assuming that they too were not victims of oversight and simply not sent, then we must consider EA 1, 5, 14, and 31 exceptional, being drafts or copies of the translations and filed accordingly in the foreign language section. The Amarna letters are manifestations of the “cuneiform culture” that was shared in the fourteenth century B.C. throughout the ancient Near East. As it appears in these letters it is largely a provincial and, in many respects, a very heterogeneous culture,