Solomon
Solomon called Jedidiah, according to the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament and Hadiths, a fabulously wealthy and wise king of Israel who succeeded his father, King David. The conventional dates of Solomon's reign are circa 970 to 931 BCE given in alignment with the dates of David's reign, he is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, which would break apart into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah shortly after his death. Following the split, his patrilineal descendants ruled over Judah alone. According to the Talmud, Solomon is one of the 48 prophets. In the Quran, he is considered a major prophet, Muslims refer to him by the Arabic variant Sulayman, son of David; the Hebrew Bible credits him as the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem, beginning in the fourth year of his reign, using the vast wealth he and his father had accumulated. He dedicated the temple to the God of Israel, he is portrayed as great in wisdom and power beyond either of the previous kings of the country, but as a king who sinned.
His sins included idolatry, marrying foreign women and turning away from Yahweh, they led to the kingdom's being torn in two during the reign of his son Rehoboam. Solomon is the subject of many other references and legends, most notably in the 1st-century apocryphal work known as the Testament of Solomon. In the New Testament, he is portrayed as a teacher of wisdom excelled by Jesus, as arrayed in glory, but excelled by "the lilies of the field". In years, in non-biblical circles, Solomon came to be known as a magician and an exorcist, with numerous amulets and medallion seals dating from the Hellenistic period invoking his name; the life of Solomon is described in the second Book of Samuel, by 1 Chronicles and 1 Kings. His two names mean "peaceful" and "friend of God", both appropriate to the story of his rule; the conventional dates of Solomon's reign are derived from biblical chronology and are set from c. 970 to 931 BCE. Regarding the Davidic dynasty, to which King Solomon belongs, its chronology can be checked against datable Babylonian and Assyrian records at a few points, these correspondences have allowed archaeologists to date its kings in a modern framework.
According to the most used chronology, based on that by Old Testament professor Edwin R. Thiele, the death of Solomon and the division of his kingdom would have occurred in the spring of 931 BCE. Solomon was born in Jerusalem, the second born child of David and his wife Bathsheba, widow of Uriah the Hittite; the first child, a son conceived adulterously during Uriah's lifetime, had died as a punishment on account of the death of Uriah by David's order. Solomon had three named full brothers born to Bathsheba: Nathan and Shobab, besides six known older half-brothers born of as many mothers; the biblical narrative shows that Solomon served as a peace offering between God and David, due to his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. In an effort to hide this sin, for example, he sent the woman's husband to battle, hoping that he would be killed there. After he died, David was able to marry his wife; as punishment, the first child, conceived during the adulterous relationship, died. Solomon was born.
It is this reason. Some historians cited that Nathan the Prophet brought up Solomon as his father was busy governing the realm; this could be attributed to the notion that the prophet held great influence over David because he knew of his adultery, considered a grievous offense under the Mosaic Law. It was only during Absalom's rebellion. According to the First Book of Kings, when David was old, "he could not get warm". "So they sought a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, found Abishag the Shunamite, brought her to the king. The young woman was beautiful, she was of service to the king and attended to him, but the king knew her not."While David was in this state, court factions were maneuvering for power. David's heir apparent, acted to have himself declared king, but was outmaneuvered by Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan, who convinced David to proclaim Solomon king according to his earlier promise, despite Solomon being younger than his brothers. Solomon, as instructed by David, began his reign with an extensive purge, including his father's chief general, among others, further consolidated his position by appointing friends throughout the administration, including in religious positions as well as in civic and military posts.
It is said. Solomon expanded his military strength the cavalry and chariot arms, he founded numerous colonies, some of which doubled as military outposts. Trade relationships were a focus of his administration. In particular he continued his father's profitable relationship with the Phoenician king Hiram I of Tyre. Solomon is considered the most wealthy of the Israelite kings named in the Bible. Solomon was the biblical king most famous for his wisdom. In 1 Kings he sacrificed to God, God appeared to him in a dream asking what Solomon wanted from God. Solomon asked for wisdom. Pleased, God answered Solomon's prayer, promising him great wisdom because he did
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa and on the east by the Levant. Although the sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is identified as a separate body of water. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was or desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years, the Messinian salinity crisis, before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, representing 0.7 % of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar-the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa- is only 14 km wide. In oceanography, it is sometimes called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere.
