(i): Stating the ‘Problem’
by
Damien F. Mackey
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].
Shalmaneser III an awkward ‘fit’ in revised EA
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”.
Though I was hopeful at the time, in retrospect I
do not believe that I managed to solve any of these (i) - (iii).
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. There I re-stated TAP that had already been well addressed by other
revisionists, such as Peter. James (“Some Notes on the “Assuruballit Problem”,”
1979). 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”.
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.
Un-hooking Shalmaneser III from the mid-C9th BC
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 [I] 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”.
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://bible7evidence.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/jehus-tribute-to-shalmaneser-iii.html
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.
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.
Part Twenty Six: “The Assuruballit
Problem”
(ii): Battle of Qarqar Reconsidered
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 (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/karkar)
“… 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) will firmly conclude 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. ….”.
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 the Assyrian
king 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. ….
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.
Sapalulme
the Hittite
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 (http://jewishchristianlit.com/Texts/ANEhist/annalsShalmaneser3.html):
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," ….
… 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. ….
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?
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).
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”.
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.
Brief Summary
The purpose of these TAP articles 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.
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.
(More on this in subsequent articles)
Introduction
Part Twenty Seven:
A less chaotic El Amarna Era
Putting together a new world scene for
El Amarna [EA], revising Velikovsky and others.
The Egyptians
This is an easy one. The problem is
not identifying the Egyptian pharaohs who figure in the EA correspondence.
These are well-established. They are the known Eighteenth dynasty succession:
Amenhotep III;
Amenhotep IV
(Akhnaton);
and, presumably, Tutankhamun,
properly identified in the EA letters by
their respective prenomen, as:
Nimmuria, or Nimmuaria (Neb-Maat-Ra);
Naphuria, or Napkhuria (Nefer-khepru-Ra);
and Nibhurrereya (Neb-kheperu-Ra).
This EA period would also include the
short reign of Smenkhkare, who preceded Tutankhamun.
In conventional history, this is the
C14th BC – in the revised history, it is the C9th BC.
The problem is that many of the
letters that are presumed to have been written to the pharaohs do not actually
use the term “pharaoh”, or name any pharaoh, or even mention Egypt. We found this
to have been the case with letters of, for instance, Lab’ayu; Abdi-hiba; Baalat-neše; and Rib-addi.
Thanks to the revision of Dr. I
Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos series), we
are now able to synchronise these EA pharaohs chronologically with biblical
kings of the Divided Kingdom period (C9th BC).
Israel and Judah
Velikovsky rightly re-located EA and
its pharaohs to the time of Ahab in Israel and Jehoshaphat in Judah.
His attempt to force-fit the prolific
EA correspondent, Rib-addi, to King
Ahab, though, has been heavily criticised – and rightly so.
A far better fit for Ahab in EA is, I
believe, Lab’ayu.
I also like the only female
correspondent of EA, Baalat-neše, as
Queen Jezebel.
Velikovsky’s identification of Abdi-hiba of Urusalim (Jerusalem) with King Jehoshaphat of Judah has been
improved upon by Peter James’s modification, whereby Abdi-hiba is Jehoram of Judah, son and successor of Jehoshaphat.
Velikovsky may also have managed
successfully to identify in the EA letters some of Jehoshaphat’s military
captains.
The Syrians
Velikovsky’s most solid connections
between EA and the Bible, perhaps, may be his identification of the successive kings
of Amurru, namely, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, with Ben-Hadad I and Hazael of Syria.
Highly promising, also, appears to be
his case for EA’s Ianhama being the
biblical Na’aman the Syrian, cured of his leprosy by the prophet Elisha.
The Mitannians
The Mitannians are very obscure.
They may have come to the fore, along
with the Hittites, as the Babylonian Dynasty of Hammurabi began to fade out, thereby
leaving a vacuum in the region.
A Great King of Mitanni in EA is one Tushratta, who wrote to both Amenhotep
III and IV, and who claimed to have been well-known to Queen Tiy, the powerful wife
of Amenhotep III.
{We found that the seal of Queen
Jezebel has Tiy features to it, indicating contemporaneity – quite impossible in
the conventional scheme}.
Tushratta is
generally thought to have been the son of Shuttarna [so-called II], a known contemporary
of pharaoh Thutmose IV, the father of Amenhotep III. The latter, son of Mutemwia
(possibly also a Mitannian), would marry two Mitannian princesses, Gilukhepa
and Tadukhepa, daughter of Tushratta (Sir
Flinders Petrie identified with Tadukhepa with Nefertiti).
That Mitanni had influence over
Assyrian Nineveh at the time of EA is apparent from the fact that Tushratta was able to send an ailing pharaoh
Amenhotep III (Nimmuaria) a statue of
Ishtar of Nineveh (EA 23):
“To Nimmuaria, King of
Egypt, my brother whom I live and who loves me.
