Editing Amarna (section)

===18th and 19th&nbsp;century excavations===
The first western mention of the city was made in 1714 by [[Claude Sicard]], a French [[Jesuit]] priest who was travelling through the Nile Valley, and described the boundary stela from Amarna. As with much of Egypt, it was visited by [[Napoleon]]'s ''corps de savants'' in 1798–1799, who prepared the first detailed map of Amarna, which was subsequently published in ''[[Description de l'Égypte]]'' between 1821 and 1830.<ref name="amarnamapping">{{cite web |url=http://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/recent_projects/survey/index.shtml |title=Mapping Amarna |access-date=2008-10-01 |df=dmy-all |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081008012317/http://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/recent_projects/survey/index.shtml |archive-date=8 October 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref>

After this European exploration continued in 1824 when Sir [[John Gardiner Wilkinson]] explored and mapped the city remains. The copyist [[Robert Hay (Egyptologist)|Robert Hay]] and his surveyor G.&nbsp;Laver visited the locality and uncovered several of the Southern Tombs from sand drifts, recording the reliefs in 1833. The copies made by Hay and Laver languish largely unpublished in the [[British Library]], where an ongoing project to identify their locations is underway.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.astene.org.uk/associated_events_societies/hay.htm |title=The Robert Hay Drawings in the British Library |access-date=2008-10-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060627025558/http://www.astene.org.uk/associated_events_societies/hay.htm |archive-date=2006-06-27}}</ref>

The [[Prussia]]n expedition led by [[Richard Lepsius]] visited the site in 1843 and 1845, and recorded the visible monuments and topography of Amarna in two separate visits over a total of twelve days, using drawings and paper squeezes. The results were ultimately published in ''Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien'' between 1849 and 1913, including an improved map of the city.<ref name="amarnamapping"/> Despite being somewhat limited in accuracy, the engraved ''Denkmäler'' plates formed the basis for scholastic knowledge and interpretation of many of the scenes and inscriptions in the private tombs and some of the Boundary Stelae for the rest of the century. The records made by these early explorers teams are of immense importance since many of these remains were later destroyed or otherwise lost.
[[File:Amarna Akkadian letter.png|thumb|upright=0.7|One of the [[Amarna letters]]]]
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