Category Archives: Assyriology

John Hobbins, Charles Halton [dead link], Chris Heard [dead link] and I have been discussing (offline) some other details regarding Jeremiah 39.3 in light of the Jursa discovery. John has the latest update out of the gang, here. These are just some preliminary notes on one aspect of that conversation that seem good to share. I’ll be sure to post any major adjustments to the below, as they occur.

I’ve been focusing on the word sāmgār ( MT סַמְגַּר ) which is generally agreed to represent the Babylonian word sinmagir, or, more properly, Sîn-magīr. The relationship suggests that the Hebrew should perhaps be repointed to סִמַּגִר, with the Akkadian /n/ elided into the doubled /m/ in Hebrew. The word is obviously a title of some sort belonging to the immediately preceding name Nergalsharezer, just as the other two Babylonian officials mentioned also bear titular epithets. (Their titles, I’m sure, will be taken up elsewhere.) The issue is that of the meaning of this title Sîn-magīr, not just here in Jeremiah 39.3, but even in Neo-Babylonian texts.

The epithet, when understood as such, has been taken as alternately either a place name (as is reflected in the NIV and NET translations of Jeremiah 39.3: Nergal-sharezer of Samgar) or simply as a title, “the Sîn-magīr official,” as is the preferred meaning in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Throughout the last century and up to the present, there has been no decisive conclusion made regarding the meaning, and so some scholars treat it as a title, while others treat it as a geographic name. Neither of these, however, quite conveys the proper meaning, as this name (for indeed, it is a personal name) has a very long history in Babylonia.

It seems to have first appeared as the name of King Sîn-magīr of the First Dynasty of Isin, who ruled 1827-1817 BC. The name perhaps means “(the moon god) Sin is noble.” Thereafter, Sîn-magīr was a very popular name during the Old Babylonian period, as we see from it popping up in numerous legal and economic texts of the period. In the late Kassite Dynasty and in the Second Dynasty of Isin (circa 1200-1125 BC), we find that there was a province called Bīt-Sîn-magīr, “House of Sîn-magīr,” perhaps originally named for a Kassite tribal chief bearing the name Sîn-magīr. During this period the governor of that province was called šakin Bīt-Sîn-magīr, all of which was preceded by the logographic determinative LÚ, pronounced awīl or amēl in Babylonian, meaning “man” in general or more specifically “official” in contexts like this. Over the course of the next several centuries, something very interesting appears to have happened with the name of this territory and this governor’s title. By the time it is mentioned again in the late Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, we see LÚ.DINGIR Sîn-magīr, that is, “Sîn-magīr man” or “Sîn-magīr official.” There is a mechanism to explain this.

Already in the Isin II period, the phrase šakin māti “governor of the land” was being reduced to simply šakin in the case of this governor and others. This may be because immediately following the māti would sometimes occur the KUR (read as māt, “land of”) logographic determinative right before the name of the region, and this duplication was considered dysphonic. Another interesting thing is that in the phrase Bīt-Sîn-magīr and in other such Bīt-PN phrases where the personal name is compound, the PN is not in the genitive, as it is in the case of non-compound examples: Bīt-Adini, Bīt-Zamāni, etc). This seems to be a rule, as it is consistent. In any case, the Bīt-, “House of…” drops from the phrase Bīt-Sîn-magīr during the course of the roughly five centuries between Isin II and the Neo-Babylonian period, for whatever reason, perhaps simply for hypocoristic reasons. The end result is that the remaining Sîn-magīr, which was always a personal name and was still understood as a personal name, does not appear to bear geographic determinatives, though perhaps future discoveries will show these to us. We also now find the title of the ruler of this province or territory now being simply LÚ.DINGIR Sîn-magīr, “the Sîn-magīr man” or “the Sîn-magīr official.”