Thus speaks Tushratta,
King of Mitanni who loves you, your father-in-law. For me everything is well.
May everything be well for you, for your house, for Tadu-Heba, my daughter,
your wife whom you love. May everything be well for your wives, your sons, your
noblemen, your chariots, your horses, your soldiers, your country and
everything belonging to you. May everything be well, very well!
Thus speaks Shauskha
(the goddess Ishtar) of Nineveh, Lady of all the lands: I wish to go to Egypt,
a land I love and then return from there.
Now I am sending you
this letter and She is on the way [...] Then, in the times of my father
(Shuttarna) She was in that country, and just as on other occasions She stayed
there and was honoured. …”.
The Assyrians
Between Ishme-Dagan I, son of
Shamsi-Adad I (C18th BC, conventional dating) - but whom I (following Dean
Hickman) have identified as King David’s Syrian foe, Hadadezer (c. 1000 BC) -
and Assuruballit, the only “king of Assyria” EA correspondent, Marc van de
Mieroop has, in his text book (History of the
Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC, Blackwell), left a complete gap. That is, in conventional
terms, a strange hiatus in Assyria of about four
centuries.
And this is not
the only such hiatus, we are going to be finding, in conventional Assyrian
history.
What we do know is
that the king of Assyria at the time of EA was this Assuruballit.
One of his letters
(EA 15) was addressed to the “king of Egypt”; whilst his other letter (EA 16) was,
more helpfully, addressed to Naphuria
(Akhnaton).
The fact that the “king of Assyria” at
the time was Assuruballit and not Shalmaneser has given rise to the vexing, “The
Assuruballit Problem” [TAP], which we have already discussed: Why Shalmaneser
III, who should have been reigning (according to convention) during the
mid-C9th BC, is never once mentioned in EA.
My solution has been to remove Shalmaneser
III right out of EA (to be discussed in later articles).
The Kassites
Velikovsky’s solution to EA’s lack of
any mention of Shalmaneser III of Assyria was to suggest an identification of
the latter with Burnaburiash of
Babylon over which city Velikovsky considered Shalmaneser III had control.
The EA Kassites, who called Babylonia Karduniash, namely, Kadasman-Enlil and
Burnaburiash, apparently constituted a new dynasty of rulers who had succeeded
the Hammurabic dynasty at the same time as saw the emergence of the Mitannians
and the Hittites.
But the Kassites are currently just as
shadowy - (if not more so) - as are the Mitannians.
I made a shocking observation about
the obscurity of the Kassites in my university thesis:
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(Volume
One, pp. 175-176):
"….
It
is not I think too much to say that the Kassites are an enigma for the
over-extended conventional scheme. Roux has given the standard estimate for the
duration of Kassite rule of Babylonia:420 “…
a long line of Kassite monarchs was to govern Mesopotamia or, as they called
it, Kar-Duniash for
no less than four hundred and thirty-eight years (1595-1157 B.C.)”. This is a substantial
period of time; yet archaeology has surprisingly little to show for it. Roux
again:421
Unfortunately,
we are not much better off as regards the period of Kassite domination in Iraq …
all we have at present is about two hundred royal inscriptions – most of them
short and of little historical value – sixty kudurru …
and approximately 12,000 tablets (letters and economic texts), less than 10 per
cent of which has been published. This is very little indeed for four hundred
years – the length of time separating us from Elizabeth 1.
[Seton]
Lloyd, in his book dedicated to the study of Mesopotamian archaeology, can give
only a mere 4 pages (including pictures) to the Kassites, without even
bothering to list them in
the
book’s Index at the back. ….
Incredibly,
though the names of the Kassites “reveal a clearly distinct language from the other
inhabitants in the region”, as van de Mieroop writes, “and Babylonian texts
indicate the existence of a Kassite vocabulary, no single text or sentence is
known in the Kassite language”. ….
Obviously,
new interpretations are required. The Kassite period is thought to have been brought
to its end by the Elamites in the mid-C12th BC. But there emerges quite a new picture
about the Kassites when their history is condensed in the context of Velikovsky’s
EA revision (VLTF) and this people is re-located well down the time scale. …".
Part Twenty Eight: From Baalism to Atonism
(i): An End to Baalism
“The Tel Dan Stela is extraordinary in that it names eight Biblical kings:
Ben-Hadad … Hazael, Joram, Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehoram, David and Jehu. It was most
likely erected following Hazael’s defeat of Joram and Ahaziah at Ramoth Gilead
in ca. 841 BC (2 Kgs 8:28–29)”.
