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It is these archives which have now come to light, and which furnish such extraordinary information concerning the state of Egypt and Palestine in the century before the Oppression. In the winter of 1887 the fellahin of Egypt, searching for nitrous earth with which to manure their fields, discovered some three hundred ancient tablets inscribed with Babylonian cuneiform writing. The tablets are copies of letters and despatches from the kings and governors of Babylonia and Assyria, of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Eastern Cappadocia, of Phœnicia and Palestine, exchanging information with the Pharaoh of Egypt, or making reports as to the state of the country they governed. Among the correspondents of the Egyptian sovereigns were Assurynballidh of Assyria and Burnaburyas of Babylonia, which thus fix the date of Khu-en-Aten to about 1430 B.C. This shows incidentally that the Egyptologists have been quite right in not assigning the Exodus to an earlier period than 1320 B.C., that is to say, the reign of Menephtah, the son and successor of Rameses II.