Amarna letter EA 153

Amarna letter EA 153, titled Ships on Hold, is a short-length clay tablet letter from Abimilku of the city-state of Tyre, an island at the time. The tablet is one of over three hundred Amarna letters.

EA 153 is approximately 7.7 cm tall (3+1⁄16 in) × 5.2 cm wide (2+1⁄16 in). It has a missing flaked, lower right corner on its obverse affecting two lines of text. One line repeats "...King, Lord-mine...", leaving only one line for more difficult restoration.

The letter shows a high-gloss surface on the clay tablet and, being a short letter, only has between five and nine cuneiform characters per line. It contains one special cuneiform sign for ship, MÁ, a sign used in both the Amarna letters and the Epic of Gilgamesh. The letter's scribe used mostly "very-short" stroked, and "fat-and-rounded" cuneiform strokes, instead of the more arrow-shaped, sharp, and linear strokes, . Since the letter also has distinct, medium-sized wedge strokes (for example, be ) as well as L-shaped strokes (from an angled stylus), the scribe may have used two or more styluses.

The clay tablet letter is located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogued as object number 24.2.12.