Recognizing Sîn-magīr as a hypocorism, or familiar nickname, for Bīt-Sîn-magīr makes this title much more clear. In support of this particular understanding is a text often referred to as Nebuchadnezzar’s Hofkalender, a clay prism found in the Etemenanki, the temple of Marduk at Babylon. This text dates to Nebuchadnezzar’s seventh year, 598 BC, and give a list of his chief court officials, and also of the “chiefs of the land of Akkad,” first among whom is listed I.DINGIR Nergal-šar-uṣur LÚ.DINGIR Sîn-magīr, that is, Nergal-šar-uṣur the Sîn-magīr official, followed by a list of governors of all the other provinces of Akkad. The proper connotation of “the Sîn-magīr official,” therefore, judging from the above, appears to be “the governor of (Bīt-)Sîn-magīr.” This same individual appears in Jermiah 39.3 as “Nergalsharezer of Samgar,” and is often referred to in English as Neriglissar, the form of his name found in the epitomes of Berossus. He was married to the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, and was the instigator of a successful coup which ended the reign and life of Amel-Marduk, and brought Neriglissar to the throne.

In summary, then, Sîn-magīr is a personal name hypocoristically standing for the fuller geographic name Bīt-Sîn-magīr, which had included that personal name. By the Neo-Babylonian period, the traditional title of the governor of this territory had also shortened to simply awīl Sîn-magīr, “man of Sîn-magīr.” I would thereefore suggest that the clearest ranslation of this phrase into English would be “governor of Sîn-magīr.”

Thanks especially to Charles for prodding me to express all this better, and his patience.

In the first installment dealing with the rulers of Aram-Damascus, I summarized the Biblical information. This one will present a summary of the mention of these rulers in Assyrian texts. It should be noted that information from the Assyrian texts was already secondarily involved in that is has played a major part in the dating of the rulers of Israel and Judah. This emphasizes the importance of comparitive studies in trying to reconstruct events of the distant past, particularly when the evidence is scattershot between different cultures. When such a thing as a simple list of kings of Damascus is so difficult to reconstruct between the surviving data from three separate, though closely interacting, cultures, we have to recognize that we need to use all of the sources which are available, evaluate them properly, and do the best possible with them in synthesis as we can at present. More information may show up in the future to clarify the issue, and so we should always be willing to adjust conclusions based upon the available data. But the fragmentary nature of the remnants of the past should never obviate an attempt to gain meaning from them simply because they are deemed insufficient in isolation.