Introduction
As we have read, Dr. I Velikovsky had
established a very convincing case - in the context of his El Amarna (EA) era revised
down to the time of the C9th BC Divided Kingdom of Israel and Judah - for
identifying Abdi-ashirta with Ben-Hadad
I, and the former’s son, Aziru, with
Ben-Hadad I’s son, Hazael:
In the only dialogue preserved in
the Scriptures in which Hazael participates, there are three turns of speech
that also appear in his [EA] letters. The context of the dialogue - the
question of whether the king of Damascus would survive, and the statement that
he, Hazael, the new king, would cause the cities of Israel to go up in smoke -
is also preserved in the el-Amarna letters. It is therefore a precious example
of the authenticity of the scriptural orations and dialogues.
Hazael, king of Syria (EA’s Amurru), had been designated by Yahweh in
the ‘Sinai Commission’ to form a triumvirate with Jehu of Israel, and the
prophet Elisha, to wipe out Baalism in Syro-Palestine. The prophet Elijah, who
had received the ‘Sinai Commission’, had since passed from this earth in
spectacular fashion, in a fiery chariot (2 Kings 2:11), after which Elisha inherited
Elijah’s “cloak” (v. 14) and a ‘double portion of his spirit’ (vv. 9-10).
King Jehu soon got to work, wreaking
bloody havoc upon the Baalists and annihilating the entire House of Ahab, as we
have read, including Queen Jezebel, a driving force of Baalism in the land. In
all of this, Jehu may have been doing the dirty work on behalf of Hazael, who himself
claims much credit in the Tell Dan inscription: http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2011/05/04/The-Tel-Dan-Stela-and-the-Kings-of-Aram-and-Israel.aspx
…. With this new information it is possible to assign the
stela to Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus, who undoubtedly set it up in Dan to
commemorate his victory over Joram and Ahaziah at Ramoth-Gilead in ca. 841 BC
(2 Kgs 8:28–29).
…. Because of the fragmentary nature of the
stela, there are gaps in the lines that allow a number of interpretations. The
translation below is that of the original publishers of the inscription,
Avraham Biran and Joseph Naveh (1995). The numbers are the line numbers of the
inscription and the sections inside the brackets are the restored portions.
1. [...] and cut [...]
2. [...] my father went up [against him when] he fought
at [...]
3. And my father lay down, he went to his [ancestors] and
the king of I[s-]
4. rael entered previously in my father’s land. [And]
Hadad made me king.
5. And Hadad went in front of me, [and] I departed from
[the] seven [...-]
6. s of my kingdom, and I slew [seve]nty kin[gs], who
harnessed thou[sands of cha-]
7. riots and thousands of horsemen. [I killed Jo]ram son
of [Ahab]
8. king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahaz]iahu son of
[Jehoram kin-]
9. g of the House of David. And I set [their towns into
ruins and turned]
10. their land into [desolation ...]
11. other [... and Jehu ru-]
12. led over Is[rael ... and I laid]
13. siege upon [...]
….
Hazael ruled for some 42 years, ca. 842–800
BC, and was the most powerful king of Aram. He is referred to numerous times in
the Old Testament, as well as in contemporary Assyrian inscriptions.
Mackey’s comment: I do not necessarily accept these BC dates, nor do I believe that the “Hazael”
referred to by Shalmaneser III of Assyria was the Hazael who figures in this
article.
The fulfillment of Elisha’s prediction that
Hazael would bring harm to Israel began shortly after he took the throne. He
defeated the combined armies of Israel and Judah at Ramoth Gilead, 50 km (30
mi) southeast of the Sea of Galilee. Hazael’s boast in lines 9 and 10 that he
“set [their towns into ruins and turned] their land into [desolation]” most
likely refers to his defeat of Israel and Judah at Ramoth Gilead.
Joram, king of Israel, was wounded in the
battle. Ahaziah, king of Judah, went to visit Joram at Jezreel. It was at that
time that Jehu assassinated both Joram and Ahaziah and became next king of the
Northern Kingdom.
In lines 7 and 8 of the stela Hazael takes
credit for the deaths of Joram and Ahaziah. Whether this was exaggeration, or
Jehu acting as Hazael’s agent, we cannot say. It is interesting, however, that
God commanded Elijah to anoint Hazael king (1 Kgs 19:15), a very unusual
circumstance. God used Hazael to accomplish His purposes in the history of
Israel and Judah.
For the next five years, ca. 841–836 BC,
Hazael was taken up with invasions by the Assyrians, so did not bother Israel.
Shalmaneser III in his 18th year (ca. 841 BC) engaged Hazael at Mt Senir. He
bragged about killing 16,000 Aramean soldiers. He also captured 1,121 chariots,
470 cavalry horses, and Hazael’s camp. He besieged Hazael in Damascus and cut
down his gardens (Oppenheim 1969: 280).
….
