by
Damien
F. Mackey
Part One:
Loosening his ‘ties’ to the mid-C9th BC
The supposedly mid-C9th BC
Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III, lies at the heart of one of the revision’s most
awkward conundrums, now known as “The Assuruballit Problem” [TAP].
Introduction
According
to the Velikovskian revision of the El Amarna [EA] period, which I accept in
general, though by no means in all of its details, the vast correspondence of
the EA archives belongs to the mid-C9th BC period of the Divided Kingdom of
Israel and Judah.
Whilst
Dr. I. Velikovsky managed to lay down a set of biblico-historical anchors that
have stood the test of time, e.g., the sturdy synchronism of EA’s Amurrite
kings with C9th BC Syrian ones, he also left unresolved some extremely complex
problems.
At
the beginning of Chapter 3 of my thesis (Volume One, p. 52):
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
I
named what I then considered to be:
… the three most
problematical aspects of the [Velikovskian] matrix: namely,
(i) ‘The Assuruballit Problem’ [henceforth
TAP];
(ii) where to locate Ramses II in the new
scheme; and
(iii) the resolution of the complex [Third
Intermediate Period] TIP.
And
I think that I can fairly safely say that these are still amongst the three
most vexing problems. Here, though, I am concerned only with (i) TAP, towards
the resolution of which difficulty I dedicated an Excursus: ‘The Assuruballit Problem’
[TAP], beginning on p. 230 (Chapter Ten) of my thesis. Whilst I did not
shy away from discussing in detail any of the above (i) - (iii) in my thesis, I
do not claim to have provided perfect solutions to any of them. However, I am hopeful
that my revision has laid down some sort of basis for a full resolution of
these problems in the future.
On
p. 230 of my university thesis, I re-stated TAP that had already been well
addressed by other revisionists, such as P. James (“Some Notes on the
"Assuruballit Problem",” 1979): http://saturniancosmology.org/files/.cdrom/journals/review/v0401/18notes.htm). I explained:
TAP is this:
If EA is to be lowered to the mid-C9th BC, as Velikovsky
had argued, why then is EA’s ‘king of Assyria’ called ‘Assuruballit’ (EA 15
& 16), and not ‘Shalmaneser’, since Shalmaneser III – by current reckoning
– completely straddles the middle part of this century (c. 858-824 BC)?
Velikovsky’s
part solution to the problem was to identify Shalmaneser III, as ruler of
Babylon, with EA correspondent and Kassite ruler of Babylonian Karduniash,
Burnaburiash (so-called II).
Until
now, I have considered that suggestion of Velikovsky’s to be quite plausible.
I
no longer do.
There
is no doubt that the Kassites, albeit most powerful kings, are so sorely
lacking an archaeological culture within conventional history as to demand alter
egos.
And,
regarding EA’s Assuruballit, James (op. cit.) tells of:
…. Velikovsky's
Unpublished Solution.
Although he has yet to publish in full his own answer to
the problem, Velikovsky does consider, like Courville, that the differences in
the paternities of the el-Amarna Assuruballit and Assuruballit I cast doubt on
their assumed identity and relieve the problem - there must have been another
Assuruballit in the mid-9th century who wrote to Akhnaton. Velikovsky stressed
this point in a letter to Professor SAMUEL MERCER, author of an English edition
of the el-Amarna letters, as long ago as 1947. He has also considered the
possibility that Assuruballit was not a king of Assyria, but a Syrian ruler,
perhaps an Assyrian governor of Carchemish, albeit one not mentioned in the
contemporary records [14]. Such a solution would have to explain the usual
reading "King of Assyria" in EA 15 and 16 [15], and how, "within
the ethics of that day", an Assyrian governor could write to the king of
Egypt on equal terms and describe himself as a "great king".
[End of quote]
My
own argument went along lines somewhat similar, with Shalmaneser III (=
Burnaburiash) as ruler of Assyria and Babylonia, and Assuruballit as the Syrian
Aziru (= biblical Hazael), who would come to dominate Assyria and Egypt
- both of whom, Shalmaneser III and Assuruballit, being amongst those despised
“sons of Abdi-ashirta, the dog”, the bane of EA correspondent Rib-Addi of Gubla. That was my
provisional suggestion, whilst still being open to a more satisfactory location
of Shalmaneser III within EA.
And
that brings me to the purpose of this new series.
I
now suspect that Shalmaneser III does not fit at all within an EA scenario -
that he has must be removed right out of the mid-C9th BC. Basically,
Shalmaneser III is the problem of
TAP.
If Shalmaneser III is to be
removed from the mid-C9th BC biblico-historical scene, then it will be
necessary to show that the ‘pins’ ostensibly fastening him to that era are
insecure.
Although
I - by no means averse to the use of alter
egos - had previously searched about for a possible identification of
Shalmaneser III with some other potent Assyrian king, I was probably unable
ultimately to detach him from his apparent mid-C9th BC links.
For
one, Shalmaneser III is considered to have campaigned against Ben-Hadad of
Damascus, and, afterwards, against Hazael. And this Syrian sequence appears to
represent the biblical succession of kings of these very names - properly
identified by Dr. I. Velikovsky, I believe, in EA’s Amurrite succession of Abdi-ashirta and Aziru.
Ben-hadad
and Shalmaneser.
