by
Damien F. Mackey
Part One:
Re-stating the
Assyrian problem
The
problem
is that, according to the revised system that I follow, the long
reign
of Shalmaneser III, conventionally situated as it is in the mid-C9th BC,
must
coincide with the revised El Amarna period of Egyptian history
of
pharaohs Amenhotep III, Akhnaton, (Smenkhkare) and Tutankhamun.
Shalmaneser III was without a doubt a truly mighty
king of Assyria, able to rally an army of 120,000 men. Conventionally, this
king is dated to c. 858 - 824 BC. And, conventionally again, he is thought to
have fought against Ben-hadad of Syria and king Ahab of Israel, and later to
have taken tribute from king Jehu of Israel and to have overcome king Hazael of
Syria.
Since all four of the above-named opponents of
Shalmaneser III, according to convention, were biblical kings (Ben-hadad; Ahab;
Jehu; Hazael), then it would seem that we have here a most rock-solid and
indisputable biblico-historical foundation.
The problem is, however, that, according to
the revision - at least the system that I follow - the long reign of
Shalmaneser III, situated as it is in the mid-C9th BC, must coincide with the
revised (downwards from the C14th BC) El Amarna [EA] period of Egyptian history
of pharaohs Amenhotep III, Akhnaton, (Smenkhkare) and Tutankhamun.
Well
established, I believe, is Dr. I. Velikovsky’s identification of the Syrian
succession, from the Bible, of Ben-hadad and Hazael, with EA’s Amurrite
succession of Abdi-ashirta and Aziru.
So, as far as
I am concerned this fixes EA to the biblical mid-C9th BC (conventionally
dated).
But now, most worryingly, nowhere in the
extensive EA correspondence to and from these pharaohs is there mention of a
king Shalmaneser of Assyria.
The only contemporary Assyrian king to be found in
the EA correspondence is one “Assuruballit [Ashuruballit] … king of Assyria”,
he being the writer of EA letter no. 15, addressed: “To the king of
the land of Egypt”, and EA letter no. 16 addressed: “To Napkhororia …
Great King, king of Egypt”.
Napkhororia was
the praenomen, Nefer-khepru-re, of pharaoh Akhnaton.
Many ingenious attempts have been made by the best
of the revisionist scholars to account for “The Assuruballit Problem”
[TAP].
I, myself, have considered various different
approaches and combinations in articles, including the following introductory
piece in my postgraduate thesis, where I wrote.
“The Assuruballit Problem”
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 and 16), and not ‘Shalmaneser’, since Shalmaneser
III – by current reckoning – completely straddles the middle part of this
century (c. 858-824 BC)?
[End of quote]
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). At the time of writing my thesis, I had 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.) told 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]
Quite a new
approach now, I think, is needed.
Part Two:
Meritaten not
Shalmaneser III
The phrase, “Servant of Mayati”, which name
Velikovsky took as being Shalmaiati,
hence Shalmaneser III, is generally
considered to be a hypocoristicon reference to
an Egyptian princess, to Meritaten, a
daughter of pharaoh Akhnaton.
TAP (see next section) would have been well
on the way to being solved had Dr. I. Velikovsky, as he thought he had, actually
found the name “Shalmaneser” in the EA archives, as “Shalmaiati” (Ages in Chaos, I, pp. 318-322).
Returning again to TAP, or:
“The Assuruballit Problem”.
Ideally, a revised El Amarna [EA] - with the
Egyptian Eighteenth dynasty rulers for this period
lowered on the time scale from the C14th BC to the
C9th BC - would feature an Assyrian king, “Shalmaneser”, ruling
contemporaneously with pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhnaton, etc.
But, as we found out, it doesn’t. The Assyrian
king at the time was, instead, “Assuruballit”.
For this particular pattern of revision (based on
Dr. I. Velikovsky’s Ages in Chaos) to survive, either the
significant Shalmaneser III must be found somewhere in the EA series; or, the
revision must take the further step of shifting Shalmaneser III right out of
the middle of the C9th BC where he is conventionally fixed. As we learned in Part
One:
this Great King of Assyria does appear to be
firmly fixed there on the basis of his apparent contemporaneity with at least
four biblical potentates: Ben-Hadad; Ahab; Jehu; and Hazael.