After 836, Hazael continued his aggression
against Israel and Judah. During the reign of Jehu (ca. 841–814 BC) he captured
all of the Israelite territory east of the Jordan River (2 Kgs 10:32–33). In
the 23rd year of Joash, son of Ahaziah (2 Kgs 12:6, ca. 815–814 BC), Hazael
captured Gath and attacked Jerusalem (2 Kgs 12:17). Joash was able to pay him
off and save the royal city:
But Joash king of Judah took all the sacred
objects dedicated by his fathers—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah, the kings of
Judah—and the gifts he himself had dedicated and all the gold found in the
treasuries of the temple of the Lord and of the royal palace, and he sent them
to Hazael king of Aram, who then withdrew from Jerusalem (2 Kgs 12:18).
Hazael was no doubt replenishing his
coffers following the raids by the Assyrians. Jehu’s son Jehoahaz (ca. 814–798
BC) “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Kgs 13:2). As a result, the Lord’s
anger burned against Israel, and for a long time He kept them under the power
of Hazael king of Aram and Ben-Hadad [III] his son (2 Kgs 13:3; cf. 13:22).
The war against Hazael took its toll on
Israel’s army. It was reduced to 10,000 soldiers, 50 horsemen, and ten chariots
(2 Kgs 13:7a). “The king of Aram had destroyed the rest and made them like the
dust at threshing time” (2 Kgs 13:7b). Relief came from the Lord, who “provided
a deliverer for Israel, and they escaped from the power of Aram” (2 Kgs 13:5;
cf. 13:23).
According to this article, Jehu,
too, would have featured on the Tell Dan stele:
Jehu, King of Israel (841—814
BC)
Jehu is another name that was on a portion
of the stela that is missing. The end of line 11 and the beginning of line 12
refers to another king of Israel following Joram: “[X ru]led over Is[rael].”
Since Jehu was the next king of Israel following Joram, it stands to reason
that his name appeared here.
Jehu led a bloody purge of the royal
families of both Israel and Judah. Following the assassination of Joram and
Ahaziah (2 Kgs 9:24–27), he murdered the family and officials of Ahab (2 Kgs
9:30–33; 10:11, 17) and 42 of the royal family of Judah (2 Kgs 10:14). The
purge did not end there. He brought all the “prophets of Baal, all his ministers
and all his priests” (2 Kgs 10:19) into the temple of Baal in Samaria and had
them executed (2 Kgs 10:25). This effectively ended Baal worship in Israel. But
it did not end idolatry, for Jehu continued “the worship of the golden calves
at Bethel and Dan” (2 Kgs 10:29).
….
The Tel Dan Stela is extraordinary in that
it names eight Biblical kings: Ben-Hadad II, Hazael, Joram, Ahab, Ahaziah,
Jehoram, David and Jehu. It was most likely erected following Hazael’s defeat
of Joram and Ahaziah at Ramoth Gilead in ca. 841 BC (2 Kgs 8:28–29). The
occasion for the breaking of the stela was probably when Jehoash, king of
Israel from 798 to 782, recaptured Israelite territory previously taken by
Hazael (2 Kgs 13:24–25). It appears that the monument stood in Dan near the
city gate for over four decades. It was a constant reminder to the Israelites
that they were subject to the Arameans. When the tide of political power
shifted, the Israelites gained the upper hand and the hated stela was broken
into many pieces, some of which were reused as building material.
The importance of the Tel Dan Stela lies
not in its record of history, because the Bible gives a much fuller account.
Its importance, rather, lies in the fact that it is an independent,
contemporary, witness to the events of ca. 841 BC and the accuracy of the
Biblical record. ….
Later we shall consider the prophet Elisha,
an integral member of the Sinai triumvirate, who was also charged with Baal
extermination (I Kings 19:17): ‘If anyone escapes from Hazael's sword,
Jehu will kill him. And if anyone escapes from Jehu's sword, Elisha will kill
him’.
Whom did Elisha kill?
Sinai Triumvirate, Egypt and Assyria
In terms of Eighteenth Dynasty (EA)
Egypt, Hazael, Jehu and Elisha would have emerged (by my calculations) well
into the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III, with Queen Tiy by his side.
Not many years later - though depending
upon whether Akhnaton shared a significant co-regency with his father - Akhnaton
would have established his new realm of Akhetaton (Tell el Amarna), which he shared with Queen Nefertiti. As Queen
Jezebel had been a goading force of Baalism in Israel (I Kings 21:25), so,
likewise, may Queen Nefertiti have been of Atonism in Akhetaton. “Some
believe Queen Nefertiti, wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaton, was the driving force
behind the “one true god” religion centered around Aten”.
Others believe
that it was Queen Tiy who had instigated Atonism.
One wonders if there may have been a
compelling connection between the two pagan movements.
Baal means “master” or “lord”, and some
have speculated that Aton arose from “Adon[ai]”, again meaning “master” or “lord”.
It is well known that one of Akhnaton’s
Sun Hymns bears close resemblance to a hymn composed by King David, Psalm 104 (David,
not Akhnaton, being the originator in revisionism). It was not uncommon for the
pagans (e.g. the Canaanite writings of Ras
Shamra-Ugarit) to appropriate, but inevitably distort, biblical literature.