The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 m in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia, in the south by Africa, it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, is 4,000 km; the sea's average north-south length, from Croatia's southern shore to Libya, is 800 km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travellers of ancient times that allowed for trade and cultural exchange between emergent peoples of the region; the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. The countries surrounding the Mediterranean in clockwise order are Spain, Monaco, Slovenia, Croatia and Herzegovina, Albania, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri and Dhekelia have coastlines on the sea.
The Ancient Greeks called the Mediterranean ἡ θάλασσα or sometimes ἡ μεγάλη θάλασσα, ἡ ἡμέτερα θάλασσα, or ἡ θάλασσα ἡ καθ'ἡμᾶς. The Romans called it Mare Mare Internum and, starting with the Roman Empire, Mare Nostrum; the term Mare Mediterrāneum appears later: Solinus used it in the 3rd century, but the earliest extant witness to it is in the 6th century, in Isidore of Seville. It means'in the middle of land, inland' in Latin, a compound of medius, -āneus; the Latin word is a calque of Greek μεσόγειος, from μέσος and γήινος, from γῆ. The original meaning may have been'the sea in the middle of the earth', rather than'the sea enclosed by land'; the Carthaginians called it the "Syrian Sea". In ancient Syrian texts, Phoenician epics and in the Hebrew Bible, it was known as the "Great Sea" or as "The Sea". Another name was the "Sea of the Philistines", from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites. In Modern Hebrew, it is called HaYam HaTikhon'the Middle Sea'. In Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ'the Middle Sea'.
In Islamic and older Arabic literature, it was Baḥr al-Rūm'the Sea of the Romans' or'the Roman Sea'. At first, that name referred to only the Eastern Mediterranean, but it was extended to the whole Mediterranean. Other Arabic names were Baḥr al-šām'the Sea of Syria' and Baḥr al-Maghrib'the Sea of the West'. In Turkish, it is the Akdeniz'the White Sea'; the origin of the name is not clear, as it is not known in earlier Greek, Byzantine or Islamic sources. It may be to contrast with the Black Sea. In Persian, the name was translated as Baḥr-i Safīd, used in Ottoman Turkish, it is the origin of the colloquial Greek phrase Άσπρη Θάλασσα. Johann Knobloch claims that in Classical Antiquity, cultures in the Levant used colours to refer to the cardinal points: black referred to the north, yellow or blue to east, red to south, white to west; this would explain both the Turkish Akdeniz and the Arab nomenclature described above. Several ancient civilizations were located around the Mediterranean shores and were influenced by their proximity to the sea.
It provided routes for trade and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages. Due to the shared climate and access to the sea, c
Frank Moore Cross
Frank Moore Cross, Jr. was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 magnum opus Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, his work in Northwest Semitic epigraphy. Many of his essays on the latter topic have since been collected in Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook. Cross was the son of Frank Moore Cross, a long-time pastor of Ensley Highland Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. One of his uncles, the Rev. Laurance L. Cross, was Mayor of Berkeley, California from 1947 to 1955. Cross graduated from Ensley High School in 1938, he received a BA from Maryville College in 1942 and a BD from McCormick Theological Seminary, where he was awarded the Nettie F. McCormick Fellowship in Old Testament Studies, in 1946. Cross went on to study under William F. Albright, the founding father of Biblical Archaeology, at Johns Hopkins University, where he received a PhD in 1950, he received an MA at Harvard in 1958.
Cross was awarded a DPhil from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1984 and a DSc from the University of Lethbridge in 1990. From 1949–1950 Cross was a Junior Instructor in Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins University, he was subsequently an instructor in Biblical History at Wellesley College from 1950–1951, an instructor in Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary 1951–1953, an Associate Professor at the same institution from 1954-1957. Cross was appointed Associate Professor in Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School in 1957. One year he was appointed Harvard University's Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, the third oldest university chair in the United States, he would hold this position from 1958–1992 becoming Hancock Professor Emeritus. Cross was Curator of the Harvard Semitic Museum from 1958–1961 and Director of the Museum from 1974–1987. Cross was a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Member of the American Philosophical Society.
