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Studies since 2005 have raised doubts about the Assyrian King List’s (AKL) intention and ability to measure absolute time. If telescoping of time occurred, it would be difficult to detect during periods when royal annals were scant. The best way to detect discontinuity in the AKL is by comparison with contemporary king lists, such as one constructed from 1–2 Kings regnal formulas. If the AKL conflates time, an assessment of the plausibility of historical scenarios resulting from different timeframes allows for discrimination between one timeline or another. Israel and Judah’s interlocking chronological systems make a comparison with the Neo-Assyrian timeline possible but contain 44 more years than the timeline implied by the AKL and Assyrian Eponym Canon. By narrowing the window of time within which a deficit in the Neo-Assyrian canons may have occurred, possible reasons for missing years in the consensus chronology present themselves. This investigation concludes that Assyria sought to maintain the legitimacy of the institution of kingship during a protracted period of unacceptable or anomalous authority. Concerns surrounding the continuity of kingship would have dictated the final form of the Assyrian King List/Assyrian Eponym Canon. Using Divided Kingdom regnal data, a revision of the historical timeline is proposed that aligns archaeological, radiocarbon, biblical, and Assyrian data.

This volume examines the state ideology of Assyria in the Early Neo-Assyrian period (934-745 BCE) focusing on how power relations between the Mesopotamian deities, the Assyrian king, and foreign lands are described and depicted. It undertakes a close reading of delimited royal inscriptions and iconography making use of postcolonial and gender theory, and addresses such topics as royal deification, \"religious imperialism\", ethnicity and empire, and gendered imagery. The important contribution of this study lies especially in its identification of patterns of ideological continuity and variation within the reigns of individual rulers, between various localities, and between the different rulers of this period, and in its discussion of the place of Early Neo-Assyrian state ideology in the overall development of Assyrian propaganda. It includes several indexed appendices, which list all primary sources, present all divine and royal epithets, and provide all of the \"royal visual representations,\" and incorporates numerous illustrations, such as maps, plans, and royal iconography.

Abstract This article addresses the phenomenon of fortifications in Iron Age Israel and tries to portray the specific historical background behind their construction by integrating the archaeological data, the extra-biblical sources and the analysis of the biblical text. Of the two clear stratigraphical phases of fortifications noticed in several Iron Age cities, the latter is more massive and elaborated compared with its predecessor. We propose that the developed phase of fortifications in Israel was created under the Omrides, in a time of economic and political strength, as a response to the expansion policy of Aram Damascus. This analysis offers an explanation to the intriguing absence of any biblical reference to the Assyrians prior to Tiglath-pileser III, and casts a fresh look upon the current debate on the chronology of the Iron Age II. If the elaborate fortification systems were initiated during the first half of the ninth century, the initial phase of the urbanization process, which preceded this developed stage, must have begun in the days prior to the Omride dynasty, namely in the tenth century.

Archaeology is a science in which progress can be measured by the advances made backward into the past. The last one hundred years of archaeology have added a score of centuries to the story of the growth of our cultural and religious heritage, as the ancient world has been recovered from the sands and caves of the modern Near East-Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq. Measured by the number of centuries which have been annexed to man's history in a relatively few years, progress has been truly phenomenal. This book deals with the recent advance and with those pioneers to the past who made it possible. Interest in biblical history has played an important part in this recovery. Names such as Babylon, Nineveh, Jericho, Jerusalem, and others prominent on the pages of the Bible, have gripped the popular imagination and worked like magic to gain support for excavations. This book is written from the widely shared conviction that the discovery of the ancient Near East has shed significant light on the Bible. Indeed, the newly-discovered ancient world has effected a revolution in the understanding of the Bible, its people, and their history. My purpose is to assess, in non-technical language which the layman can understand, the kind of change in viewing the biblical past which archaeology has brought about in the last century. Since the text of the Bible has remained constant over this period, it is obvious that any new light on its meaning must provide a better perspective for seeing the events which it describes. In short, I am concerned with the question, How has history as written in the Bible been changed, enlarged, or substantiated by the past century of the archaeological work?--from the Preface

The Assyrian expansion to the west began in earnest with Shalmaneser III. Over the course of twenty‐one campaigns and more than thirty years, Shalmaneser succeeded in making many countries in Hatti (northern Syria), as well as the lands Que and Tabalu, his vassals. Moreover, three important coastal cities (Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos) paid tribute, and Jehu, the king of Israel, submitted to Assyrian power. Between 740 and 732 BCE, a large part of the Syria and the Levant was annexed by the Assyrian empire, Tiglath‐pileser III. When Shalmaneser died in the winter of 722/721 BCE, the Assyrian army returned to Assyria, and the annexation and reorganization of Samaria was postponed. With Sargon II, Assyria's second extensive annexation phase in the west began. Sargon led half of his campaigns to Syria and the Levant, where the northwestern region, in particular, required his attention.

This article re-examines the relations between Assyria, Aram-Damascus and Israel in the period of Shalmaneser III and his son Shamshi-Adad V (858-811 in light of the new edition of the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions published in 1996 by A. K. Grayson (RIMA 3) and the Booty Inscriptions of Hazael. The author reconsidered the following issues: the battle of Qarqar, the Assyrian campaigns to the West in 849-848 BC and Israel's foreign policy during Jehu's reign, pointing out the advantages of Jehu's departure from the anti-Assyrian coalition. L'article reprend l'examen des relations entre l'Assyrie, Aram-Damas et Israël durant la période de Salmanazar III et de son fils, Shamshi-Adad V (858-811 av. J.-C.), au vu de la nouvelle édition des Inscriptions royales assyriennes, publiée en 1996 par A. K. Grayson (RIMA 3), et des listes de tributs de Hazaël. L'auteur reconsidère la bataille de Qarqar, les campagnes assyriennes vers l'ouest en 849-848, et la politique étrangère d'Israël sous le règne de Jéhu, soulignant les avantages de sa distanciation de la coalition anti-assyrienne.

En Os. xii 2b, le maintien du parallélisme poétique des deux stiques, bien que souvent méconnu, peut s'appuyer sur le témoignage iconographique d'un vase d'albâtre de l'époque de Salmanasar III, découvert récemment (1983) en Djézirêh: le décor de sa frise centrale y présente la même scène d''alliance' que la base du trône du même souverain au palais de Nimrud (vers 850 av. J.-C.), qui en constitue ainsi le 'modèle'. Sur la base de documents littéraires parallèles (vocabulaires d'Ébla; Enûma éliš, tabl. VI, 11. 97-100; traité de succession d'Assarhaddon, 11. 153-156) est établi un dossier relatif à l'usage de l'huile en contexte d'alliance -- notamment avec ce type de vase rituel -- et à la pertinence de cette documentation pour la compréhension de ce passage prophétique.