Category Archives: Assyriology

I’ve updated my notes file with information from the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III. I’ve also altered the format, hopefully making it easier for reading. And though I will continue to collect evidence and present analyses here soon, and most likely eventually publish the final result, I thought a preliminary summary was in order.

The evidence is conclusive. The Assyrians, drawing upon a wider Aramean form of usage (which on occasion even displays in GNs bearing an Aramaic emphatic suffix) believed that the vast majority of the Bīt-PN territories were both named after individuals, former rulers of those territories, and that the current rulers were considered direct descendants of the eponymous ruler. A very strong possibility for the source of the Assyrian belief that each of these territories was still ruled by the same dynasty is the unusual dynastic situation in Assyrian history: one dynasty from beginning to end. It is thus possible that the default assumption on the part of the Assyrian scribes is that other kingdoms were also single, long-lasting dynasties. Unfortunately, there are no Assyrian scribes around to ask! The evidence is clear, however, whatever the reason. The Assyrians believed that the various rulers were descended from those rulers for whom the territories were named in Aramean, and thus Assyrian practice. There is also a definite relationship seen between the territory ruled and the dynastic association. One ruler (Ahunu of Bīt-Adini) loses his dynastic association in the inscriptions at the point that he abandons his territory. Thus, this naming convention needs to be understood in a more complex light. It bears an unusual, intertwined connotation in reference to both territory and dynasty.

Regarding the BYTDWD of the Tel Dan inscription, we happen to know of a DWD/DWYD/David from other ancient near eastern sources, mostly in the various biblical texts, and also in Moabite (the Mesha stela) and perhaps Egyptian (a potential toponymic reference in Shishak’s list) inscriptions. Thus, a ruler named DWD in the Palestinian area is known of through various sources external to the multiple sources which are the biblical books themselves.

If we are to apply the Assyrian/Aramean usage to the BYTDWD found in the Tel Dan stele, this would connote that DWD/David was a former ruler of the territory so named, was considered to be a dynastic founder, and that either a direct descendant of this person ruled that territory, or someone who was thought to be a direct descendant ruled. The usage itself connotes that the ruler was a direct descendant.

With that in mind, we have to understand why it appears that, in our current understanding of the Tel Dan stele, only Judah is referred to as the House of David. In biblical usage, the reason is clearly that the dynasty of David was ruling there. In the Aramaic usage, as in the Assyrian, this was also the assumption in the usage of the term. The tie between the territory name and the belief in a continued dynastic rulership were intertwined in the Aramean/Assyrian usage. Thus, the connotation is both that the “son of David” rules in the “House of David” and also the “House of David” is called such because David and the “son of David” rule/d there. This usage is the standard form in the Assyrian.

We see the unusual belief of a single dynasty for other kingdoms, and the importance in Assyrian eyes of a connection to the dynasty and territory name, in the case of Assyrian reference to Israel. It is, as is well-known, usually referred to as Bīt-Humri. An item of interest is the reference to Iaua son of Humri, Jehu son of Omri. From the biblical texts (2 Kings 9-10), we learn that Jehu was actually responsible for ending the dynasty of Omri, by killing the kings of both Israel and Judah (the deaths of whom appear to be referred to in the Tel Dan stela). Yet, because Jehu/Iaua was a local dynast ruling within his traditional territory, that of Bīt-Humri, the House of Omri, he was still considered “son of Omri,” however incorrectly. Later, when much of the territory of Bīt-Humri was taken by Tiglath-Pileser III and annexed to Assyria, the rulers are no longer referred to as “son of Omri.” The reason seems to be that the local integrity of rulership was compromised both in matters of lost territory and in the loss of legitimacy by the rulers of the northern kingdom in their rebellion, as in the case of Ahunu of Bīt-Adini. Or it could simply be a matter of the Assyrians finally having learned that the dynasty of Omri was long over, and thus everyone ruling Bīt-Humri at that point might have been considered the “son of a nobody.” The patronymics for the last two rulers were not recorded, unfortunately.

Questions? Comments?

