feb 1, 1393 BC - International relations

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Diplomatic correspondence from Amenhotep's reign are preserved in the Amarna Letters, a collection of documents found near the city of Amarna.

The letters come from the rulers of Assyria, Mitanni, Babylon, Hatti, and other states, typically including requests by those rulers for gold and other gifts from Amenhotep.

The letters cover the period from Year 30 of Amenhotep until at least the end of Akhenaten's reign.

In Amarna Letter EA 4, Amenhotep is quoted by the Babylonian king Kadashman-Enlil, firmly rejecting his entreaty to marry one of this pharaoh's daughters, "From time immemorial, no daughter of the king of Egy[pt] is given to anyone...."

Amenhotep's refusal to allow one of his daughters to be married to the Babylonian monarch may connected with Egyptian traditional royal practices that could provide a claim upon the throne through marriage to a royal princess, or it could be viewed as a shrewd attempt on his part to enhance Egypt's prestige over those of her neighbors in the international world.

Despite the refusal for his daughters to be married off to other kings, Amenhotep married several foreign princesses.

The Amarna Letters also reference the exchange between Amenhotep and the Mitanni King Tushratta of the statue of a healing goddess, Ishtar of Nineveh, late in Amenhotep's reign. Scholars have generally assumed that the statue's sojourn to Egypt was requested by Amenhotep in order to cure him of his various ailments, which included painful abscesses in his teeth.

The arrival of the statue is known to have coincided with Amenhotep's marriage with Tadukhepa, Tushratta's daughter, in the pharaoh's 36th year; letter EA 23's arrival in Egypt is dated to "regnal year 36, the fourth month of winter, day 1" of his reign.
Furthermore, Tushratta never mentions in EA 23 that the statue's dispatch was meant to heal Amenhotep of his maladies. Instead, Tushratta writes in part: ". . . Thus Šauška of Nineveh, mistress of all lands: "I wish to go to Egypt, a country that I love, and then return." Now I herewith send her, and she is on her way. Now, in the time, too, of my father,...[she] went to this country, and just as earlier she dwelt there and they honored her, may my brother now honor her 10 times more than before. May my brother honor her, [then] at [his] pleasure let her go so that she may come back. May Šauška (i.e., Ishtar), the mistress of heaven, protect us, my brother and me, a 100,000 years, and may our mistress grant both of us great joy. And let us act as friends. Is Šauška for me alone my god[dess], and for my brother not his god[dess]?..."

The likeliest explanation is that the statue was sent to Egypt "to shed her blessings on the wedding of Amenhotep and Tadukhepa, as she had been sent previously for Amenhotep and Gilukhepa. Moran explained the visit of the statue might be to heal the king, but that it is more likely that it was sent in connection with the solemnities of the marriage of Tadukhepa to Amenhotep. Further, Moran argues that the contents of Amarna Letter EA 21 support this claim, wherein Tushratta asks the gods, including Ishtar, for their blessing of the marriage.

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