Atonism, admittedly, has Vedic
elements, which would be attributable to the Indo-European Mitannian influence
in Egypt at the time.
Queen Tiy, for instance, is considered
to have been of Mitannian stock.
The long reigns of Hazael and Jehu
would have overlapped the reigns of Amenhotep III and IV (Akhnaton), making
these Syro-Palestinian kings contemporaneous with the Akhetaton era of the
sun-god Aton.
The Kassite king of Babylon at the
time of Akhnaton - and continuing down to the time of Tutankhamun - was
Burnaburiash, considered to have been the son-successor of Kadashman-Enlil, who
had written several (EA) letters to pharaoh Amenhotep III.
As for the Assyrians contemporaneous with
El Amarna, I have already deleted the significant Shalmaneser III from the
picture. He will now emerge considerably later.
“Assuruballit” we know from EA 15 and
16 to have been king of Assyria at the time of Akhnaton. In EA 16, Assuruballit
boldly addressed himself to the pharaoh (Naphuria)
as “king of Assyria, Great King, your brother”.
Petrus Van Der
Meer thinks that (The Chronology of Ancient Western Asia and
Egypt, pp. 16-17):
“Probably it was towards the end of
Akhenaten’s life, for Aššuruballiṭ had first to see to it that his position in his
own land was well established and that Assyria enjoyed prestige before he could
think of establishing relations with Egypt on an equal footing. This is clear furthermore
from the fact that Burnaburiaš protested against the relations between Egypt
and Assyria to Akhenaten’s successor Tutankhamen. The beginning of his letter
runs …. “to Nibḫurriria the king of Egypt”. Nibḫurriria is the name of
Tutankhamen …. Burnaburiaš therefore must have still been on the throne later
than 1356 [sic] and consequently Aššuruballiṭ must have written his letter at
the end of Akhenaten’s reign, for if it had been earlier, Burnaburiaš would have
lodger his protest with Akhenaten, not with Tutankhamen”.
Part Twenty Eight: From Baalism to Atonism
(ii): Aziru
and Assuruballit
“This was then followed by the empty years when [Aziru]
– a certain Syrian –
was with them as leader. He set the whole
land tributary before him. He united
his companions and plundered their (the
Egyptians’) possessions. They made
gods like men and no offerings were
presented in the temple”.
Great Papyrus Harris
Introduction
While Dr. I. Velikovsky appears to
have made a very good choice with his identification of the biblical kings Ben-Hadad
I and Hazael of Syria with, respectively, Abdi-ashirta
and Aziru of Amurru of the EA letters (Ages
in Chaos, I, 1952), my own efforts to extend, say, Abdi-ashirta to include the Mitannian king, Tushratta, may have been over ambitious.
A proof that a revision is on the
right track is when it begins yielding further fruits. I have already noted
that Dr. Bimson was able to extend Velikovky’s Syrian (Amurrite) sequence even
further, to identifying Aziru’s son, Du-Teshub, with Hazael’s son, Ben-Hadad
II:
Bimson for his part,
referring to the second of these two kings of Amurru, would write: ….
In the first
volume of his historical reconstruction, Velikovsky argues that ... Aziru of
Amurru, well known from the Amarna letters, should be identified with Hazael of
Damascus .... The identification is well supported, and has implications for
the slightly later period now being discussed.
The
same writer, using the Hittite records for the late to post-EA period, would in
fact take Velikovsky’s Syrian identification into even a third generation, his
“slightly later period”, when suggesting that Aziru’s son,
Du-Teshub, fitted well as Hazael’s son, Ben-Hadad
II (c. 806- ? BC, conventional dates), thus further consolidating Velikovsky’s Syrian
sequence for both Amarna and the mid-C9th BC ….
Historical Importance
King Hazael in the Bible, and Aziru in EA, emerge as prominent, war-like
and long-reigning kings. Hazael, as a triumvir of the ‘Sinai Commission’, had
been appointed with the significant task of wiping out Baalism. Witnesses to
the fall of the House of Ahab, Hazael, Aziru,
will survive long enough to see the fall of the House of Akhnaton and the Aton
heresy as well.
In Egypt, a new and reforming régime will
arise, beginning with Ay and
Horemheb.
The great Hittite emperor,
Suppiluliumas, will also emerge, and he will have close contact with Aziru and with Egypt, forming an alliance
with both the Syrian king and with pharaonic Egypt.
Aziru will,
like his father, Abdi-ashirta, become
a complete thorn in the side of Rib-Addi of
Byblos, who may ultimately have been killed at the behest of Aziru.