The
relations between Ben-hadad and the Assyrian king Shalmaneser II[I] are very
clear. The Syrian forces were utterly defeated at Karkar on the Orontes in 853
B.C., in spite of the enormous armament which the Damascene had brought to his
aid. The inscriptions of Shalmaneser in one passage give the number of the
slain as 20,500. With 120,000 men in 845 B.C. Shalmaneser again entered Syria
and overthrew Ben-hadad and a large army of allies.
According
to II Kings viii. 7-15, Ben-hadad fell ill and sent Hazael to the prophet
Elisha—who was then in Damascus—in order to inquire whether he would recover.
Elisha prophesied that Hazael would be king in Ben-hadad's stead and would do
much evil to Israel. On Hazael's return to his master he smothered Ben-hadad
with a wet cloth and declared himself king (see
Hazael). When, in 841, the Assyrian king once more encountered the
forces of Damascus, his chief foe was Hazael, who, it is known, was Ben-hadad's
successor, so that the latter must have died between 845 and 841 B.C.
[End of quote]
Data
such as this seemed to me to lock Shalmaneser III firmly into place in the
mid-C9th BC.
Furthermore,
one of Ben-Hadad’s allies at Karkar (Qarqar), A-ha-ab-bu Sir-’i-la-a-a, has commonly been identified with king Ahab of Israel, who was a
contemporary of Ben-hadad I.
And,
finally, there was the famous Black Obelisk inscription of Shalmaneser III,
supposedly recording the submission to the king of Assyria of Jehu king of
Israel. We read this excited account of apparent biblical import at: http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2010/07/top-ten-biblical-discoveries-in-archaeology-%E2%80%93-9-jehus-tribute-to-shalmaneser-iii/
The obelisk contains five different scenes on five
different rows. Each row depicts the tribute of a foreign king. A tribute
would usually entail a foreign king coming before Shalmaneser and bowing down
before him showing Shalmaneser to be the ultimate king of his land.
Guess what? The second row of pictures on the
Obelisk depicts the tribute of one particular king whom we know. When the
ancient Assyrian Cuneiform inscription was translated the biblical world was
shocked. The inscription reads, “The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri: I received
from him silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden
tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king [and] spears.”
Significance
This is the ONLY, to my knowledge, contemporary
artistic depiction of anyone mentioned in the Bible. What do I mean by
contemporary? This is the only artistic depiction of someone in the Bible done
by a person who actually lived during the same time. The Obelisk you see before
you was created while Jehu was still the king sitting on his throne in Israel.
The people knew what Jehu looked like. History outside of the Bible tells us
Jehu and Shalmaneser were kings at the same time.
[End of quote]
In
Search of an Alternative
Surely
then, based on the above, Shalmaneser III must firmly belong to the mid-C9th BC
era of Ben-hadad I and Hazael of Syria, and Ahab and Jehu of Israel!
But,
then again, must he?
Since
these biblico-historical synchronisms with Shalmaneser III are occasionally
challenged - and especially given the immense problem that a mid-C9th BC
Shalmaneser III presents to the revision - it may well be worthwhile exploring
some alternative possibilities.
Shalmaneser III does not actually
name his Damascene foe at Qarqar as Ben-Hadad.
And the widely held view that the
A-ha-ab-bu Sir-’i-la-a-a of the Kurkh Monolith inscription is king Ahab of Israel himself is in
fact quite a controversial one.
Ben-Hadad of Damascus
H. Rossier writes in 2 Kings: Meditations on the Second Book of Kings, regarding the name, Ben-Hadad, “… we must not forget that Ben-Hadad is a generic name for the kings of Syria …”, and he there reminds the reader that a king of this name had preceded Hazael, whilst another of the same name, Ben-Hadad, had succeeded Hazael.
So, mention of the name alone as a participant in the battle
of Qarqar does not guarantee that Shalmaneser III was fighting against
Ben-Hadad I, the contemporary of king Ahab of Israel. But, beyond all that, the
name of the Damascene ruler given in the Kurkh Monolith account of the battle
is Adad-idri, or, preferably, the Assyrian version (ilu) IM-idri.
Some render this as “Hadadezer”.
And, though this Assyrian name is generally just assumed to be
a proper match with the name Ben-Hadad (variously given as I or II) – it being
common to read, e.g., as at Jewish Virtual Library https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10762.html
“… 20,000 [foot-]soldiers of Adad-idri [Hadadezer = "Ben-Hadad II"]”, a detailed analysis by D.
Luckenbill (https://www.jstor.org/stable/528766?seq=11#page_scan_tab_contents)
firmly concludes that: “…. Benhadad of I Kings, chap. 20 is not the same person
as the Adad-’idri of Shalmaneser’s inscriptions. The fact that the names cannot
be equated was shown by the first part of this paper”. Luckenbill, for his part,
thinks that this Adad-’idri must have been a Syrian king ruling for a time
between Ben-Hadad and Hazael.
Ahab of Israel
We read about the lengthy and contentious history of this
proposed identification at:
"Ahab of Israel" ….