So, here is a summary of the mention of the kings of Aram-Damascus in the Assyrian texts:
853/2 BC: Shalmaneser III, year six: Battle of Qarqar: Adad-idri of Aram-Damascus (used for Ša-Imērišu throughout the below), Irhulenu of Hamath, Ahab the Israelite (Sir’alaya), and troops from Byblos, Egypt, Irqanatu, Arvad, Usanatu, Šianu, Arabia, and Ammon were defeated.
849/8 BC: Shalmaneser III, year ten: Adad-idri of Aram-Damascus, Irhulenu of Hamath, and twelve allies from the seashoare were defeated in battle.
848/7 BC: Shalmaneser III, year eleven: Adad-idri of Aram-Damascus, Irhulenu of Hamath, and twelve allies from the seashoare were defeated in battle.
845/4 BC: Shalmaneser III, year fourteen: Adad-idri of Aram-Damascus, Irhulenu of Hamath, and twelve allies from the seashoare were defeated in battle.
841/0 BC: Shalmaneser III, year eighteen: Haza’ilu of Aram-Damascus mustered an extensive army and fortified Mount Senir (Hermon). He was defeated, escaping to Damascus, where Shalmaneser cut down the gardens (or orchards) and destroyed numerous surrounding cities in the area. He then went to Mount Ba’alira’asi (the cape of Mount Carmel?) and received tribute from the people of Tyre and Sidon and from Jehu of Israel (Bīt-Humrî “the House of Omri”). Apparently not too long before the above engagement between Shalmaneser and Haza’ilu, “Adad-idri passed away and Haza’ilu, son of a nobody, took the throne” (RIMA3. A.0.102.40: i 25).
838/7 BC: Shalmaneser III, year twenty-one: Offensive campaign by Shalmaneser, conquering numerous cities of Haza’ilu.
806/5 BC: Adad-narari III, year five: Marched to Damascus and besieged Mari’ in it, who capitulates, paying much and allowing the choice of fineries from his palace. Received tribute from Mari’ of Aram-Damascus, and Joash the Samarian, and the people of Tyre and Sidon.
773/2 BC: Shalmaneser V, year ten: Field marshal (tartanu) Šamšī-ilu marched to Damascus, receiving from Hadiānu of Aram-Damascus much tribute, including his daughter and her dowry, and much property from the palace. Though this campaign is not dated in the inscription itself, the limmu lists include this for 773/2: “In the eponym year of Mannuki-Adad of the city Šallat: to the city of Damascus” (RIA II, p. 430, pace Sader, p. 240).
738/7 BC: Tiglath-Pileser III, year eight: Received tribute from numerous kings, including Rahianu of Aram-Damascus and Menahem of Samaria.
733/2 BC: Tiglath-Pileser III, year thirteen: Conquers Rahianu of Aram-Damascus, who apparently panicked in battle, destroying 591 cities in the 16 districts of “the wide land of the House of Hazael (Bīt-Haza’ili),” his kingdom, which extended to Gilead and Abel-[…] on the border of Israel (Bīt-Humrî “House of Omri”). These obviously refer to some of the transjordanian former territories of Israel, indicating that by this time, they were under the rule of Aram-Damascus. In Israel (Bīt-Humrî “House of Omri”) TIglath-Pileser exiles “all of its people,” to Assyria, apparently annexing all of the territory of Israel except the district immediately around the city Samaria (for the present!). He or they killed (conjectured either [a]-du-[uk-ma] or [i]-du-[ku-ma] for […]-du-[x1]-[x2], see Tadmor, p. 141, note to line 17′) Peqah. Installs Hoshea as king in Samaria. (The above is from Tadmor, Summary Inscription 4, lines 6′-7′ and 15′-17′ and Summary Inscription 9, lines 3-4 and 9-11; both are fragmentary, but similar enough that each can be used to help reconstruct the majority of the other.)

Something very interesting to note is that the Assyrians, in their predilection for the term “māt Ša-Imērišu,” “Land of His Donkeys” for the kingdom of Aram-Damascus, never referred to it before Haza’ilu/Hazael in one of the “House of…” forms, as Israel is often referred to as Bīt-Humrî, “House of Omri,” particularly “House of Hadad.” Relatedly, the kings of Aram-Damascus are never referred to in the Assyrian documents, as in the Bible they are repeatedly, as “Son of Hadad.” I suspect that the reason for this is the Assyrians finding it sacrilegious or taboo to some extent for the dynasts of Aram-Damascus to claim to be the sons of the storm god, or perhaps they found it simply audacious. However, this was perhaps a misconstrual on the Assyrians’ part, for the “Hadad” element in the Aramaic Bir-Hadad and Hebrew Ben-Hadad is more likely a hypocoristic form of the original dynastic founder’s name, Hadad-Razon, as I mentioned in the last installment, and thus only secondarily connoting the divinity. In any case, Aram-Damascus is eventually referred to as “Bīt-Haza’ili” by Tiglath-Pileser (Tadmor, Summary Inscription 4, line 7′, and Summary Inscription 9, line 3). This is understandable, as Haza’ilu/Hazael was known to have founded a new dynasty in the days of Shalmaneser III (see above under 841/0 BC).

