* The most ancient cuneiform tablets of Syrian origin are not older than the XVIth century before our era; they contain the official, correspondence of the native princes with the Pharaohs Amenôthes III. and IV. of the XVIIIth dynasty, as will be seen later on in this volume; they were discovered in the ruins of one of the palaces at Tel el- Amarna in Egypt.
** Formerly read Akharru. Martu would be the Sumerian and Akharru the Semitic form, Akharru meaning _that which is behind_. The discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets threw doubt on the reading of the name Akharru: some thought that it ought to be kept in any case; others, with more or less certainty, think that it should be replaced by Amuru, Amurru, the country of the Amorites. But the question has now been settled by Babylonian contract and law tablets of the period of Khaminurabi, in which the name is written _A- mu-ur-ri (ki)_. Hommel originated the idea that Martu might be an abbreviation of Amartu, that is, Amar with the feminine termination of nouns in the Canaanitish dialect: Martu would thus actually signify _the country of the Amorites_.
Probably even at that date they called the north Khati,* and Cole-Syria, Amurru, the land of the Amorites. The scattered references in their writings seem to indicate frequent intercourse with these countries, and that, too, as a matter of course which excited no surprise among their contemporaries: a journey from Lagash to the mountains of Tidanum and to Gubin, or to the Lebanon and beyond it to Byblos,** meant to them no voyage of discovery. Armies undoubtedly followed the routes already frequented by caravans and flotillas of trading boats, and the time came when kings desired to rule as sovereigns over nations with whom their subjects had peaceably traded.
* The name of the Khati, Khatti, is found in the _Book of Omens_, which is supposed to contain an extract from the annals of Sargon and Naramsin; as, however, the text which we possess of it is merely a copy of the time of Assurbanipal, it is possible that the word Khati is merely the translation of a more ancient term, perhaps Martu. Winckler thinks it to be included in Lesser Armenia and the Melitônê of classical authors.