The identification of "A-ha-ab-bu
Sir-ila-a-a" with "Ahab of Israel" was first proposed[19] by Julius Oppert in his 1865 Histoire des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie.[20]
Eberhard Schrader dealt with parts of the inscription on the
Shalmaneser III Monolith in 1872, in his Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament ("Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament").[21] The first full translation of the
Shalmaneser III Monolith was provided by James Alexander Craig in 1887.[22]
Schrader wrote that the name
"Israel" ("Sir-ila-a-a") was found only on this artifact in
cuneiform inscriptions at that time, a fact which remains the case today. This
fact has been brought up by some scholars who dispute the proposed translation.[4][23]
Schrader also noted that whilst
Assyriologists such as Fritz Hommel[24] had disputed whether the name was
"Israel" or "Jezreel",[21][25] because the first character is the
phonetic "sir" and the place-determinative "mat". Schrader
described the rationale for the reading "Israel", which became the
scholarly consensus, as:
"the fact that here Ahab Sir'lit, and
Ben-hadad of Damascus appear next to each other, and that in an
inscription of this same king [Shalmaneser]'s Nimrud
obelisk appears Jehu, son
of Omri, and commemorates the descendant Hazael of Damascus, leaves no doubt that this Ahab Sir'lit is the
biblical Ahab of Israel. That Ahab appears in cahoots with Damascus is quite in
keeping with the biblical accounts, which Ahab concluded after the Battle of Aphek an alliance with Benhadad against their hereditary enemy Assyria."[21]
The identification was challenged by other
contemporary scholars such as George Smith and Daniel Henry Haigh.[19]
The identification as Ahab of Israel has
been challenged in more recent years by Werner Gugler and Adam van der Woude,
who believe that "Achab from the monolith-inscription should be construed
as a king from Northwestern Syria".[26]
According to the inscription, Ahab
committed a force of 10,000 foot soldiers and 2,000 chariots to Assyrian led
war coalition. The size of Ahab's contribution indicates that the Kingdom of
Israel was a major
military power in the region of Syria-Palestine during the first half on 9th
century BCE.[27]
Due to the size of Ahab's army, which was
presented as extraordinarily large for ancient times, the translation raised
polemics among scholars. Also, the usage of the term "Israel" was
unique among Assyrian inscriptions, as the usual Assyrian terms for the Northern
Kingdom of Israel were
the "The Land of Omri" or Samaria.
According to Shigeo Yamada, the
designation of a state by two alternative names is not unusual in the
inscription of Shalmaneser.
Nadav Neeman proposed a scribal error in
regard to the size of Ahab army and suggested that the army consisted of 200
instead of 2,000 chariots.
Summarizing scholarly works on this
subject, Kelle suggests that the evidence "allows one to say that the
inscription contains the first designation for the Northern Kingdom. Moreover,
the designation "Israel" seems to have represented an entity that
included several vassal states." The latter may have included Moab, Edom
and Judah.[28]
[End of quote]
I find it extremely difficult to imagine that the heavily
defeated (by Ahab) Ben-Hadad I of Syria, long a foe of Israel, could - in the
short window of time allowable by this very tight chronology - have so raised
himself up as to have been capable of leading this impressive collation against
the might of Shalmaneser III.
Moreover, the Bible provides absolutely no indication at the
time of Ben-Hadad I and Ahab of a rampant Assyria in the region of
Syro-Palestine. This further inclines me to think that Shalmaneser III was not contemporaneous
with this phase of Israel’s Divided Kingdom, which - in a revised context -
belongs contemporaneous with the EA era of 18th dynasty Egyptian
history.
Another historian who has difficulty with the identification
of Shalmaneser III’s Qarqar opponent, A-ha-ab-bu Sir-ila-a-a, with Ahab, is James B. Jordan, who writes
along similar lines, asking:
Ahab and Assyria (Chronologies and Kings VIII)
by James B. Jordan
…
Was Ahab at Qarqar?
Allis writes: “According to his Monolith
Inscription, Shalmaneser III, in his sixth year (854 B.C.) made an expedition
to the West and at Qarqar defeated Irhuleni of Hamath and a confederacy of 12
kings, called by him `kings of Hatti and the seacoast.’ Qarqar is described as
the royal residence of Irhuleni. It was there, not far from Hamath, that the
battle took place. Irhuleni was the one most directly concerned. But in
describing the allied forces, Shalmaneser lists them in the following order:
He brought along to help him 1,200
chariots, 1,200 cavalrymen, 20,000 foot soldiers of
Adad-’idri of Damascus; 700 chariots, 700 cavalrymen, 10,000 foot soldiers of
Irhuleni from Hamath; 2,000 chariots, 10,000 foot
soldiers of A-ha-ab-bu Sir-’i-la-a-a.
These three are probably mentioned first
as the most important. It is rather odd that Irhuleni’s troops are mentioned
only second in the list, inserted between Adad-’idri’s and Ahabbu’s. Then
follow in order the contingents of Que, Musri, Irqanata, Matinu-ba’lu of Arvad,
Usanata, Adunu-ba’lu of Shian, Gindibu’ of Arabia, Ba’sa of Ammon. Most of
these countries were clearly in the distant north, Syria and Ammon being the
nearest to Israel, and both of them Israel’s bitter enemies. Among the eleven
listed (he speaks of twelve kings), only five brought chariots; and most of
them brought fewer troops than the first three, though some of the figures
cannot be accurately determined, because of the condition of the inscription.
