill country of southern Palestine.
Palestine, often mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna tablets.
The Tell el-Amarna despatches are crowded with evidences of Canaanite forms and idioms impressed on the Babylonian language of these cuneiform documents.
The great influence exercised by Babylonian culture over Palestine between 2000 and 1400 B.C. (circa), which has been clearly revealed to us since 1887 by the discovery of the Tell el Amarna tablets, is now universally acknowledged.
The Tell el-Amarna Letters (15th century B.C.) show Syria held in part by Egyptian viceroys, who are much preoccupied with southward movements in the Buka'a and the rest of the interior beyond their control, due to pressure of Amorite peoples, and of the Mitanni and the Kheta, whose non-Semitic blood was mingled with that of the Aramaeans even in Palestine.