Rib-Adda’s bane was the
royal house of Amurru, the state inland from Byblos in Syria and the
northernmost Egyptian vassal. He griped constantly about the hostile acts of
Abdi-Ashirta and his sons, especially Aziru. While much in his complaints was
empty rhetoric to gain Pharaoh’s attention as was pointed out in the previous
chapter, the leaders of Amurru were not the reliable vassals they proclaimed to
be in their own letters to Egypt. Pharaoh suspected foul play and demanded that
Aziru come to him to explain himself, a trip the latter wanted to avoid. ….
Amurru was unusual in the Syro-Palestinian region in that it was not a kingdom
focused around a central city [sic], and did not have an old dynasty. Abdi-Ashirta
had recently established himself as a ruler of the region and only under Aziru
had the house been accepted as royal. There was also a strange overlap between
the name of the state and that of the larger province the Egyptians had
organised in northern Syria. The province was administered from the city of
Sumura on the coast, a city that had been destroyed and was abandoned by the
Egyptian governor. Its rebuilding was one of Aziru’s tasks but also here he was
reluctant to proceed. Because of the absence of Egypt’s governor he could act
as if he were ruler over the entire province of Amurru rather than just over
the kingdom. Aziru ended up going to Egypt, but was able to exonerate himself
and return home. Probably soon afterwards he concluded a vassal treaty with the
Hittite king Shuppiluliuma (Beckman 1996: 32–7) and openly abandoned the
Egyptian sphere of influence. Amurru remained a Hittite vassal for some 150
years. The primary basis for the study of Aziru’s career is the Amarna
correspondence, recent translations of which can be found in Moran (1992) and
Liverani (1998–99). The letters from Amurru were studied in a special monograph
by Izre’el (1991). ….
As I mentioned in my thesis:
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(Volume
One, p. 57, n. 146): “Suppiluliumas
the Hittite would give his daughter Mursil to Aziru when the two kings
formed a treaty …”.
Aziru in the Great Papyrus Harris
Although I can realise now that I spoiled parts of my
thesis with over-eager multi-identifications, including for the Amurrite pair, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, one of my extensions that I still like - one with which
revisionists have grappled, though without, I think, much success - is my
equation of EA’s Aziru (the biblical
king Hazael) with the Aziru, or Arsa, of the Great Papyrus Harris (GPH).
I wrote about it in a thesis section, “Syria (Assyria) Comes to Egypt” (ibid., pp. 226-229), because I was then
favouring Aziru also as Assuruballit,
the Assyrian king of EA, who is supposed to have attacked Egypt:
According
to the relevant Egyptian documents, at least as I shall be interpreting them,
the revolution against the Amarna régime came from outside Egypt (“from without”).
It was led by Ay and Horemheb. The
northern ‘Syrians’ had come to Egypt in full force. There are several
historical documents that I think may recall this momentous event ….
(i)
One is the ‘Great Papyrus Harris’ which tells of an ‘Aziru’ (var. Irsu, Arsa), thought
to have been a Syrian, or perhaps a Hurrian. …. I have already followed Velikovsky
in identifying Hazael with EA’s Aziru; though
Velikovsky, owing to the quirks of his revision, could not himself make the
somewhat obvious (to my mind) connection between EA’s Aziru
and Aziru of the Great
Papyrus Harris. ….
(ii)
Another is the reference by Adad-nirari of Assyria to his ancestor Ashuruballit’s
[Assuruballit’s] having subdued Egypt. I have already argued, too, that
Ashuruballit was the ‘Assyrian’ face of our composite king, Hazael/Aziru.
These
two cases (i) & (ii) are, according to my revision, references to the same ‘Syrian’
(Assyrian)
subduer of Egypt … who held power there as Chancellor and king maker, and
finally, for a brief period, as pharaoh.
The
Papyrus Harris is a most important document for the period now under consideration,
the chaotic years immediately post-EA. But it is also important as an introduction
to the Ramessides … it being a retrospective glance back by so-called 20th
dynasty Ramessides on those turbulent times.
This
very well-preserved papyrus, Rohl has called “the funeral scroll of Ramesses
III” … the pharaoh famous for his land and sea war against the ‘Sea Peoples’,
including the Philistines. It recalls an unhappy era for Egypt, followed by the
overlordship there of a certain ‘Syrian’. And it commemorates Seti-nakht
(Setnakhte), the father of Ramses III, who had restored order to Egypt.
Let
us now consider the sequence of events as outlined in the papyrus, placing
these in a revised scenario, whilst linking them to evidence from Tutankhamun’s
‘Restoration Stela’ (Karnak), which document I believe to be also recalling the
same approximate era:
- The first phase recorded by the papyrus was, I suspect, the wretched era of neglect and inactivity, especially for northern Egypt, of Akhnaton’s reign, as also recalled by Tutankhamun in his ‘Restoration Stela’, subsequent to the latter’s return to Memphis. There may also be a reference here to the foreign influence (“outsiders”) …. I give both texts below, beginning with the Papyrus Harris (as quoted by Rohl):
The land of
Egypt was overthrown from without (i.e. by outsiders), and every (Egyptian) man
was denied his right. They (the people) had no leader for many years. The land
of Egypt was in the hands of chieftains and of rulers of towns. Each slew his neighbour,
great and small.