“In view of the make-up of this
confederacy of kings, the question naturally arises whether Ahab, who had been
recently at war with Ben-haded [sic] and was soon to renew hostilities with
him, would have joined a coalition of kings of countries, most of which were
quite distant, and the nearest of which were bitterly hostile, to go and fight
against a king with whom he had never been at war,–an expedition which involved
leaving his capital city and taking a considerable army to a distance of some
300 miles and through mountainous country, and, most questionable of all,
leaving Damascus, the capital of his recent enemy Ben-hadad in his rear (thus
exposing himself to attack), in order to oppose a distant foe whose coming was
no immediate threat to his own land or people. …. Such an undertaking by Ahab,
king of Israel, seems highly improbable to say the least.
Jordan then proceeds to query:
“The name Ahab (Ahabbu),
while uncommon, is not unique. We meet is as the name of a false prophet, who
was put to death by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 29:21). The name appears to mean
`father’s brother,’ i.e., `uncle.’ It may possibly be shortened from Ahabbiram
(my uncle is exalted) or a similar name. But it is to be noted that the name Ahabbu
might be read equally well as Ahappu and be an entirely different name than
Ahab, quite probably Hurrian, which would accord well with the make-up of the
confederacy.
“The name of Ahabbu’s country is given
as Sir’ila-a-a. The reading is somewhat uncertain, since the first character
might also be read as shud or shut. Even if sir is
correct, the name is a poor spelling of Israel; and it is double questionable
because nowhere else on Assyrian tablets is Israel given this name. On the
monuments it is called mat Humri, the land of Omri. It is perhaps not
without significance that although the battle of Qarqar is mentioned in several
of Shalmaneser’s inscriptions, Ahabbu is mentioned on only one of them. The
Assyrian kings were great braggarts. Israel was quite remote from Shalmaneser’s
sphere of influence. If Ahab of Israel were referred to, we might perhaps
expect more than this one slight mention of him.
And also Adad-’idri:
“Adad-’idri was apparently Irhuleni’s
chief ally, being mentioned first. If this Syrian king was the enemy-friend of
Ahab, we might expect him to be called Hadad-ezer, which is the Hebrew
equivalent of the name and is given to the king of Zobah of David’s time. The
name Adad-’idri may stand for Bar (Hebrew, Ben)-Adad-’idri (Heb., ezer), and so be shortened at either end, to
Ben-hadad or Hadad-ezer. So it may be, that the Ben-hadad of the Bible and the
Adad-’idri of Shalmaneser’s Annals are the same king.”
But not necessarily, says Allis.
Assuming that Adad-`idri is the same as Ben-hadad does not tell us which of
many Ben-hadads this was. “Ancient rulers often had the same name. We now know
of three kings who bore the famous name Hammurabi. There were 5 Shamsi-Adads, 5
Shalmanesers, 5 Ashur-niraris among the Assyrian kings. Egypt has 4 Amenhoteps,
4 Amenemhets, 12 Rameses, 3 Shishaks, and 14 Ptolemies. Syria had apparently
both Ben-hadads and Hadad-ezers. Israel had 2 Jeroboams; and both Judah and
Israel had a Jehoash, a Jehoram, and an Ahaziah in common. It may be that Ba’sa
king of Ammon who fought at Qarqar, had the same name as Baasha king of Israel.
Names may be distinctive and definitive; they may also be confusing and
misleading.
Finally, as already mentioned, the Bible gives not the slightest clue
about the movement, at this time, of significant military forces:
“There is no mention of the battle of
Qarqar in the Bible. It is generally assumed that it was fought several years
before Ahab’s death, though Thiele claims that the battle of Ramoth-gilead took
place only a few months after Qarqar.
“In the account which Shalmaneser gives
of this battle, he claims a glorious victory. On the Monolith Inscription,
which gives the fullest account of it, we read: `The plain was too small to let
(all) their (text: his) souls descend (into the nether world), the vest field
gave out (when it came) to bury them. With their (text: sing.) corpses I
spanned the Orontes before there was a bridge. Even during the battle I took
from them their chariots, their horses broken to the yoke.’ We are accustomed
to such bragging by an Assyrian king and to discount it. But this certainly does
not read like a drawn battle or a victory for the allies; and if there is any
considerable element of truth in the claim made by Shalmaneser, `even during
the battle I took from them their chariots, their horses broken to the yoke,’
this loss would have fallen more heavily on Ahabbu than on any other of the
confederates, since Shalmaneser attributes to him 2,000 chariots, as compared
with Adad-’idri’s 1,200 and Irhuleni’s 700. If Ahab had suffered so severely at
Qarqar, would he have been likely to pick a quarrel with a recent ally and to
do it so soon? The fact that Shalmaneser had to fight against this coalition
again in the 10th, 11th, and 14th years of his reign does not prove this
glorious victory to have been a real defeat for Shalmaneser. Yet, despite what
would appear to have been very serious losses for the coalition (all their
chariots and horses), we find according to the construction of the evidence
generally accepted today, Ahab in a couple of years or, according to Thiele in
the same year, picking a quarrel or renewing an old one with his recent
comrade-in-arms, Ben-hadad, and fighting a disastrous battle against him (1
Kings 22); and a few years later we find Ben-hadad again fighting against
Israel (2 Kings 6:8-18), and even besieging Samaria (vss. 24ff.). Is this
really probable? Clearly Ben-hadad had no love for Israel!