Velikovsky’s “Solutions”
Dr. Velikovsky had a few tricks up his sleeve for
‘finding’ Shalmaneser III in EA.
One was, as we read, to identify him with the
powerful Kassite king, Burnaburiash (Burraburiash) II, who claimed to
have some control over Assyria.
Dr. Albert W. Burgstahler tells of this in “The El-Amarna Letters and the Ancient Records of Assyria
and Babylonia”: http://mikamar.biz/Pensee%20V/0503-el-amarna-letters.htm
In the closing chapters of Volume I of Ages in Chaos (Doubleday, 1952), Velikovsky presents extensive evidence and arguments to support his view that the famous el-Amarna tablets or letters date not from the fourteenth century B.C., as is commonly believed, but rather from the ninth century B.C. These remarkable clay tablets, written in cuneiform, were discovered by accident in the late 1880's at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, lying buried amid a portion of the ruins of ancient Akhet-Aton, the ill-fated capital of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton).
….
Within this framework, Velikovsky also correlates various
conquests and military exploits of the ninth century Assyrian monarch
Shalmaneser III with information contained in the letters. He suggests,
moreover, that Shalmaneser himself sent a number of letters to Egypt under the
name "Burraburiash [Burnaburiash], king of Karaduniash" (Babylonia),
after his occupation of Babylon, which occurred about 850 B.C. in the ninth
year of his reign.
However, despite the many items of evidence for such ninth century
identifications of persons, places, and events in the letters, there remain a
number of unresolved difficulties, especially in connection with Babylonia and
Assyria. In fact, one of the major obstacles to a more favorable
reception of Ages in Chaos undoubtedly stems from
independent available evidence indicating that certain fourteenth century B.C.
rulers of these lands were actually contemporaries of Akhnaton and/or his
father, Amenhotep (Amenophis) III, in the Amarna period.
…. From King Burnaburiash (Burraburiash) of Babylonia, six letters
(Nos. 6 -11) have survived in the el-Amarna collection.
In addition, there are two extensive gift or tribute lists: one
(No. 13) evidently from Burnaburiash to Akhnaton (text badly broken) and the
other (No. 14) to Burnaburiash, apparently from Akhnaton. Moreover, there
is a short Babylonian letter (No. 12) from "the daughter of the
king," commending the safety of her lord to "the gods of
Burraburiash."
Because it refers to an earlier time when the addressee (name no
longer legible) and Burnaburiash's (fore)father "were on good terms with
one another," letter No. 6 is considered to have been sent to Amenhotep
III, whose long reign appears from hieratic dockets found at his palace area in
Thebes to have lasted at least 38 years (4). The other letters, with the
possible exception of letter No. 9, are directed to Akhnaton (Naphuria).
Letter No. 9, addressed to "Ni-ib-hu-ur-ri-ri-ia" may not have been
intended for Akhnaton (written as "Na-ap-hu-ru-ri-ia" in the other
letters from Burnaburiash to Akhnaton) but rather for his youthful successor,
Tutankhamon, whose throne name is transliterated as "Nibhururiya"
(3). Although quite conjectural and open to considerable doubt (5), this
interpretation is consistent with the fact that a contract of Burnaburiash is
known which dates from the 25th year of his reign (6). ….
In EA letter no. 9, Burnaburiash writes to pharaoh
of Burnaburiash’s “Assyrian vassals”.
[End of quote]
We also read in Part One of “Velikovsky’s Unpublished Solution”: “Velikovsky
… 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”.
Thirdly, Dr. Velikovsky thought
that he may have actually found the name “Shalmaneser” in the EA archives, as
“Shalmaiati” (Ages in Chaos, pp.
318-322). The name “Shalmaiati” appears, for instance, in EA no. 155,
which is a letter from king Abi milki of Tyre. The
phrase found therein, “Servant of Mayati”, which name Velikovsky took as
being Shalmaiati, hence Shalmaneser III (= Burnaburiash), is
generally considered to be a hypocoristicon reference to an Egyptian princess,
to Meritaten, a daughter of pharaoh Akhnaton.