So we have the following kings attested in the following years in Assyrian texts:
Adad-idri 853-844, Ahab of Israel 853-2, death of Adad-idri prior to 841
Haza’ilu 841-837 (or to 805), Jehu of Israel 841-0
Mari’ (if not Haza’ilu) 806-5, Joash of Israel 806-5
Hadianu 773-2
Rahianu 738-732, dies 733-2; Menahem of Israel 738-7, Pekah of Israel dead in 733-2, Hoshea of Israel begins rule in 733-2

I’ve included the various mentions of the Israelite kings in the Assyrian records alongside the Damascene kings in order to show that the synchronisms between Hebrew kings and Damascene kings indicated by the 1-2 Kings texts in the Bible are also in accord with the Assyrian information. For example, Rezin (Rahianu in the Assyrian texts) is not wrongly placed in the time of Ahab by the Biblical writers. The two sets of information together permit a reconstruction of the chronology of these Damascene kings, with the Assyrian data providing necessary chronological exactitude, and the Hebrew texts playing a secondary role in that, as dating the kings of Israel in this period is also, to a large extent, dependent upon Assyrian synchronisms. It’s a system of chronological checks and balances, which should prevent both wild excesses and require attention to details in reconstruction.

The next installment will present a synthesis of the Biblical and Assyrian information, to reconstruct a plausible chronology for the kings of Aram-Damascus, give a brief nod to the Aramaic information available on these kings, and I’ll be showing a couple of other Damascene king-lists as well, for comparison’s sake, and explain why I think they’re right or wrong.

Sources:
RIMA3: A. Kirk Grayson. Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC II (858-745 BC). The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia Assyrian Periods Volume 3. University of Toronto Press, 1996.
Tadmor: Hayim Tadmor. The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III King of Assyria. Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994.
Sader: Hélène Sader. Les États Araméens de Syrie: depuis leur Fondation jusqu’à leur Transformation en Provinces Assyriennes. Beiruter Texte und Studien 36. Beirut, 1987.

In my second campaign, I marched quickly against Babylon which I was set upon conquering. Like the onset of a storm I swept, (and) like a fog I enveloped it. I laid seige to that city; with mines and siege engines, I personally took it—the spoil of his mighty men, small and great. I left no one. I filled the city squares with their corpses. Shuzubu, king of Babylon, together with his family and his [ ], I brought alive to my land. I handed out the wealth of that city—silver, gold, precious stones, property and goods—to my people and they made it their own. My men took the (images of the) gods who dwell there and smashed them. They took their property and their wealth. Adad and Shala, the gods of Ekallate, which Marduk-nadin-ahhe, king of Babylon had taken and carried off to Babylon during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser (I), King of Assyria, I brought out of Babylon and returned them to their place in Ekallate.

I destroyed and tore down and burned with fire the city (and) it houses, from its foundations to its parapets. I tore out the inner and outer walls, temples, the ziggurat of brick and earth, as many as there were, and threw them into the Arahu river. I dug canals through the city and flooded its place with water, destroying the structure of its foundation. I made its devastation greater than that of “the Flood.” So that in future days, the site of that city, its temples and its gods, would not be identifiable, I completely destroyed it with water and annihilated it like inundated territory. (text: Hallo, COS 2.119E)

Sennacherib’s destruction of Babylon is dated to 689 BC. “Shuzubu” is Mushezib-Marduk from the southwestern Aramean/Chaldean tribal area Bīt-Dakkuri, king of Babylon from 693, and one of several usurpers in those troubled years. Taking a captive ruler and family alive back to Assyria was not necessarily a good thing. Earlier Assyrian kings did the same, with dire results: with an audience of Assyrians, the captive king’s family was slaughtered before his eyes, followed by his being skinned alive. Tiglath-Pileser I reigned 1115-1077, and Marduk-nadin-ahhe 1098-1081. Ekallate was a city near Asshur. The recovery of the images of these two gods, 400 years after their capture and removal, displays the length of historical memory possible in ancient Near Eastern cultures.

When Sennacherib was assassinated in 681, the new Assyrian king, his son Esarhaddon, almost immediately set about rebuilding Babylon, at great expense. Not only the Babylonians had been scandalized by the destruction of such an ancient city, recognized and respected especially as the home to Marduk, but many Assyrians were also quite distressed by it, most especially by its apparent consequences. Sennacherib’s assassination was attributed to this perceived act of impiety. The destruction was noted throughout the known world, even among the Hebrews. The city lay in ruins for only 11 years. Esarhaddon began its rebuilding, but Babylon reached its most glorious condition under Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562). Babylon never again experienced such destruction. Though it was occupied, attacked, and looted numerous times, it was never subjected to an obliteration like that of Sennacherib. While most of today’s ancient Babylon is in ruins, a local population has continued there since ancient times, as still in the modern village Hillah, itself partially situated in the residential district of the ancient Babylon.