As I mentioned in a comment on a post [dead link] chez Chris Heard, I’ve been compiling instances of the Assyrian usage of the phrase “House of …” in reference to territories and their associated rulers, of which we have much more information than in the case of the Aramaic usage. The importance of the Assyrian evidence lies in that it is predominantly if not universally held among Assyriologists that this naming convention originated among the Arameans, and the Assyrian usage represents the Aramean without distortion. So much for Eigenbegrifflichkeit!

I have yet to examine the texts of Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II, in which quite a number (including instances of “Bīt-Hūmrī”) of relevant examples are to be found, and which will be quite fun, regardless. Until I’ve done so, just to keep the conversation from going stale, or continuing on the basis of opinion rather than evidence, I’ll share below the preliminary results of investigating, exhaustively, all the known published royal Assyrian inscriptions included in the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: the Assyrian Period, volumes 2 and 3, covering the dates 1114-745 BC. I should be done by the weekend with both TPIII and Sargon, and have a web page up with the primary source data, and some (hopefully conclusive! probative! definitive!) conclusions. (I’m going to put them onto a web page because I’m having “issues” with fonts in this blog!)

Preliminarily, it’s certainly clear that, regardless of the actual dynastic situation in the various territories, the Assyrians considered the PN in the Bīt-PN phrase to refer to a personal, dynastic founder. [Please note that this is in contrast to my understanding of only last week, that the dynastic assumption was premature. My subsequent exhaustive investigation of the primary sources is conclusive and incontrovertible, therefore I’ve quite sanely admitted my egregious error, and changed my mind to reflect that reality!] How is this learned? In two ways. Firstly through reference to the ruling successors of that person, who are invariably noted as “son of PN.” A geographic territory does not have children, nor does a political entity. Secondly, the personal name element of the Bīt-PN phrase is often tellingly marked with a determinative indicating that the name belonged to an individual, either male (as in most cases), or female (in the case of Bīt-Halupe). The combination of these two points leads undoubtedly to the conclusion that the names involved belonged to people, former rulers of the territories named for them. Mr. Adinu ruled at some point the territory of Bīt-Adini. Madame Halupe ruled at some point the territory of Bīt-Halupe.

There is another very interesting instance of the usage, or rather non-usage of the Bīt-PN/son of PN phrases in the case of Ahunu of Bīt-Adini/Ahunu son of Adinu, a vassal ruler active in the reigns of Adad-narari II and Shalmaneser III. While he is ruling in the city Til-Barsip, his territory is called Bīt-Adini, and he is referred to invariably as Ahunu son of Adinu. During Shalmaneser’s reign he gathered a coalition of rebels, but fled at the approach of the Assyrian army, abandoning the city to the Assyrians. Now, what we see in the royal inscriptions is this rebellious ruler being called, while still ruling his territory Bīt-Adini from his city, “Ahunu son of Adinu.” After abandoning his city, he is only referred to as Ahunu, without the patronymic. It appears that the Assyrians considered that Ahunu had abandoned not only his city, but also his dynastic association itself. That is certainly how they depicted it: he no longer belonged to the dynasty of Adinu! An alternative interpretation is that, with the elimination of local rule, the Assyrian garrisoning of the city, and Til-Barsip’s being renamed to Kar Shalmaneser, the dynasty of Adinu was considered gone, so no one could be a member of it anymore (even though the last scion of the house of Adinu, dynastically speaking, was still, temporarily, alive). It’s hard to say, not being an ancient Assyrian, which of the two would be the reason. It is clear, however, that the patronymic was deliberately omitted after Ahinu fled his city.

Now, while the Assyrians treated these territories as named for founding dynasts, that doesn’t mean that the eponymous ruler’s dynasty was still actually ruling. The only evidence that I’ve so far seen for this (there’ll be more as I get through the later rulers) is that of “Jehu son of Omri.” We are only aware of the Assyrian usage as being incorrect through the accounts in the Hebrew Bible. Jehu, according to those texts, killed the last of the Omrides and was the founder of new dynasty. (This is the precise point of contact of the Hebrew Bible and the Tel Dan Stele, which appears to be in part an Aramean account of the deaths of those same kings.) Yet, as a ruler in the still locally-ruled (Assyrian vassal? Aramean vassal?) territory of Bīt-Hūmrī, “House of Omri”, also known to the Assyrians as Sir’al/Israel, he was considered, despite the historical (or biblical) dynastic gymnastics, to be a member of Omri’s dynasty. Thus we have in the Assyrian inscriptions, “Jehu son of Omri,” which we are also completely justified, in view of Assyrian usage as described above, in translating as “Jehu, ruler of the territory ‘House of Omri'” if we like.