“The biblical historian describes the
battle at Ramoth-gilead together with the preparations for it, in considerable
detail (1 Kings 22), as he later describes the attack on Dothan (2 Kings
6:8-23) and the siege of Samaria which followed it. Of Qarqar he says not a
single word. Why this should be the case if Ahab was actually at Qarqar is by
no means clear. It was not because the Hebrew historian did not wish to mention
a successful expedition of wicked king Ahab, for he has given a vivid account
of Ahab’s great victory of Ben-hadad (1 Kings 20:1-34) which led even to the
capture of the king of Syria himself. And, if Qarqar had been a humiliating
defeat for Ahab, we might expect that the biblical writer would have recorded
it as a divine judgment on the wicked king of Israel, as he does the battle at
Ramoth-gilead, in which Ahab perished.
“It is of course true that the record of
Ahab’s reign is not complete (1 Kings 23:39). His oppression of Moab is
mentioned only indirectly in connection with an event in the reign of Jehoahaz
(2 Kings 3:4f.). It is the Mesha inscription which gives us certain details.
Yet in view of its importance the omission of any reference to a battle with Shalmaneser
in which Ahab took a prominent part would be strange, to say the least.”
(Allis, pp. 414-417).
In my opinion, Allis’s arguments settle
the question. There is no good reason to believe that the Ahabbu or Ahappu of
the Shalmaneser Monolith Inscription is the same as the Ahab of the Bible. All
evidence is against it. Accordingly, the alleged synchronism between the
Assyrian Eponym Canon and the Biblical chronology does not exist, and there is
no reason to try and shorten the chronology found in the books of Kings and
Chronicles. ….
[End of quotes]
I would tend to agree that arguments such as the above “settle
the question”.
It is highly unlikely that King Ahab of Israel could have
fought alongside Ben-Hadad I of Syria, the leader of a large coalition against
Shalmaneser III, a Great King of Assyria.
Shalmaneser III claimed in his
Annals (Kurkh Monolith) to have campaigned in his Year 1 against a Sapalulme the Hattinite, making it a very attractive proposition - in
a revised context - that this latter was none other than the great Hittite
emperor, Suppiluliumas of Hatti, a contemporary of Ben-Hadad I and Ahab.
Previously, I had regarded this particular incident, and had
written about it, as what I had called “A Key ‘Year 1’ Synchronism”.
Shalmaneser III, not long prior to his 5th regnal
year Battle of Qarqar, had prevailed against a Hittite king who, in a revised
context - if the Assyrian king really straddled the mid-C9th BC time of EA in
Egypt - could only be the great Suppiluliumas himself. Thus I wrote:
Assyrian king Shalmaneser III’s apparent reference to the Hittite king,
Suppiluliumas, cannot possibly be, in conventional terms, a reference to the
long-reigning Hittite ruler of the El Amarna [EA] period - but it can well be
if EA belongs to the era of Shalmaneser III.
Shalmaneser
III and Suppiluliumas
Perhaps revisionists
have not made enough of king Shalmaneser III’s Year 1 reference to “Sapalulme
of Khattina”, who can only be, I would suggest, Suppiluliumas of Hatti. The
Assyrian records
I left Mount Amanus
and crossed the Orontes River coming to Alimush, the stronghold of Sapalulme
the Hattinite. Sapalulme, to save his life, called on Ahûni, Sagara, and
Haianu, as well as Kate the Kuean, Pihirisi the Hilukite, Buranate the
Iasbukite, and Ada… Assur, (Col. II)… I shattered their forces. ….
This could be a most
vital synchronism for a revised EA. And it may well become one in the hands of
some astute revisionist.
A major problem,
though, is that the chronology of Suppiluliumas himself is so watery, at present,
as to disallow for his serving as a really solid chronological anchor.
Dates for the Hittite
emperor, Suppiluliumas, currently range from c. 1386-1345 BC (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=1A0OgvXfHlQC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=dates+fo) to c. 1344-1322 BC
(http://www.ancient.eu/Suppiluliuma_I/). A long span
indeed! So long, in fact, that the conventional chronology presents us with two
kings Suppiluliumas of Hatti, the supposed second of whom being dated to c. 1207–1178 BC. And so does Dr. I. Velikovsky, using a completely different
time in his radical book, Ramses II and His Time (1978), Epilogue
section: “Two Suppiluliumas”.
Whilst Velikovsky’s reconstruction is, in the case of the 19th
dynasty Ramessides, demonstrably erroneous, the conventional assessment of two
kings Suppiluliumas might turn out to be correct, though the chronology will be
about half a millennium too early.
Possible bookends for
Suppiluliumas
According to what
will follow, a Hittite Suppiluliumas may already have been active late in the
reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III, hence the early dating of Suppiluliumas to c.
1386-1345 BC. And a Suppiluliumas (given as II) was a known contemporary of
pharaoh Ramses I (c. 1290 BC, conventional dating).
Let us consider these
two cases separately.
In Ugarit in
Retrospect: Fifty Years of Ugarit and Ugaritic (edited by Gordon Douglas
Young): https://books.google.com.au/books?id=1A0OgvXfHlQC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=dates), we are told of
some further possible synchronisms between Suppiluliumas and EA kings. I shall
find it necessary to include some of my own comments here:
Ammištamru and the "First
Hittite Foray"
Ammištamru's letter to the
Pharaoh (EA 45) is significant for another reason besides being a piece of
evidence on Ugarit's dependence on Egypt.
….