I’ve completed going through Andreas Fuchs’ Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad for information relevant to the Bīt-PN study in progress. The information has been added to my pdf file of the raw data, here. I’ve also taken a quick first stab at organizing the data in another file, here. The important thing to notice is that there is a trend in usage in the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions in the case of many of the newer Aramaean states in which the personal name of the geographic name “Bīt-PN” is explicitly (through the use of determinatives) or implicitly (through mention as a progenitor) personal, showing the understanding of the Assyrians that a real person, in many cases, lay behind the name. As noted in Hélène Sader’s Les États Araméens de Syrie: depuis leur Fondation jusqu’à leur Transformation en Provinces Assyriennes (Beiruter Texte und Studien 36. Beirut, 1987), these states were formed early in the first millennium by various personages for which a large number of territories were named, some examples of which being Bīt-Abdadāni, Bīt-Adini, and Bīt-Agūsi. The Assyrians, in referring to later rulers of these territories, typically recognized these rulers as descendants of the founders, and explicitly referred to them not as “king of Bīt-PN” but as “son of PN.” The geographic name thus also doubles in this kind of usage as a dynastic name: the place Bīt-Adini, the House of Adinu, is ruled by the descndants of Adinu, his ‘house’, and a ruler is referred to as “son of Adinu.” Whether these rulers were actually descended from the eponymous founders of their kingdoms is unknown, but the Assyrian scribes, presumably based upon Aramaean practice, treated the situation thus. The Assyrians themselves maintained a longstanding tradition of having their own single dynasty of rulers (however fictional this was), which may have influenced their understanding of other states for which they were not completely aware of the internal workings.

In any case, my further investigation into this subject will entail: looking into the origins of these “new” Aramaean states themselves; their relation to the ahlamu Aramaeans of the second (and third?) millennium; Aramaean influence on Neo-Assyrian Akkadian in some of the names of these states and others (it looks like in some cases, the Aramaic emphatic suffix is used); and last, but not least, the connection of all this to the Tel Dan Stela and the usage there of BYTDWD and its links to the phrase “House of David” and its equivalents in the Old Testament.

Some earlier postings here dealing with this subject are:
“House of David” and BYTDWD
Further on “House of …” usage
Further on Bīt-PN usage
Corrections/additions

Joe Cathey has also been keeping track of various postings on the Tel Dan BYTDWD subject, one of his summaries of which is Tel Dan – A Response. Look through the available links there (Jim West’s blog no longer exists, unfortunately, so those posts are all gone).

There is an interesting passage in Amos 5.26-27 (NRSV):

You shall take up Sakkuth your king,
and Kaiwan your star-god, your images,
which you made for yourselves;
therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus,
says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.

We know of the city Dēr as the home of the deity Sakkud from various texts, including this one, describing the conquering of Dēr in about 813 BC by Šamšī-Adad V (RIMA 3, A.0.103.2: iii.37’b-48′):

I marched to Dēr. Dēr, the great city whose foundations are as firm as bedrock, (40′) …, I surrounded (and) captured that city. [I carried off] the deities Anu-rabû, Nannai, Šarrat-Dēr, Mār-bīti-ša-pān-bīti, Mār-bīti-ša-birīt-nāri, Burruqu, (45′), Gula, Urkītu, Šukāniia, Nēr-e-tagmil, Sakkud of the city Bubê—the gods who dwell in Dēr—together with their property, […]

In the Dictionary of Deities and Demons, we read about, s.v. Sakkuth:

The problem of why the Israelites adopted an obscure god like Sakkut remains unsolved. The Israelites may have borrowed the worship of this planet from the Assyrians. In this case there are two options. (1) The Israelites took over the worship before the fall of Samaria. Then Amos 5:26 can be interpreted as a prophetic accusation for not having served Yahweh (e.g. BARSTAD 1984). (2) Amos 5:26 refers to one of the deities mentioned in 2 Kgs 17:28-30 who were brought to the Samaritan area by Assyrian settlers. This view implies that the text is a later insertion by a (deuteronomistic) redactor who confused situations before and after the conquest of the capital (H. W. WOLFF, Dodekapropheton 2. Joel und Amos [BKAT XIV/2; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1969] 310-311).

There are, however, other options, taking into account both the Assyrian and Hebrew texts.

Notice this important piece of Assyrian information from Tiglath-Pileser III from accounts of his Eighth Campaign, 738 BC (Ann 13*:3-5, Tadmor, 67):

600 captives of the city of Amlate of the Damunu (tribe), 5,400 captives of Der | in the cities of Kunalia, […], Huzarra, Tae, Tarmanazi, Kulmadara, Hatatirra, Irgillu, | [cities] of the land of Unqi, I settled.

Elements in play here:
1.) Dēr, the home of Sakkud, was subject to Assyrians, first (?) subjugated by Samsi-Adad V, then being (largely? entirely?) depopulated by Tiglath-Pileser III in 738
2.) Exile of Israelites by Assyrians in 734-732 by Tiglath-Pileser III
3.) Settlment of Israelites in “cities of the Medes” is noted in 2 Kings 17.6, which category undoubtedly applies to Dēr
4.) Apparent mention by Amos 5.26 of Israelites worshipping Sakkud/Sakkuth

There are two, I feel more likely, conclusions possible here than those mentioned by DDD. (1) Some Israelites were settled in Dēr by Tiglath-Pileser III, where they turned to worshipping local deities, including Sakkud. In their contact with the homeland, they transferred images of their new god back to Samaria before its fall, and this worship of Sakkud is what Amos 5.26 refers to. (2) Amos 5.26 is a genuine prophecy dating prior to Tiglath-Pileser’s exile of the majority of Israel, a threat to unfair and unfaithful Israel of exile to the lands of Dēr (and other places). Knowledge that Dēr had fallen, was depopulated, and was a very likely settlement of any exiled Israelites did not require Divinely given foreknowledge (though such certainly wouldn’t hurt!). News of the Assyrians destroying yet another city and deporting its inhabitants must have been quite widespread, no doubt as intended by the Assyrians themselves as a kind of deterrent against further insurrections.

Of the two options, I find the second given here more likely, owing to the wider context of chapter 5 of Amos, especially including reference to Gligal (5.5) which would surely have been included in the exile of Gilead, and “house of Joseph” (5.6), which would seem to imply that the regions of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Benjamin were still considered intact. Relatedly, practical knowledge of Assyrian treatment of rebellious subjects is all that was necessary for anyone to propose Israelite deportees being resettled in Dēr, home of Sakkud.

Always falling back onto suggestions of interpolation is so passé, don’t you think? In this case, it is also completely unnecessary.

I’ve made some minor corrections, some additions, and done a little other editing on the bitpn.pdf file, which contains all examples of usage of the Bīt-PN(GN) phrase in Assyrian royal inscriptions from 1114-727 BC. I’m awaiting a copy of the Fuchs book of Sargon’s inscriptions still, but will add those when it arrives. I similarly await a copy of Hélène Sader’s Les états araméens de Syrie depuis leur fondation jusqu’à leur
transformation en provinces assyriennes, which sounds perfectly apposite. That and a handful more of articles will be enough to slap together a nice little article on the subject.

One thing I have done to the file is remove those exemplars which were completely reconstructed and are therefore not true exemplars. It serves only pedantry to include them in this case. Because of this and the additions of a few missed exemplars in the versions of the file resulting from my initial rush, the line numbers have changed for the examples. You should download the latest version at the link above.