The
name of the ‘criminal’ and ‘heretic’ Akhnaton is completely absent in Manetho’s
king list. “According to the monuments”, wrote Courville … “Akhnaton was
followed by the brief reigns of Tutenkhamen [Tutankhamun], Sakere [Smenkhare]
and Eye [Ay]”. And: “Manetho
does not recognize any of these successors of Akhnaton …”.
Next,
I give the relevant part of Tutankhamun’s stele, describing what I believe to
have been the same wretched period (or its aftermath) as referred to in the Papyrus
Harris: ….
Now when his
majesty (Tutankhamun) appeared (i.e. was crowned) as king, the temples of the
gods and goddesses from Elephantine (Aswan) [down] to the marshes of the delta
[had been neglected and] fallen into ruin. Their shrines had become desolate
and had become mounds overgrown with [weeds]. Their sanctuaries were as if they
had never been. Their halls were a footpath. The land was in chaos and the gods
turned their backs upon this land. If [soldiers were] sent to Djahi (the
Levant) to extend the frontiers of Egypt, no success whatsoever came to them. …
This
document was perhaps inspired by Horemheb (e.g. Doherty calls it ‘Horemheb’s Manifesto’)
…. Horemheb having carved his name on it over Tutankhamun’s name.
- The Papyrus Harris narrative continues on to the next phase, though closely connected to the first I believe, with the introduction of one ‘Aziru [the] Syrian’, or Hurrian, during those “empty years” (when the throne was considered effectively to have been vacant, or usurped). This Aziru I am convinced can only be EA’s Aziru (biblical Hazael).
(I
have taken the liberty here of changing Rohl’s version of this person’s name, Arsa,
to the equally acceptable variation of it, Aziru):
This was then
followed by the empty years when [Aziru] – a certain Syrian – was with them as
leader. He set the whole land tributary before him. He united his companions
and plundered their (the Egyptians’) possessions. They made gods like men and
no offerings were presented in the temple.
LeFlem,
borrowing a phrase from Gardiner, has asked this question with reference to Aziru:
…. “Who was this so-called ‘Syrian condottiere’?”
LeFlem’s question by now I think emphatically answers itself: he was EA’s Aziru!
This was the foreign takeover of Egypt, an action of the Sinai
commission, to depose the irresponsible Akhnaton and his régime and to
re-establish ma'at (order, status
quo). Though Aziru’s involvement
was not necessarily so highly regarded by later Ramessides. Velikovsky has
discussed the change of situation and its aftermath as follows, again with
reference to ‘the Oedipus cycle’: ….
Whereas Akhnaton when on the
throne assumed the appellation ‘Who liveth in truth’, Ay, upon becoming king,
applied to himself the cognomen, ‘Who is doing right’. Such titles were rather
unusual among the kings of Egypt. Yet one can understand Ay’s selecting this
motto. Like Creon of the Oedipus cycle, Ay professed to be doing his duty to
the crown and the nation by deposing Akhnaton,
installing Akhnaton’s sons, and
then siding with the younger son in the brothers’ conflict.
It yet remains to be determined whether
Hazael = Aziru (EA) = Aziru (GPH) - all of which equations I
think are legitimate - can be extended to embrace, also, Assuruballit of
Assyria, as I had done in my thesis (and I am not suggesting that the similar
sounding Aziru and Assuru- name elements are otherwise connectible).
In the historical succession of Eriba-Adad
I and Assuruballit I we may yet again have the biblical succession of Ben-Hadad
I and Hazael as Syrian kings like “Hadadezer” at the time of King David, mobile kings who also ruled Assyria –
which “Hadadezer” did as Shamsi-Adad I.
Anyway, as I continued in my thesis:
In Assyrian
history, this appears to have been the situation of which Adad-nirari I (c. 1305-1274
BC, conventional dates) had cause to boast, namely that his great-grandfather, Ashuruballit,
had subdued Egypt. Harrak gives the relevant text as follows: ….
Adad-narari
[Adad-nirari] I had summarized in an inscription the achievements of his royal
predecessors. He said the following about Ashur-uballit:
(31)
mušekniš mât Musri museppih ellât (32) mât Šubârê rapalti murappiš misrî u kudurrî
Subduer of the
land Musru, disperser of the hordes of the extensive land of the Shubaru,
extender of borders and boundaries.
This, to which Adad-nirari refers, must
have been a major international event, one that assuredly needs to find its
proper location now in a revised history.