During his tenure at Harvard, Cross supervised more than a hundred dissertations, with the result that many of today's senior scholars in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern studies are his former students. Among the most prominent of these are Emanuel Tov, John J. Collins, Jo Ann Hackett, John Huehnergard, William G. Dever, P. Kyle McCarter, Jr. Peter Machinist, Lawrence Stager, Bruce Waltke, Richard Elliott Friedman, Hector Avalos, Mark S. Smith. Beginning June 1953, Cross was a member of the international committee responsible for editing the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered at Qumran. Cross first heard of the scrolls in late 1948 while a student at Johns Hopkins University, when he was shown pictures of the Isaiah Scroll by Albright, who would nominate Cross to the Scrolls editorial team. On joining the team he was allocated 61 Biblical manuscripts from Cave 4 at Qumran to prepare for publication; this involved cleaning the manuscripts in the Palestine Archaeological Museum where they were being worked on in the'Scrollery'.
As with several others on the team, Cross was financially supported between 1954 and 1960 by a John D Rockefeller subsidy. Cross was one of only two American scholars on the scroll-publication team, he has since been recognized as a founder of Qumran studies, his general introduction to the topic is The Ancient Library of Qumran, the third edition of, published in 1995. Cross died in New York in October 2012 after a long illness, he was 91. In 1980, Cross received the Percia Schimmel Prize in Archaeology from the Israel Museum and the William Foxwell Albright Award in Biblical Scholarship. In 1991 he was awarded the Medalla de Honor de la Universidad Complutense, the Gratz College Centennial Award in 1998 and a Lifetime Award in Textual Studies from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture in 2004. Cross was an Honorary Member of the Israel Exploration Society and the British Society for Old Testament Study, he was a trustee of the American Schools of Oriental Research, an Honorary Trustee from 1991.
Cross, Frank Moore. Early Hebrew Orthograph: a study of the epigraphic evidence. American Oriental Series. 36. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society / Johns Hopkins University. OCLC 1179572. Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: essays in the history of the religion of Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-09175-7. OCLC 671934. ———. Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry. Dissertation series. 21. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press for the Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN 978-0-891-30014-4. OCLC 1622259. ———. Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-74360-1. OCLC 1339664. ———. Magnalia Dei, the Mighty Acts of God: essays on the Bible and archaeology in memory of G. Ernest Wright. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-05257-3. OCLC 1975958. ———, ed.. Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Occasional publications - Zion Research Foundation. Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research.
ISBN 978-0-897-57503-4. OCLC 4775395. ———. The Ancient Library of Qumran. Haskell lecture
Dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family in the context of a feudal or monarchical system, but sometimes appearing in elective republics. Alternative terms for "dynasty" may include "family" and "clan", among others; the longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, otherwise known as the Yamato dynasty, whose reign is traditionally dated to 660 BC. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a "noble house", which may be styled as "royal", "princely", "ducal", "comital" etc. depending upon the chief or present title borne by its members. Historians periodize the histories of numerous nations and civilizations, such as Ancient Egypt and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties; as such, the term "dynasty" may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned, to describe events and artifacts of that period. The word "dynasty" itself is dropped from such adjectival references; until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty: that is, to expand the wealth and power of his family members.
Prior to the 20th century, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. In nations where it was permitted, succession through a daughter established a new dynasty in her husband's ruling house; this has changed in some places in Europe, where succession law and convention have maintained dynasties de jure through a female. For instance, the House of Windsor will be maintained through the children of Queen Elizabeth II, as it did with the monarchy of the Netherlands, whose dynasty remained the House of Orange-Nassau through three successive queens regnant; the earliest such example among major European monarchies was in the Russian Empire in the 18th century, where the name of the House of Romanov was maintained through Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna. In Limpopo Province of South Africa, Balobedu determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mother's dynasty when coming into her inheritance.
