Page:Biblical Libraries (Richardson).djvu/95

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THE EGYPTIAN PERIOD

Naville seems to require, and as many still suppose, or if there were two periods of Exodus, then library conditions under which the Hebrews lived in Egypt, were even more advanced, at the Exodus of 1225 more or less than they were at the earlier date for this period between the first Exodus of 1420 more or less and the second Exodus was a period when the record-keeping system palace libraries, temple libraries, record collections in all business departments, and liberal inscriptional publication, was in very full operation. To this period belongs the famous Tel-el-Amarna archival library (about 1360) with its cuneiform letters from Syrian, Palestinian, Babylonian, Mitannian and Hittite regions to Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV.

With the reign of Rameses II is also associated the most famous library of ancient Egypt, the library of King Osymandyas or Rameses II which bore over its

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