Long ago Knudtzon completed
LUGAL
KUR [URU Ḫa-at-te] in line 22, and restored [LUGAL KUR URU Ḫa-at-te] in line 30. His guess must be accepted as
correct,
despite Liverani's attempt to see here a reference to hostile actions by
Abdi-Aširta of Amurru which are mentioned in the treaty between Niqmaddu and Aziru. …. Abdi-Aširta was never called "king," ….
Comment needed here: There is far more
to Abdi-ashirta than first meets the eye. See my:
The article
continues:
… and the least
appropriate place of calling him so would have been a letter a letter to his
Egyptian sovereign. ….
Comment needed here: The fact is,
however, that none of EA’s letters from Ugarit, including this EA # 45, ever
mentions the intended recipient as a “pharaoh” or “of Egypt”. That becomes
apparent from the following excerpt from A. Altman’s article,
“Ugarit's political standing in the Beginning
of the 14th Century BCE reconsidered”
2.1 Features indicating dependence
The characteristic stylistic features of the opening of these letters, as
well as certain expressions, from which Ugarit’s subordination to Egypt might
have been inferred, are as follows:
a. The letters do not mention the Egyptian king by name, nor do they
address him as “the king of Egypt”. Rather, they are addressed “to the king,
the Sun, my lord”; an address which has been fully preserved in EA 49, 1. An
omission of the name of the addressee may occur in the correspondence between
sovereign kings or rulers of equal standing of this period, but their writers
never fail to identify the addressee by his country. ….
[End of quote]
So perhaps the recipient is not an EA pharaoh at all.
The same article makes the surprising admission that: “… Amenhotep III and
Amenhotep IV … [the EA pharaohs] are not known as having conducted military
campaigns to northern Syria …”.
Returning, now, to EA 45 and Ammištamru, we now arrive at mention of Suppilulimas:
Conversely, the Hittite interpretation permits us to link Ammištamru's letter to the Hittite foray into the
dominion of Tušratta, king
of Mitanni, who defeated it, and
sent news of his victory to his ally, Amenhotep
III,
together with some
gifts from the Hittite booty. …. As K. Kitchen has demonstrated, Tušratta's letter in question, EA 17, could not have
been written after year 34
of Amenhotep III, and might date back to year 30.
In absolute figures, following the system of
chronology accepted in this paper, this
would assign the "first Syrian foray" to one of the years between 1388 and 1385. Now who was the
Hittite king who sent out, or led, the unsuccessful foray? Was it already Šuppiluliumaš?
[End of quote]
Now to a
Suppiluliumas contemporaneous with pharaoh Ramses I.
I breathed a sigh of
relief when I was able to table the following set of synchronisms between 19th
dynasty Egyptian pharaohs and their Hittite ruling contemporaries in my
thesis:
A
Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and
its Background
(Volume One, p. 260,
Table 2):
Thankfully, the conventional sequence of
the early Ramessides, at least, is secure due to a known correlation with a
sequence of contemporary Hittite kings. A peace treaty between Egypt and the
Hittites was signed by Usermare Setepenre (royal name of Ramses II), son
of Menmare (Seti I), grandson of Menpeḥtire (Ramses I); and by Khetasar
(Hattusilis), son of Merosar (Mursilis), grandson of Seplel (Suppiluliumas).
….
Table 2: Egyptian-Hittite Syncretisms
….
This early Ramesside order in relation to
the Hittite succession for this era is a vital chronological link considering
the dearth of such links that so often confronts the historian. This is a
rock-solid synchronism that can serve as a constant point of reference; it
being especially important in the context of the revision, given the confusion
that arises with the names ‘Seti’ and ‘Sethos’ in connection with the 19th dynasty ….
We can be extremely grateful for this much
certainty at least (Table 2 above).
[End of quote]
Whether this
conventionally very long span of time encompassing the two supposed kings
Suppiluliumas will eventually be so reduced in time, in a revised scheme, so as
to make it possible for just the one king Suppiluliumas of Hatti, of, say, some
40 years of reign (as favoured by the proponents of the c. 1386-1345 BC
scenario), remains to be seen.
What we do know for
sure from the campaign records of Shalmaneser III is that this most potent king
of Assyria had, in his first year (conventionally dated to c. 858 BC),
encountered with great force one “Sapalulme of Khattina”.
[End of article]
Given
how this present series is progressing, with Shalmaneser III now looking rather
shaky in his conventional mid-C9th BC location, I would now definitely favour
the general view of more than one king of Hatti by the name of
Suppiluliumas.
If king Jehu of Israel were
indeed an Omride, as according to the usual interpretation of Shalmaneser III’s
Black Obelisk from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), then what can he be doing wiping out
the House of Ahab, who was the very son of the mighty Omri?
With
Ben-Hadad I of Syria and Ahab of Israel now seriously in doubt as coalitional
opponents of the mighty king Shalmaneser III of Assyria, at the Battle of
Qarqar (Karkar) in c. 853 BC (conventional dating) - as according to what was
discussed in the earlier parts of this series - then it becomes necessary to
query, also, whether the Ya-u-a, or Iaui mar Humri ('son
of Omri') of the
Black Obelisk can really be Jehu.