Less a monarchy has alternated or been rotated, in a multi-dynastic system – that is, the most senior living members of parallel dynasties, at any point in time, constitute the line of succession. Not all feudal states or monarchies were/are ruled by dynasties. Throughout history, there were monarchs. Dynasties ruling subnational monarchies do not possess sovereign rights; the word "dynasty" is sometimes used informally for people who are not rulers but are, for example, members of a family with influence and power in other areas, such as a series of successive owners of a major company. It is extended to unrelated people, such as major poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team; the word "dynasty" derives from Latin dynastia, which comes from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to "power", "dominion", "rule" itself. It was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, "power" or "ability", from dýnamai, "to be able". A ruler from a dynasty is sometimes referred to as a "dynast", but this term is used to describe any member of a reigning family who retains a right to succeed to a throne.
For example, King Edward VIII ceased to be a dynast of the House of Windsor following his abdication. In historical and monarchist references to reigning families, a "dynast" is a family member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchy's rules still in force. For example, after the 1914 assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg, their son Duke Maximilian was bypassed for the Austro-Hungarian throne because he was not a Habsburg dynast. Since the abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Duke Maximilian and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position; the term "dynast" is sometimes used only to refer to agnatic descendants of a realm's monarchs, sometimes to include those who hold succession rights through cognatic royal descent. The term can therefore describe distinct sets of people. For example, David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, a nephew of Queen Elizabeth II through her sister Princess Margaret, is in the line of succession to the British crown.
On the other hand, the German aristocrat Prince Ernst August of Hanover, a male-line descendant of King George III of the United Kingdom, possesses no legal British name, titles or styles. He was born in the line of succession to the British throne and was bound by Britain's Royal Marriages Act 1772 until it was repealed when the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 took effect on 26 March 2015. Thus, he requested and obtained formal permission from Queen Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco in 1999. Yet, a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time, stipulating that dynasts who
Nora Stone
The Nora Stone or Nora Inscription is an ancient inscription found at Nora on the south coast of Sardinia in 1773. Though its precise finding place has been forgotten, it has been dated by palaeographic methods to the late 9th century to early 8th century BCE and is still considered the oldest Phoenician inscription yet found in Sardinia, it is conserved at Cagliari. A possible reference to Pygmalion of Tyre is inferred by an interpretation of the fragmentary inscription, made by Frank Moore Cross as follows: In this rendering, Cross has restored the missing top of the tablet based on the content of the rest of the inscription, as referring to a battle, fought and won. Alternatively, "the text honours a god, most in thanks for the traveller's safe arrival after a storm", observes Robin Lane Fox. According to Cross the stone has been erected by a general, son of Shubna, victor against the Sardinians at the site of TRSS Tarshish. Cross conjectures that Tarshish here "is most understood as the name of a refinery town in Sardinia Nora or an ancient site nearby."
He presents evidence that the name pmy in the last line is a shortened form of the name of Shubna's king, containing only the divine name, a method of shortening “not rare in Phoenician and related Canaanite dialects.” Since there was only one king of Tyre with this hypocoristicon in the 9th century BCE, Cross restores the name to pmytn or p‘mytn, rendered in the Greek tradition as Pygmalion. Cross's interpretation of the Nora Stone provides additional evidence that in the late 9th century BCE, Tyre was involved in colonizing the western Mediterranean, lending credence to the establishment of a colony in Carthage in that time frame. Pygmalion, the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton figures in the founding legend of Paphos in Cyprus, Robin Lane Fox more cautiously finds a Cypriote association possible: "The traveller may have had links with Cyprus, suggesting the Cypriot contacts had guided Phoenicians to this island."This hypothesis is not however universally accepted and has been rejected by other scholars who have translated it differently
Kition
Kition known by its Latin name Citium, was a city-kingdom on the southern coast of Cyprus. It was established in the 13th century BC, its most famous, only known, resident was Zeno of Citium, born c. 334 BC in Citium and founder of the Stoic school of philosophy which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. Kathian in an Egyptian inscription dating to the period of Pharaoh Ramses III found in the temple of Medinet Habu among the names of other Cypriot cities is considered to refer to Kition. Josephus identifies the town with the name Kittim, used by the Hebrews to designate all of Cyprus and lands further west; the city-kingdom was established in the 13th century BC. Mycenaeans first settled in the area for the purpose of the exploitation of copper, but the settlement faded two centuries as a result of constant disarray and anxiety of the time. New cultural elements appearing between 1200 BC and 1000 BC are indications of significant political changes after the arrival of the Achaeans, the first Greek colonists of Kition.