Comments: In line 41 (Mercer, line 44
others) the cuneiform transliteration is given as "ù àš-šù mârti-ka mimma
i-ia-[a-n]u ki-i eš-mu-ù". The form in red is also given as
"ma-i-ia-[(a)-ti]mi" which Albright translated as Mayati to be read
as Meritaten, daughter of Akhnaton, and Velikovsky as ‘Shalmaiati' to mean
`Shalmaneser III'.
Velikovsky’s lack of expertise in the Egyptian language
would sometimes vitiate his sincere efforts to construct a more accurate
ancient history.
With the benefit of hindsight, I think that none
of these ingenious efforts by Dr. Velikovsky is really convincing. Shalmaneser
III of Assyria is just too large a king, and too long-reigning, for him to be
hidden behind such lesser known male rulers (as above), and he was certainly
not an Egyptian queen (Meritaten).
Perhaps the better approach for handling the
difficulty that is Shalmaneser III of Assyria is to follow what
Emmet Sweeney has done in his article, “Shalmaneser III and Egypt” (http://www.hyksos.org/index.php?title=Shalmaneser_III_and_Egypt) and that is, to remove Shalmaneser
III entirely out of the EA period.
This further unconventional move will mean that,
considering our determination to retain Velikovsky’s Ben-hadad and Hazael as,
respectively, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru of EA, the traditional link
connecting Ben-Hadad; Ahab; Jehu; and Hazael to Shalmaneser III must now be
ruptured.
Part Three:
Emmet Sweeney’s
bold solution
“We
see that, without exception, the Mitannian levels are followed immediately,
and
without any gap, by the Neo-Assyrian ones; and the Neo-Assyrian material
is
that of the early Neo-Assyrians, Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III.
Now,
since the last Mitannian king, Tushratta, was a contemporary of Akhenaton,
this
would suggest that Ashuruballit, who wrote several letters to Akhenaton,
was
the same person as Ashurnasirpal II, father of Shalmaneser III”.
Emmet Sweeney
Emmet Sweeney, who
never takes a backward step, had come up with this interesting solution to TAP,
archaeologically based as he had thought:
… Ashuruballit seems to
have been a great builder, and we hear of many new monuments raised by him and
many old ones renovated. Strangely, however, none of these structures have been
found by excavators. What they have found, right on top of the monuments built
by the last of the Mitannians, are the monuments of Ashurnasirpal II,
supposedly five and a half centuries after the destruction of Mitannian power.
[End of quote]
Emmet’s hopeful solution to TAP was to identify
EA’s Ashuruballit with the powerful neo-Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II, whose
son (conventionally speaking), Shalmaneser III (the root of so many revisionist
problems), would then be eased out of the EA era.
I very much like Emmet’s idea of revising that
king right out of the El Amarna [EA] period. Indeed, I had already once attempted
this, though differently from Emmet – and unsuccessfully at the time. As one of
my options for solving TAP I had tried to shift Shalmaneser III down a full
century, to merge him with his Assyrian namesake Shalmaneser V (who was also, I
believe, Tiglath-pileser III).
I am now strongly re-favouring that earlier idea.
Let us read what Emmet Sweeney had to say on this
in the flowing article:
Shalmaneser III and Egypt
…. Immanuel
Velikovsky argued that roughly five and a half centuries needed to be subtracted
from New Kingdom Egyptian history to bring it into line with that of Israel;
and indeed in Ages in Chaos (1952) he demonstrated many striking synchronisms
between the two histories once these extra years were removed. In line with
that system he suggested that Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah were two
of the correspondents of the Amarna documents who exchanged letters with
Amenhotep III and Akhnaton.
He also argued that Shalmaneser III of Assyria, a
contemporary of Ahab, was the “King of Hatti” who threatened northern Syria in
the time of Akhnaton. This part of his reconstruction however was not well
received, and always remained problematic. We know, for example, that the King
of Hatti named in the Amarna Letters was Suppiluliumas I, whilst the King of
Assyria at the time was called Ashuruballit, a man who was very definitely not
the same person as Shalmaneser III.
For all that, a host of other evidences suggest
that Velikovsky was broadly correct in his demand for a five and a half century
reduction in Egyptian dates, and that the errors he made in his reconstruction
of the Amarna period were errors of detail. What was needed was fine tuning,
not complete rejection.