So, stay tuned!

If only we had such a wealth of information for every kingdom in the ancient world that we have in the Hebrew Scriptures! Tantalizingly circumspect as they sometimes are, as linguistically obscure as they indubitably have become, as debatedly historical, religious, idealistic, ideological or irrelevant as we may find them, these Hebrew writings are still a singular treasure trove of information from an ancient culture, a collection of literary works which is completely and inarguably, indeed unquestionably unique in the world: a body of writing originating in an act of conscious self-selection in time out of mind, yet preserved in a living tradition of respect and belief from ancient times down to the present, transmitted, and regarded as canonical texts, with or without additional works alongside, and thus normative to one extent or the other, by two religions descendant from that ancient culture, the adherents of which comprise approximately one-third of the world’s current population. This is absolutely astounding! Especially so considering that no such coherent, self-selected set of writings exists for any of the many small kingdoms of the region, indeed, for even the larger civilizations typically associated with the majestic term “empires,” whose creativity has never been in doubt. The Sumerian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Achaemenid Persian, Hellenistic Greek, and pagan Roman civilizations have not left us any such coherent collection as an expression of their self-identity, of their intimately personal worldview, despite the few whole and many more fragmentary of their various works, however multiply-copied and obviously popular they may have been, which we have found as solely incidental detritus in each of the regions which they spanned in their greatness and in their own home cities, now crumbled into ruins. No living tradition preserved and transmitted those collections never made. No descendant religions continue to praise the might of the Son of Enki, the Daughter of Asshur, the Chosen One of Almighty Marduk. The holy temples of the cities of Eridu, Larsa, Mennufer, Seleucia are no longer thronged by pilgrims from distant lands, the cities themselves being level with the earth. Yet we find that it is a small library of Hebrew writings, put together in some manner at some time, both of which we wonder at and dispute over, a self-selection from within that living tradition, from that tiny little remnant of a kingdom, after a time supplemented by some Greek texts also springing from that vibrantly living source, that has persisted for these more than two thousand years, and can in a real way be said to have created a kind of empire greater than any other that has ever been, an empire in which a Shepherd King’s songs are still sung!

Joe and Jim are at it again, over the Tel Dan Stele. I can’t resist. I have to point out some issues that it seems both sides of the argument are perhaps either unaware of, or have forgotten.

(I haven’t yet gotten and read a copy of George Athas’ book on the Tel Dan Stele, so if anyone has read it and the following points are addressed, which I certainly expect they would be, I’d appreciate hearing about it.)

The vast majority usage in the Hebrew Bible of the phrase בית דוד / בית דויד refer to the Davidic Dynasty. Other usages include David’s literal house, i.e. his home/palace, as in 1Sam 19.11, seemingly a metaphoric term for the current king of Judah, as in Isaiah 7.13, and maybe, just maybe, it appears once as a parallel term for the kingdom of Judah, in Isaiah 7.2 (which is interesting, as the same verse mentions Aram [see below!]).

In first millennium Aramaic usage, adopted by the Assyrians apparently wholesale, the phraseology “Bīt-[PN of ruler in genitive]” referred to a kingdom. Whether the ruler in question was actually the founder of a dynasty or not is probably not strictly proven. Certainly the PN is that of a well-known (to the Syrians? to the Assyrians? to everyone?) ruler of the principality so named, as we find in the case of the territory named the Bīt-Adini, “House of Adin”, the principal city of which was Til-Barsip, and which at one point was ruled by a man named Adin (see the Annals of Ashurbanipal, III.55, which you can read here, which refers to “Ahuni son of Adin” or the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, as found in COS 2, p. 261, which refers to him as “Ahuni of Bīt-Adini”). Adin reigned probably early in the 9th century, as his son Ahuni is encountered by the Assyrian kings from about the second quarter to middle of the century. So, in the case of Bīt-Adini, we know of a territory named for a former king of the territory. It may be that Adin was the first ruler in Til-Barsip that the Assyrians directly dealt with, either by military encounter or treaty, most likely the latter, as it is his son who is punished for rebelling.