Early in the 12th century BC the town was rebuilt on a larger scale, its mudbrick city wall was replaced by a cyclopean wall. Around 1000 BC, the religious part of the city was abandoned, although life seems to have continued in other areas as indicated by finds in tombs. Literary evidence suggests an early Phoenician presence at Kition, under Tyrian rule at the beginning of the 10th century BC; some Phoenician merchants who were believed to come from Tyre colonized the area and expanded the political influence of Kition. After c. 850 BC the sanctuaries were rebuilt and reused by the Phoenicians." The kingdom was under Egyptian domination from 570 to 545 BC. Persia ruled Cyprus from 545 BC. Kings of the city are referred to by name from 500 BC—in Phoenician texts and as inscriptions on coins. Marguerite Yon claims that literary texts and inscriptions suggest that by the Classical period Kition was one of the principal local powers, along with its neighbour Salamis. In 499 BC Cypriot kingdoms joined Ionia's revolt against Persia.
Persian rule of Cyprus ended in 332 BC. Ptolemy I conquered Cyprus in 312 BC and killed Poumyathon, the Phoenician king of Kition, burned the temples. Shortly afterwards the Cypriot city-kingdoms were dissolved and the Phoenician dynasty of Kition was abolished. Following these events the area lost its religious character. However, a trading colony from Kition established at Piraeus had prospered to the point that, in 233 BC they requested and received permission for the construction of a temple dedicated to Astarte". Cyprus was annexed by Rome in 58 BC. Strong earthquakes hit the city in 76 AD and the year after, but the city seems to have been prosperous during Roman times. A curator civitatis, or financial administrator of the city, was sent to Kition from Rome during the rule of Septimius Severus. Earthquakes of 322 and 342 AD "caused the destruction not only of Kition but of Salamis and Pafos". Kition was first systematically excavated by the Swedish Cyprus Archaeological Expedition in 1929.
Archaeology is continuing near the Kathari site. In 2016 a rare discovery of a magnificent 20m-long Roman mosaic in a baths building was made, showing the labours of Hercules, it was found under Kyriakou Matsi Street when clearing a sewer and is expected to be transferred to the museum. This site is located around 500 metres north of the Bamboula site and sometimes referred to as "Kition Area II"; the Department of Antiquities started excavating in 1959 continuing until 1981. Excavations have revealed part of a defensive wall, dating from the 13th century BC and remains of five temples including cyclopean walls; the largest temple's dimensions was built using ashlar blocks. Temple was rebuilt—around 1200 BC. Temple has Late Bronze Age graffiti of ships on the façade of the south wall; the site is located around 50 metres north of the Larnaca Museum. In 1845 the Sargon Stele was found together with a gilded silver plakette now in the Louvre. A British Expedition first excavated the site in 1913. A French team from the University of Lyon started excavating in 1976.
When traces of settlement dating to the tenth century BC were found along ramparts next to the port at Bamboula. The site consists of a sanctuary of Astarte and a sanctuary of Melkart; the earliest sanctuary was built in the 9th century BC.1987 saw the discovery of the Phoenician harbour for warships built in the 5th century BC. In its final stage, it consisted of ship sheds, 6 metres wide and about 38 to 39 meters long, with shipways on which triremes were pulled up to dry under tiled roofs Five built tombs—hypogeum is another name for this type of tombs—have been discovered at Kition—the Vangelis Tomb, Godham's Tomb, the Phaneromeni-, the Turabi Tekke tomb. Two important stele with inscriptions in the Phoenician script were found in the Turabi Tekke cemetery in the late nineteenth century, they are now in the British Museum's collection. Kition Area I, "close to the west wall of the Pre-Phoenician period, seems to have been a residential area" according to architectural and moveable finds.