All attempts at historical reconstruction must be
based firmly upon the evidence of stratigraphy; and it so happens that the
stratigraphy of Assyria fully supports Velikovsky. A whole series of sites in
northern Mesopotamia show the following:
Neo-Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians (860-550 BC)
Mitannians (1550-1350 BC)
Akkadians (2350-2250 BC)
We see that, without exception, the Mitannian
levels are followed immediately, and without any gap, by the Neo-Assyrian ones;
and the Neo-Assyrian material is that of the early Neo-Assyrians, Ashurnasirpal
II and his son Shalmaneser III. Now, since the last Mitannian king, Tushratta,
was a contemporary of Akhenaton, this would suggest that Ashuruballit, who
wrote several letters to Akhenaton, was the same person as Ashurnasirpal II,
father of Shalmaneser III.
The end of the Mitannian kingdom is documented in
a series of texts from the Hittite capital. We are told that Tushratta was
murdered by one of his sons, a man named Kurtiwaza. The latter then fled, half
naked, to the court of the Hittite King, Suppiluliumas, who put an army at his
disposal; with which the parricide conquered the Mitannian lands. The capital
city, Washukanni, was taken, and Kurtiwaza was presumably rewarded for his
treachery.
The region of [Assyria] … was a mainstay of the
Mitannian kingdom. A few years earlier Tushratta had sent the cult statue of
Ishtar of Nineveh to Egypt. So, if Kurtiwaza was established as a puppet king
by Suppiluliumas, it is likely that his kingdom would have included Assyria. We
know that immediately after the overthrow of the Mitanni lands we find a
supposedly resurgent Assyria reasserting itself under King Ashuruballit. The
latter’s domain included the Mitanni heartland, for we find him plundering the
Mitanni capital of Washukanni and taking from there various treasures with
which to adorn his own monuments in Nineveh and Ashur.
Indeed, Ashuruballit seems to have been a great
builder, and we hear of many new monuments raised by him and many old ones
renovated. Strangely, however, none of these structures have been found by
excavators. What they have found, right on top of the monuments built by the
last of the Mitannians, are the monuments of Ashurnasirpal II, supposedly five
and a half centuries after the destruction of Mitannian power.
Strange as it may seem, Ashurnasirpal II was also
a great builder. He too raised monuments throughout Assyria. These included a
new capital named Calah. In Calah archaeologists found numerous [artifacts] …
of Egyptian manufacture. There were, for example, many scarabs of the latter
Eighteenth Dynasty, especially from the time of Amenhotap [Amenhotep] III. (See
Austen Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (London, 1853)
p. 282)
So, just in the place where we would expect to
find the monuments of Ashuruballit, who was a contemporary of the latter Eighteenth
Dynasty, we find the monuments of Ashurnasirpal II, whose buildings are full of
artifacts of the latter Eighteenth Dynasty. This would strongly suggest, even
demand, that Ashuruballit and Ashurnasirpal II are one and the same person.
Furthermore, since Ashuruballit, the new king of Assyria after the death of
Tushratta, seems to be an Assyrian alter-ego of Tushratta’s parricide son
Kurtiwaza, this would imply that Ashurnasirpal was yet another alter-ego of
Kurtiwaza, and was himself the murderer of Tushratta.
Is there then any evidence to suggest that
Ashurnasirpal II was a parricide?
The Babylonian Chronicle tells us that a “Middle
Assyrian” king named Tukulti-Ninurta was murdered by his own son. The name of
the murderer is given: it is Ashurnasirpal.
The “Middle Assyrians” were a mysterious line of
kings who ruled Assyria before the time of the Neo-Assyrians and supposedly
after the time of the Mitannians. Yet we know of no Assyrian stratigraphy which
can give a clear line from Mitannian to Middle Assyrian to Neo-Assyrian. On the
contrary, as we saw, the Mitannians are followed immediately by the
Neo-Assyrians of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III. This can only mean that
the Middle Assyrians must have been contemporaries of the Mitannians, and were
most likely Mitannian kings using Assyrian names. We know that ancient rulers
often bore several titles in accordance with the various nations and ethnic
groups over which they reigned. Since the Mitannian royal names are
Indo-Iranian, and therefore meaningless and probably unpronounceable to the
Semitic speakers of Assyria, it is almost certain that they would also have
used Assyrian-sounding titles.
