Abdi-Heba
Abdi- Hepa ( Abdi- Heba also or Abdi- Hepat ) ( servant of [ the goddess ] Hepa ) was a town in Prince Urusalim ( later renamed Jerusalem), who reigned about 1350 BC and is known from the Amarna letters. The name of Abdi- Hepa refers to connections to the Hurrians.
The small principality of Abdi- Hepa
Urusalim was in the Amarna period as the residence seat Abdi- Hepas and was the size of a small village. Archaeological studies show only a few tombs and pottery shards. Urusalim had probably over the surrounding villages only a modest palace, a small temple and a few houses of the upper class, which were mainly inhabited by the family of the princes of the city.
His government area extended in a north-south extent of Bethel to the Valley of Beersheba and east of the Judean desert to the western Shephelah. This ruled Abdi- Hepa over an area that corresponded approximately to the heartland of the later Judah. Mainly there was a region of small villages that were regularly plundered by the Shasu and Hapiru. In the sparsely populated mountain area in close proximity to Urusalim the pastoral nomads of Shasu and Hapiru were mainly resident.
The Amarna letters
In the Amarna letters is the correspondence of the Egyptian court ( Akhenaten or Amenhotep III. ) With vassals and Near Eastern royal courts, which was found in Amarna. There are six letters of Abdi- Hepa to the Egyptian king, who had Abdi- Hepa to his office. Previously, there was already Abdi- Hepas father on the small Principality: " Behold, neither my father nor my mother has used me in this place, the mighty arm of the king who introduced me to the ruling house of my father ." Whether Abdi- Hepas father was deposed by the Egyptian king as a city prince, can not be inferred from the Amarna letters.
In the letter, EA 290, the ruler asks for military help from Egypt, as Urusalim supposedly from other cities ( Gezer, Ashkelon, Gaza and Lachish ) was threatened. Furthermore feared Abdi- Hepa for his life, as deserting soldiers and mercenaries were trying to kill him. The reaction of the Egyptian king is unknown.
From the letters EA 279 and EA 280 Suwardatta his opponent reveals that he struggled with this around the city Celt ( Khirbet Qila ).