"Kition Area III" and "-IV" are names of other archaeological sites at Kition. The "mound gate" in the city wall was located in the vicinity northwest of the Phaneromeni Tomb. There was an acropolis. Sophocles Hadjisavvas has said that "the necropolis of Kition is the most extensively investigated burial ground on the island of Cyprus". "The necropolis ex
Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III was king of Assyria, son of the previous ruler, Ashurnasirpal II. His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations of Mesopotamia and Syria, as well as Kizzuwadna and Urartu, his armies penetrated to the Taurus Mountains. It is in the annals of Shalmaneser III from the 850s BC that the Arabs and Chaldeans first appear in recorded history. In 853 BC, a coalition was formed by 11 states by Hadadezer the Aramean king of Damascus, Irhuleni king of Hamath, Ahab king of Israel, Gindibu king of the Arabs, some other rulers who fought the Assyrian king at the Battle of Qarqar; the result of the battle was not decisive, Shalmaneser III had to fight his enemies several times again in the coming years, which resulted in the occupation of The Levant, Arabia by the Assyrian empire. In 841 BC, Shalmaneser campaigned against Hadadezer's successor Hazael, forcing him to take refuge within the walls of his capital. While Shalmaneser was unable to capture Damascus, he devastated its territory, Jehu of Israel, together with the Phoenician cities, prudently sent tribute to him in 841 BC.
Babylonia had been conquered, including the areas occupied by migrant Chaldaean and Aramean tribes, the Babylonian king had been put to death. In 836 BC, Shalmaneser sent an expedition against the Tibareni, followed by one against Cappadocia, in 832 BC came another campaign against Urartu. In the following year, age required the king to hand over the command of his armies to the Tartan Dayyan-Assur, six years Nineveh and other cities revolted against him under his rebel son Assur-danin-pal. Civil war continued for two years. Shalmaneser died soon afterwards. Despite the rebellion in his reign, Shalmanesar had proven capable of expanding the frontiers of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, stabilising its hold over the Khabur and Mountainous frontier region of the Zagros, contested with Urartu, his reign saw the first appearance in history of the camel-mounted Arabs. His reign is significant to Biblical studies because two of his monuments name rulers from Hebrew Bible; the Black Obelisk names Jehu son of Omri, the Kurkh Monolith names king Ahab, in reference to the Battle of Qarqar.
He had built a palace at Kalhu, left several editions of the royal annals recording his military campaigns, the last of, engraved on the Black Obelisk from Calah. The Black Obelisk is a significant artifact from his reign, it is bas-relief sculpture from Nimrud, in northern Iraq. It is the most complete Assyrian obelisk yet discovered, is significant because it displays the earliest ancient depiction of an Israelite. On the top and the bottom of the reliefs there is a long cuneiform inscription recording the annals of Shalmaneser III, it lists the military campaigns which the king and his commander-in-chief headed every year, until the thirty-first year of reign. Some features might suggest that the work had been commissioned by the commander-in-chief, Dayyan-Ashur; the second register from the top includes the earliest surviving picture of an Israelite: the Biblical Jehu, king of Israel. Jehu severed Israel's alliances with Phoenicia and Judah, became subject to Assyria, it describes how Jehu brought or sent his tribute in or around 841 BC.
The caption above the scene, written in Assyrian cuneiform, can be translated: "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 spears." It was erected as a public monument in 825 BC at a time of civil war. It was discovered by archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1846. List of artifacts significant to the Bible Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III Short chronology timeline This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Shalmaneser". Encyclopædia Britannica. 24. Cambridge University Press. Media related to Shalmaneser III at Wikimedia Commons Gates of Shalmanser Assurnasirpal. Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shalmaneser King of Assyria Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III Babylonian and Assyrian Literature. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III