Part Twenty Eight: From Baalism to Atonism
(iii): New Dramatis Personae
“When the curtain again rises, it discloses what
appears to be a different play, acted
with different characters. The child king,
Tutankhamen, holds the centre of the
stage, married to Queen Ankhesenpaaten.
The clouds have lifted. The Sun (a
Theban Sun) beams on them, reflecting
their youthful innocence, charm and
happiness. In control in the wing are Ay,
now Regent, and Horemheb,
Generalissimo of
the Armies and Vice-Regent.”.
The effect
of the “Sinai Commission” would be that it ushered in an entirely new era in Syro-Palestine.
The long-reigning Hazael replaces Ben-Hadad I in Syria. Whilst the long-lasting
dynasty of Jehu replaces the disastrous House of Ahab in Israel. For a time in
Judah, after Jehu had slain its king, Ahaziah, the wicked Queen Athaliah would
rule in Jerusalem, until she herself becoming a victim also of the “Sinai
Commission”.
Not much
later, a similarly drastic change would occur in Egypt.
I wrote
about it in my university thesis:
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(Volume One, pp.
223-224), as follows:
One
can easily understand why a persecuting woman such as … Nefertiti - as would her
husband, Akhnaton - have accumulated, in the course of her public life, plenty
of enemies. ….
As
for Akhnaton himself, the idyll continued on for perhaps a few years longer
[after the death of Nefertiti], during which he ‘lived the life of Akhetaton’
with his new wife, Meritaten, generally considered to be referred to in EA 11
by Burnaburiash, as Shalmaiati.
But the pharaoh’s reign, too, was coming to an end. As we are
going to see, Akhnaton may just possibly have been deposed and blinded by the shaphat-police,
incarcerated, and eventually driven out; all in accordance with Velikovsky’s
Oedipus parallel. …. Mutilation was, as we
shall read below, part of the punishment inflicted by Horemheb upon criminals. ….
Velikovsky
had raised the possibility, in consultation with Dr. Federn, that Akhnaton might
have suffered blindness, and that Herodotus had actually intended Akhnaton in
his account of the blind king, Anysis. … “Herodotus’ King Anysis”, Velikovsky
wrote, “occupied the throne of Egypt towards the end of the dynasty which is
known as the Eighteenth; he was blind, he went into exile, and these are also
major circumstances in the life of Oedipus, king of Thebes”. Whilst
Egyptologists are generally less than impressed with the “sensational”
biographical parallels that Velikovsky had offered in his Oedipus
and Akhnaton … some of these parallels I myself find
compelling and quite apt.
In
fact I shall have occasion to call upon several more of these as I enter upon
an attempted reconstruction of the obscure period immediately post-EA. For
instance, given Akhnaton’s apparent co-regency with his eldest son, Smenkhare,
at the end of his reign, I think that Velikovsky’s use of the Oedipus legend as
follows is quite intriguing: ….
According to
Euripides’ version of the legend, Oedipus, after his removal from the throne,
lived a blind man in a secluded prison-palace in Thebes. But according to
Sophocles, Oedipus, having blinded himself when he found out the cruel truth, lived
for some time in his palace, a deposed king, and then, a blind and broken man,
was expelled from Thebes by his sons, actually during the reign of the elder
son. All
versions agree that he was blind.
As with the
annihilation of the House of Ahab, so too with the obliteration of all that pertained
to Akhnaton, the reformers of Syro-Palestine and those of Egypt would make a
thorough job of it.
According
to Collier ….
This happened
with startling suddenness in year 17 [of Akhnaton]. Although in the ‘City of
the Horizon’ [Akhetaton] the stage is in shadow, the actors can still be perceived.
Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt, is still alive; Nefertiti withdrawn to her palace …
and Tutankhamen and four of the queen’s remaining daughters are with
her. Suddenly,
before the play ended, the curtain falls. The spectator is left robbed
of the grand
finale, with nothing to guide … as to the fate of these great ones of Egypt.
Nothing at all. Gone are the king, the queen, and three of the princesses. Smenkhare
in the first flush of youth has died at Thebes.
When the
curtain again rises, it discloses what appears to be a different play, acted with
different characters. The child king, Tutankhamen, holds the centre of the stage,
married to Queen Ankhesenpaaten. The clouds have lifted. The Sun (a
Theban Sun)
beams on them, reflecting their youthful innocence, charm and happiness. In
control in the wing are Ay, now Regent, and Horemheb, Generalissimo of the
Armies and Vice-Regent. These two at least must have known the fate of
Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and Smenkhare, but left no records.
A silence so
profound, an obliteration so complete, hints at a
tragedy of classical
proportions.
Has
not Velikovsky told us that this ‘tragedy’ was later enshrined by the Greeks in
their tragedy of all tragedies, the legend of Oedipus Rex!
Now
was therefore the opportunity for the dramatic rise to power of Ay
… the Creon of the Greek tragedy. ….
Continued at next post
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Continued at next post
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