That the Middle Assyrians were in fact
contemporary with the Mitannians is shown in numberless details of artwork,
pottery, epigraphy, etc. (See for example P. Pfalzner, Mittanische und
Mittelassyrische Keramik (Berlin, 1995)
Thus it would appear that Tukulti Ninurta, who was
murdered by his son Ashurnasirpal, was one and the same as Tushratta, who was
murdered by his son Kurtiwaza. This latter, upon being appointed king of
Assyria by Suppiluliumas, first used the Assyrian name Ashuruballit, but later
changed it to Ashurnasirpal. Such adopting of new titles to mark different
stages in one’s life and career was by no means uncommon in ancient times.
The kings who followed on the throne of Assyria,
from Shalmaneser III onwards, all bore typically “Middle Assyrian” names, and
these are the rulers who were contemporaries of the Egyptian Nineteenth Dynasty.
It was thus Adad-Nirari III (Shalmaneser III’s grandson), and not Adad-Nirari
I, who exchanged letters with the Hitttite Hattusilis III during the time of
Ramses II.
All of this helps us to place the reign of
Shalmaneser III fairly precisely within the context of Egyptian history. We
know that the parricide Ashurnasirpal (Ashuruballit) became gravely ill and
incapacitated in some way (a plaintive prayer to the gods of his exists) in the
ninth year of his reign, and that after this time he associated his son with
him on the throne, who then became sole ruler in all but name. Since
Ashuruballit wrote his first letters to Akhenaton about midway through the
latter’s reign, this would suggest that Ashuruballit became ill near the end of
Akhenaton’s life, and consequently that Shalmaneser III must have assumed power
in Assyria within a year or two of the accession of Tutankhamun in Egypt. Since
Shalmaneser III reigned thirty-five years, he would then have reigned
contemporary also with Ay, Horemheb and Seti I. ….
[End of quote]
No doubt Emmet Sweeney is broadly on the
right track here in his laudable attempt to shorten the archaeological and
chronological gap between the Mitannians and the neo-Assyrians.
My own view, though, would be that the gap
between EA’s Tushratta of Mitanni and
the likes of Tukulti-Ninurta, Shalmaneser III and Ashurnasirpal, is somewhat
wider than what Emmet has proposed. Tukulti-Ninurta I, for instance - who I
think will almost certainly turn out to be Tukulti-Ninurta II - is to be found
quite a bit later than Emmet’s alter ego
for him, Tushratta.
See e.g. my article:
Can Tukulti-Ninurta I be king Sennacherib?
And that radically revised setting would seem
to support my earlier view (now re-visited) that Shalmaneser III must have
been, not an EA potentate, but a later neo-Assyrian king (such as
Tiglath-pileser III = Shalmaneser V).
Part Four:
King Ahab
unlikely at Qarqar
“The
bible does not provide any information at all regarding
Ahab’s
involvement in the coalition against Shalmaneser III”.
R. P. BenDedek
The solution to “The Assuruballit Problem” that I now tend to
favour is the type of model adopted by Emmet Sweeney - irrespective of whether
or not Emmet has properly re-located Shalmaneser III - and that is, to remove
that mighty Assyrian king from his conventional location in the mid-C9th BC,
where he heavily congests a revised El Amarna [EA].
As already argued, I am not prepared by now to try
a different era for a revised EA, I being fully satisfied that it belongs to
the C9th BC (conventionally estimated).
Now, as apparent from what has gone before in this
series, to shift Shalmaneser III away from this era will have enormous
biblico-historical ramifications, considering that the Assyrian king is
conventionally considered to be tied to those four biblical kings as previously
pointed out - the one of particular interest here being Ahab of Israel (c.
871-852 BC, conventional dating). It is common to identify him with the A-ha-ab-bu
Sir-’i-la-a-a of Shalmaneser III’s Kurkh Stele recording the Battle of Qarqar.
There are some scholars, however, who are emphatic
that king Ahab could not have been present at the Battle of Qarqar. One of
these is he who goes by the pseudonym of BenDedek, to be considered here. He will give a strong
legal case for this.