(Just for fun, here’s a quick list of the Bīt-(genitive PN) territory names from The Helsinki Atlas of the Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period, in the Ancient-Modern Gazetteer, pp 7-8:
Bīt-Abdadāni, Bīt-Adad-erība, Bīt-Adini, Bīt-Agūsi, Bīt-Ammān, Bīt-Amukāni, Bīt-Bahiāni, Bīt-Barrūa, Bīt-Bunakki, Bīt-Dakkūri, Bīt-Gabbāri, Bīt-Halupê, Bīt-Hamban, Bīt-Hazail, Bīt-Humrî, Bīt-Iakīn, Bīt-Kapsi, Bīt-Purūtaš, Bīt-Ruhūbu, Bīt-Sagbat, Bīt-Šabāia, Bīt-Supūri, Bīt-Tābti, Bīt-Zamāni, Bīt-Zualza. Some of the PNs are clearly familiar or at least recognizable by their constructions, obviously.)

As the Tel Dan stele is clearly Aramaic, a victory stele left at Tel Dan by an Aramean king whose name is now lost. We should expect the Aramaean/Assyrian usage there, and that the BYTDWD there refers to that territory and kingdom otherwise known as Judah. We should NOT read the Tel Dan Stele as referring to the Davidic Dynasty, as that is the Hebrew usage. The two cultures (Assyrian/Aramean and Hebrew) are separate enough for the connotation of “house of…” to have different primary connotations in the different languages, as one finds quite apparently through the usage in the inscriptions and the preserved usage in the Hebrew Bible.

So, yes, the BYTDWD of the Tel Dan Stele is evidence for an earlier David being on the throne in that territory which we typically refer to as Judah. But there is no indication of how much earlier than the date of the inscription David was there, that David founded a dynasty, that a direct descendant of David and king of that dynasty had been on the throne and was killed as described in the stela. We learn all of that kind of detail only from the preserved Hebrew writings. So, let’s keep the usage distinct. It’s only fair to the evidence.

I hope that is a helpful contribution to the discussion. Now back to laundry!

A few days ago, I was reading the John H. Walton paper “Joshua 10:12-15 and Mesopotamian Celestial Omen Texts” (181-190 in Faith, Tradition & History, eds. A.R. Millard, J.K. Hoffmeier, and D.W. Baker) and came upon an interesting idea, quite different from Walton’s. First, the key verses, Joshua 10.12-13:

אז ידבר יהושע ליהוה
ביום תת יהוה את־האמרי
לפני בני ישראל
ויאמר לעיני ישראל
שמש בגבעונ דום
וירח בעמק אילון
ןידם השמש וירח עמד
עד־יקם גוי איביו
הלא־היא כתובה על־ספר הישר
ויעמד השמש בחצי השמים
ולא־אץ לבוא כיום תמים

The NRSV renders this:

On the day when the LORD gave the Amorites
over to the Israelites,
Joshua spoke to the LORD;
and he said in the sight of Israel,
“Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.”
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
Is this not written in the Book of Jashar?
The sun stopped in midheaven,
and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.

Now typically this passage has been taken to indicate some kind of astronomical phenomenon, literally involving the sun and moon. Yet, just prior to this (and please don’t make me type any more Hebrew!), the saving miracle of this battle was described as large hailstones raining down on the fleeing enemy combatants (see vv. 9-11). Furthermore, v. 14 appears to indicate that the amazing part was not the miracle itself, but that the LORD acted upon the suggestion of Joshua.

An idea came to me upon reading an excerpt of a balag-lamentation, “He Is a Storm, At the Healing” lines 10-15, given by Walton:

The heavens continually rumbled,
the earth continually shook;
The sun lay at the horizon
The moon stopped still in the midst of the sky
In the sky the great lights disappeared
An evil storm … the nations
A deluge swept over the lands.

It appears to me that, similar to the Sumerian idiom, the request for and description of the Sun and Moon to דמם/עמד is an ancient Hebrew idiom for a sky-covering storm, which would stretch from horizon to horizon and cover both Sun and Moon. I’ll look into it more, of course, but it certainly is an interesting possibility.