Any good readings on how ancient civilizations used translators & communicated with one another?

by Zoilist_PaperClip
OldPersonName

If your answer is specifically linguistics then I don't, however if it's about diplomacy, including the use of translators, scribes, etc in general, I think a good recommendation is Brotherhood of Kings by Amanda Podany:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003WT26HQ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

(I linked to the kindle version because even if you don't have a kindle you can click for the "Look Inside" option and I think the intro will give you an idea)

I haven't actually read this book, but I've read her recent Weavers, Scribes, and Kings which covers a variety of people (sometimes literally a specific person, sometimes a class or group of people, depending on the available evidence) and she refers back to this one a lot, and I plan to read it. That's a good book too and includes a chapter on translators which refers back to this book a lot.

I can't quite tell from the table of contents but I'm assuming a significant portion of this book deals with what's called the Amarna period in the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC. There were a few centuries of (relative) peace between the big states of Egypt, hatti (i.e. the hittite empire), Mitanni, Assyria, and Babylonia and a whole lot of formal diplomatic relations. A lot of letters have survived (especially from Amarna in Egypt, hence the name) so a fair amount of evidence is available about how they conducted diplomacy.