Most telling of all though, I find, is the
argument regarding the size of Ahab’s armies by contrast with that assigned to
A-ha-ab-bu Sir-’i-la-a-a.
BenDedek’s
case
Here is a relevant section of R.P. BenDedek’s lengthy argument as provided in his
article, “King's Calendar Legal Challenge to Archaeologists and their
Evidence”:
….
F. AN EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE:
Shalmaneser's Monolith Inscription - Kurkh Stele records that:
Shalmaneser's Monolith Inscription - Kurkh Stele records that:
·
a)
Shalmaneser III defeated the coalition, which included Ahab of Israel - AND -
·
b) It records
the size and composition of the individual armies. Ahab provided 2,000 chariots
and 10,000 foot soldiers.
a) Ahab's Involvement in the Battle
Ahlstrom (1993, p.578 Footnote 2) points out that a second record of this battle recorded on Shalmaneser's throne base fails to mention Ahab, indicating that he was not one of the leaders of the coalition. [He refers readers to Aharoni.Y. (1966) & Burns and Oates. p 336 and Bright. J.(1981) p. 243.]
He makes the assumption that the failure to mention Ahab on the Throne base inscription indicates that Ahab was not a leader in the coalition, without considering the possibility that Ahab was not in fact there. This is what happens when 'Assumptions' take the place of 'facts in Evidence'.
However the important point in law is that this failure to mention Ahab in the duplicate copy, indicates from a legal viewpoint, that there is no legally acceptable corroboration between the two documents with regard to Ahab's identity. [Refer to Bates, (1985, p.82) for an elaboration on the legal implications in 'corroboration'.]
Corroborating testimony must be independent.
This is not the case in relation to these two Assyrian Records.
Corroboration must directly indicate or implicate a direct relation to the issue in question.
In the case of the Throne Base inscription, its' record in relation to Ahab, does not corroborate.
Irrespective of this however, is the fact that even if it did corroborate the Kurkh Stele's assertion, it could still not be considered corroboration, because corroborative testimony must be independently sourced.
Ahlstrom (1993, p.578 Footnote 2) points out that a second record of this battle recorded on Shalmaneser's throne base fails to mention Ahab, indicating that he was not one of the leaders of the coalition. [He refers readers to Aharoni.Y. (1966) & Burns and Oates. p 336 and Bright. J.(1981) p. 243.]
He makes the assumption that the failure to mention Ahab on the Throne base inscription indicates that Ahab was not a leader in the coalition, without considering the possibility that Ahab was not in fact there. This is what happens when 'Assumptions' take the place of 'facts in Evidence'.
However the important point in law is that this failure to mention Ahab in the duplicate copy, indicates from a legal viewpoint, that there is no legally acceptable corroboration between the two documents with regard to Ahab's identity. [Refer to Bates, (1985, p.82) for an elaboration on the legal implications in 'corroboration'.]
Corroborating testimony must be independent.
This is not the case in relation to these two Assyrian Records.
Corroboration must directly indicate or implicate a direct relation to the issue in question.
In the case of the Throne Base inscription, its' record in relation to Ahab, does not corroborate.
Irrespective of this however, is the fact that even if it did corroborate the Kurkh Stele's assertion, it could still not be considered corroboration, because corroborative testimony must be independently sourced.
·
In Short, of
the Two Documents presented in evidence, only one mentions Ahab.
·
A matter may
not be decided on the basis of only one witness – and -
·
A matter will
be thrown out of court if two witnesses disagree with respect to basic facts.
b) The Size of Ahab's Army
The size of Ahab's army as recorded in the Kurkh Stele is incompatible with the Archaeological evidence, particularly in relation to the number of his chariots. Its' numerical claim indicates that Ahab 'alone', had an army of equal size to that of the Assyrians. This is assumed to be a scribal error.[Ahlstrom (1993, p.578 Footnote 1, Citing Na'aman.M. 1976 pp89-106) ]
Not only do the two documents disagree with each other, but 'the
State's' own 'independent' evidence is, that the testimony of their witness is
either deliberately or accidentally erroneous. [Ref: http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rules.htm#Rule902 : Rule 902.
