It is uncertain whether there is external evidence for the name YAHWEH (Jehovah), the national God of the Israelites. Unambiguous examples outside Palestine appear in North Syria in the eighth century in the form Yau (Yahu), which in one name interchanges with El. Cuneiform evidence for the name in the First Babylonian Dynasty has been adduced, and in the abbreviated Ya it possibly occurs in 'house of Ya,' a Palestinian town taken by Thutmose III. Further, in Akhi-yami (or, yawi), the author of a cuneiform tablet from Taanach, an identification with Akhiyah (the Biblical Ahijah) is not improbable, although other explanations are possible. While {95} other writers salute Ishtar (or Astarte)-Washur, the governor of Taanach, with: May Addu, or may the gods preserve thy life, Ahijah (?) invokes 'the lord of the gods.' In the course of his letter he asks whether there is still lamentation for the lost cities or have they been recovered, and continues: 'there is over my head some one (who is) over the cities; see, now, whether he will do good with thee; further, if he shows anger, they will be confounded, and the victory will be mighty.' It is not clear whether these words refer to the divine Pharaoh or to a deity, the supreme god whom he invokes. If the latter view be correct, it is difficult to decide whether the reference be to the Sun-god, patronised by the ruling powers (whether Egyptian or Hittite), or the great Addu who would be quite in keeping with the allusions to war and victory. Some, however, would recognise a Providence, or, from their interpretation of the writer's name, Yahweh himself. But a single tablet has little evidential value and we can merely mention the possibilities. The preceding paragraphs touch only the fringe of an important subject--the Palestinian pantheon in and after the Amarna age. Egyptian supremacy involved the recognition of Amon-Re, but it is difficult to determine to what extent this deity {96} differed from the Palestinian Shamash. Excavations illustrate the result of intercourse, especially in the southern part of the land, but the numerous characteristic scarabs, and the representations of Osiris, Isis, Ptah, Sebek, Anubis, and the ever-popular Bes (with moulds), need have no significance for the gods of Palestine. They may not always be specifically Egyptian; Bes, for example, appears to be of non-Egyptian ancestry. Further, a number of the names in the Amarna letters are neither Egyptian nor Semitic, but of northern origin, and the name of the king of Jerusalem, 'servant of Khiba,' introduces a goddess of the earlier 'Hittite' peoples whose influence upon Palestine is to be inferred upon other grounds.[4] [4] H. Winckler (_Mittheil._, No. 35), p. 48.