A
consideration of this peculiarity of a supposed Omride wiping out what was
effectively the royal House to which he belonged had occupied several pages of
my university thesis:
A Revised
History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
beginning
with this introductory remark and question (Volume One) on p. 97:
Now it
is generally thought that the Ya-u-a, son of Omri, to whom Shalmaneser
III referred in the Black Obelisk inscription, was Jehu, and that Jehu was
therefore a ‘son of Omri’, in the sense at least of ‘descendant’. If so, then
what was Jehu doing wiping out the entire House of Ahab - Ahab too being a son
of Omri?
I
then turned to the discussion by T. Schneider in which the author attempted to
reconcile the conventional interpretation of Shalmaneser III’s Black Obelisk
regarding king Jehu with the biblical data about the king of Israel. My section,
“Origins of Jehu”, pp. 98-102:
That
very question: ‘Did King Jehu Kill His Own Family?’ has been pondered by Schneider
who has given this as the title to her article on this intriguing matter.
Schneider here is intent upon showing that Jehu, despite his having wiped out
the entire House of Ahab, was nonetheless an Omride as thought to be
represented by Shalmaneser III in his Black Obelisk inscription. Schneider, in
support of her thesis, has noted, quite correctly, that Jehu was a familiar
figure at the royal palace of Israel:237
Jehu’s
relationship with the Israelite palace and royalty also hints at a family
connection. Several Biblical passages clearly indicate that Jehu is no stranger
to the king or palace. For example, when Jehu is proclaimed king by his troops
and rides to the palace, he is recognized from afar by the way he rides (2
Kings 9:20). When riding out to greet him, Joram [Jehoram], about to be killed,
calls Jehu by name (2 Kings 9:22). Jehu comments that he once rode behind
Joram’s father, Ahab, in battle (2 Kings 9:25). Even Jezebel’s greeting to
Jehu—she calls him a “Zimri”—may indicate he was a palace insider (2 Kings
9:31). Clearly, Jehu was no stranger to the royal family.
….
Shalmaneser
III’s Black Obelisk
Schneider’s
case will rest largely upon the apparent reference to Jehu by Shalmaneser III as
a ‘son of Omri’. She, having accepted that this was indeed Jehu, and that Jehu
was in fact an Omride, has put together the following explanation:238
The
four-sided limestone monument [Black Obelisk] is decorated with five registers
of relief sculptures depicting the bringing of tribute to Shalmaneser. Each
register reads around four sides, one panel to a side, portraying a particular tribute
and tribute-bearers. The second register from the top shows the tribute of the
Israelite king Jehu (ruled 841-814 B.C.E.).
The
central figure on the first panel of this register, presumably Jehu himself, prostrates
himself, forehead to the ground or possibly kissing the feet of the Assyrian
monarch. Some have suggested that this figure might be Jehu’s emissary. But if
it is Jehu, this panel offers the only extant picture of a king of ancient
Israel from the First Temple period [sic].
The
cuneiform caption above this register identifies the scenes as representing the
tribute of Jehu and reads as follows:
“Tribute
of Iaua [Jehu], son of Omri. Silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden beaker,
golden goblets, pitchers of gold, tin, staves for the hand of the king, [and]
javelins, I [Shalmaneser] received from him.”
… The
Bible does not mention Jehu paying tribute to Shalmaneser. But obviously the
Bible does not record everything that occurred in a reign that began in 841 B.C.E.
and ended in 814 B.C.E.
[End of quote]
Figure 3: King of
Israel Bringing Tribute to Shalmaneser III239
….
Schneider
next moves on to discuss the Omride problem in relation to Jehu:240
There
is another problem, however. The inscription calls Jehu the son of Omri. This
does not necessarily mean that Jehu was Omri’s literal son. It could well mean
he was a descendant of Omri, that is of the House, or dynasty, of Omri. But
that
does not solve the problem. According to conventional scholarly wisdom, Jehu
was not even a descendant of Omri. On the contrary, Jehu staged a coup d’etat
that supposedly brought an end to the 40-year rule of the Omride dynasty.
As
recounted in 2 Kings 9-10, Jehu, a commander in King Joram’s [Jehoram’s] army,
was instructed by Elisha to murder the king, which ended the line of Omri. In
Judah, the southern kingdom, the Davidic kings ruled continuously for 400 years,
whereas murder and usurpation were common occurrences in the northern kingdom
of Israel. Omri, also a general, became king of the northern kingdom in 882
B.C.E. after attacking his predecessor. Omri was succeeded by his son Ahab (ruled
871-852 B.C.E.), who in turn was succeeded first by one son, Ahaziah (ruled
852-851 B.C.E.), and then by another son, Joram (ruled 851-842 B.C.E.), whom
Jehu murdered. … The grisly paradox of the cuneiform inscription on the Black
Obelisk is that it identifies Jehu as the son of Omri, the very house he is famous
for destroying. Modern scholarship assumes, based on all the information available
in the Hebrew Bible, that to destroy the House of Ahab would be to destroy the
House of Omri as well. But the Hebrew text never explicitly draws that
conclusion. Throughout the Ahab/Jehu cycle the house that is destroyed is called
the House of Ahab, while the House of Omri is never mentioned.