Self-authentication : Extrinsic evidence of authenticity as a condition
precedent to admissibility in relation to both authenticity and accuracy of
documents]
Under these circumstances, the legal requirement would be to throw out 'the evidence', because it is neither effective as evidence nor effective as a witness to an event.
In this case, if errors exist in one section of the evidence, then the defense counsel can claim that errors exist in other sections of the evidence. It can then be asserted that not only is the size of Ahab's army incorrect, but Ahab's identity as well. The legality of the evidence is called into question.
Another thing to bring to your attention in relation to legal evidence, is that sometimes, third parties are called in to give their 'expert opinion' on the reliability of certain evidence.
When it comes to expert opinion about the content of the Kurkh Stele, the experts have differing opinions. [Ahlstrom, citing Aharoni and Bright, maintains that Ahab was not a leader in the coalition but Miller and Hayes (1986, p.270) disagree.]
From this academic disagreement, we learn an important lesson;
that academics, and especially experts, often differ in their opinions
concerning the same material presented them. ….
Conclusion:
The only evidence that places King Ahab of Israel at Qarqar in 853 BCE, comes from the Kurkh Stele of Shalmaneser III. This Stele finds no support in the Syrian record, is repudiated by the Biblical Chronologies and Narratives, and finds no corroboration in the Throne Base Inscription.
[End of quote]
The First Book of Kings tells us just how paltry
was the size of king Ahab’s army by comparison with the massive host of which
his arch foe, Ben-hadad I, could boast (20:13-15):
And behold a
prophet coming to Ahab king of Israel, said to him: ‘Thus saith the Lord: Hast
thou seen all this exceeding great multitude, behold I will deliver them into
thy hand this day: that thou mayest know that I am the Lord’.
And Ahab said:
‘By whom?’ And he said to him: ‘Thus saith the Lord: By the servants of the
princes of the provinces’. And he said: ‘Who shall begin to fight?’ And he
said: ‘Thou’. So he mustered the servants of the princes of the provinces, and
he found the number of two hundred and thirty-two: and he mustered after them
the people, all the children of Israel, seven thousand ….
This biblical scenario makes it extremely
unlikely, to say the least, that a (twice) badly-defeated Ben-Hadad,
formerly Ahab’s most inveterate enemy, would now have aligned himself with
Ahab, with Ben-hadad leading the coalition, against all the might of Assyria.
“According
to Shigeo Yamada, the designation of a state by two
alternative
names is not unusual in the inscription of Shalmaneser”.
Whatever variation from the conventional model one
may choose to adopt, one will inevitably have to explain also the “Hazael” to
whom Shalmaneser III refers:
“After briefly describing how he had defeated a
coalition led by one “Adad-idri” of Damascus (probably Ben-Hadad II),
Shamaneser III recounted how “Hazael the son of a nobody” (i.e. usurper) had
taken the throne. Shalmaneser then claimed to have defeated Hazael in battle,
to have pursued him back to Damascus and to have laid waste his orchards”.
And one will also need to account for the Ya-u-a,
or Iaui mar Humri (‘son of Omri’), traditionally identified as Jehu king
of Israel, of Shalmaneser III’s Black Obelisk.
Hazael and Ben-Hadad II
One suggested alternative is that the Syrian
participant at Qarqar to whom Shalmaneser III refers, Adad-idri, may
be the significant Ben-Hadad II (var. III), rather than I (var. II). In favour
of this identification is that this powerful biblical king was the son of - but
also fought contemporaneously with – Hazael, the same long-reigning king
traditionally identified as Shalmaneser III’s foe.
H. Rossier
writes in 2 Kings: Meditations on the Second Book of Kings, regarding
the name, Ben-Hadad: http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/rossier/2KINGS.html “… 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
– 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.
Re Ahab’s
supposed participation at the Qarqar, we read about the lengthy and contentious
history of this proposed identification at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurkh_Monoliths
"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]
As I have
already commented, 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 great 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 has written along similar lines, asking “Was Ahab at Qarqar?”:
Ahab and Assyria (Chronologies and Kings VIII)
…
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 latter as the leader of a large coalition against Shalmaneser III, a
Great King of Assyria.
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