Schneider
then asks: “Why does the Bible make this peculiar distinction between the House
of Ahab and the House of Omri?” And her explanation of the ‘son of Omri’ conundrum
is as follows:241
I
propose that the Black Obelisk inscription is correct, that Jehu was indeed a “son”
of Omri—that is, a descendant of Omri—but through a different line from that of
Ahab, and that the House of Omri therefore did not come to an end when Jehu
wiped out the House of Ahab. Traditional explanations for the supposed mistake
on the Black Obelisk—the identification of Jehu as a son of Omri—point
out
that the Assyrians may have misunderstood Israelite politics or that modern interpretations
of the cuneiform text may be in error. …. How much credibility should we give
them? Was it a mistake to identify Jehu as a son of Omri? ... why
is
Jehu referred to as “son of Omri”? A traditional explanation is that the Assyrians
referred to a kingdom by using the name of the first ruler from that kingdom
with whom they had contact. Since Assurnasirpal II campaigned in the west
(though not far enough to the southwest to reach Israel) [sic], it is possible that
he came into contact with Omri, who ruled Israel at that time.
According
to the traditional view, the Assyrians for that reason referred to Israel as
the “house of Omri” until it was destroyed in 721 B.C.E. —despite the fact that
Jehu represented the beginning of a new, if short-lived, dynasty.
Thiele
will thus comment, in relation to the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III,
that:242 “It is interesting to note that this Assyrian record applied to the
nation of Jehu the name
of the
king [i.e. Omri] whose dynasty he had destroyed”.
….
Schneider,
herself unconvinced by the standard interpretation, continues:243
If
that is so, however, we would not expect the first Assyrian reference to an Israelite
ruler, on the Kurkh Monolith, to mention Ahab as ruling the land of
sir-‘i-la-a, probably Israel, though possibly Jezreel. No reference to King
Omri in the Assyrian inscriptions has been discovered. Thus the standard
explanation for the reference to Jehu as “son of Omri”—that Omri was the
Assyrian term for Israel— is unsupported by the evidence.
….
Schneider now turns to the matter of Jehu’s biblical lineage:244
…. A
clue: In the Hebrew Bible, Jehu is called “Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi”
(2 Kings 9:2, 14). Jehu is the only king of Israel to have his grandfather’s
name
listed in his patronymic. Why? Traditional explanations would suffice were
it not
for the Assyrian references. These explanations usually suggest that Jehu’s father
was not as well known in the community as his grandfather, or that Nimshi
is a
clan name whose meaning has been lost over the centuries.
Another
explanation is that Jehu’s grandfather’s name is included to show that Jehu’s
father was not King Jehoshaphat of Judah, Jehu’s contemporary.
Whether
Schneider is right in her assertion that “Jehu is the only king of Israel to
have his grandfather’s name listed in his patronymic” has probably yet to be
fully determined in the light of a revised history of Israel. Moreover, that
her explanation above has its problems is indicated by the three points that
she will now outline:
Although
the foregoing explanations are consistent with Biblical accounts, they
face
some significant problems: (1) There is no other Biblical reference to a person
named Nimshi, so that he was probably not all that well known; (2) the name
“Nimshi” appears as a personal name on a Samarian ostracon, making it unlikely
that the name referred to a clan; (3) not only are grandfathers’ names never
listed in the patronymics of Israelite kings, but other Israelite kings who usurped
the throne, such as Zimri and Omri, have no patronymics at all …!
On the
other hand, if Jehu claimed descent from Omri, the inclusion of his grandfather’s
name may have been necessary to establish the genealogical link.
…. I
propose that Jehu was indeed a descendant of Omri.
….
Without contradicting information provided by the Hebrew Bible, this suggestion
would answer many questions. Assuming that Omri had sons from more than one
wife would explain the Assyrian reference to Jehu as belonging to the House of
Omri. It would also account for Jehu’s unusual patronymic, why he was a
commander so familiar to the royal family, and why the purge of the House
of
Ahab, extending to Judah, was so severe.
This
new way of thinking about Jehu solves problems on both the cuneiform and Biblical
sides without having to make excuses for any of the texts involved.
[End of quotes]
The
purpose of the first parts of this series has been to consider whether it is
plausible to remove those biblico-historical ‘pins’ seemingly fixing
Shalmaneser III to the mid-C9th BC. This is not an aprioristically determined
methodology in order just to ‘get rid of’ Shalmaneser III, who has loomed as so
troublesome for a revised [EA] Egypto-Mesopotamian history. It is based on
inherent problems pertaining to those conventional identifications of biblical
characters in the Assyrian king’s historical documents as discussed.
To
remove Shalmaneser III from his mid-C9th BC location would immediately solve
the problems with which Schneider and others have had to contend, regarding a
presumed descendant of Omri’s wiping out his father’s house; problems relating
to Jehu’s grandfather; and an apparent Assyrian ignorance of the genealogical situation.
Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi - who claims to have followed Ahab
into battle, and Ahab was Omri’s direct son - was simply from a different line.
Jehu
himself was not an Omride.
Brief Summary
Ben-Hadad
I of Syria and Ahab of Israel have been shown to be seriously in doubt as
likely opponents of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III at the Battle of Qarqar
(Karkar) in c. 853 BC (conventional dating), as recorded in the Kurkh Monolith.
And
king Jehu of Israel has been shown to be a rather poor fit for the Omride king
mentioned in Shalmaneser III’s Black Obelisk – this Jehu (c. 841 BC,
conventional dating) probably having been chosen as that Omride king for
chronological reasons in relation to the presumed activity of Ben-Hadad I and
Ahab some dozen or so years earlier.
With
these biblico-historical ‘pins’ now greatly loosened, one may consider the
merits of prising Shalmaneser III way from his customary era and vastly
re-considering his history.
