The History in the El Amarna Letters
The Encyclopedia of the El Amarna Letters
The Online Encyclopedia
Understanding the Secrets of the Ancient Tablets
The Old Kingdom
Hammurabi and Zimri Lim
Tuthmose III of the New Kingdom
Assyrian History
Historical Insights of Babylon

Here I need to pause to reflect upon the key chronological importance of Shalmaneser III of Assyria. Not only can his reign be interwoven with the reigns of the mid-C9th BC kings of Israel (Ahab, Ahaziah and Jehoram, and later Jehu), of Judah (Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah) and of Syria (Ben-Hadad, but see below, and Hazael), but now - through the agency of this revision - we can fix that chronological bridge also on the other side - on the EA side currently dated 500 years earlier. Given Shalmaneser III's encounter with Niqmaddu/Nikdime of Ugarit, and given that Niqmaddu's eventual ally, Suppiluliumas the Hittite (usually dated to c.1350 BC), is to be found mentioned in Shalmaneser III's first campaign account (c.850 BC) [100], we can now securely tie EA to the mid-C9th BC.[200][300]

Reidel [400] has concluded that the correspondence between the EA pharaohs and Tushratta of Mitanni covers the last few years of Amenhotep III's reign and the first few of Akhnaton's. This may however need modification given that my subsequent finds below about Tushratta will serve to amplify both his power and his length of rule. In those days there was a close bond between the pharaohs and Mitannian kings. The latter gave their daughters as wives to the pharaohs. It is thought that Amenhotep III's formidable wife, Tiy, was the daughter of Tushratta (best known of the Mitannian kings); that she was indeed the same as Taduhiba whom Tushratta married to both Amenhotep and Akhnaton [500]. Besides lists of presents, the EA documents contain 7 of Tushratta's letters to Amenhotep III, one to the widow of that pharaoh and three to Akhnaton.

So, where was Mitanni?

What strikes one when reading about the Mitannian empire is the fact that so very little is known about it, despite its greatness; so very few positive statements about it can be made - just as we have found with the Kassites. Because of the supposed Hurrian names used by its kings, it is often thought to have been a Hurrian kingdom. Mitanni is generally located in Syrian Mesopotamia, between Assyria and Carchemish; but its full extent may have been far greater. According to Clapham [600]:

The kings of Mitanni called themselves the "kings of the warriors of Khurri land" and "kings of Khanigalbat"…. At the peak of its power the Mitanni dynast ruled from Syria to Armenia in the north and beyond Assyria in the east ….

Its religion too is hardly known. "Of Mitannian religion very little is known", wrote Mercer [700]. "The great god of the Mitannians seemed to have been Tešub", a name that, interestingly, equates with Hadad[800] - the theophoric part of Ben-Hadad's name - and both of these gods probably equate in turn with Baal, the god of thunder [900].

Tushratta of Mitanni was an energetic and powerful king who eventually waged war against the Hittites (EA# 17, 30ff.). It seems that in those early days even the Assyrians were his subjects [1000]. This is quite apparent from his having been in a position (EA#23) to lend Amenhotep III the image of "Ishtar of Nineveh" (allegedly possessing therapeutic value) [1100]. But soon we are going to find that this king was in fact a mighty ruler of Assyria. Tushratta loved Egyptian gold (EA#19), and he loved conquest. Because of his ambitious ways he has been called presumptuous [1200].

Tushratta seems to have played a double game with Egypt, forever protesting his loyalty, but always extending his boundaries. On one occasion (as described in EA#85:51ff. and 86:10ff.) Tushratta undertook a raid in the direction of Gubla (Byblos), but got no further than Sumur. Rib-Addi, reporting to the pharaoh, tells why: "... the king of Mitana has reached as far as Sumura and desired to go as far as Gubla but there was no water for him to drink and so he has returned to his land". Campbell, astonished at the extraordinary boldness of this action, looked to find [1300]: "... a way to explain a Mitannian raid into upper Syria sometime during the final years of Amenophis [Amenhotep] III, carried out by Tušratta while he was maintaining loyal friendship with Egypt".

Ben Hadad I And A Proposed Identification

Given that the region of Mitanni approximates to that of the eastern Syrian states, between Carchemish and (even penetrating into) Assyria, and given its religious similarities with Syria, I identify the Mitanni of EA with the Syrian kingdom of Ben-Hadad's day. Moreover, I identify Tushratta (c. 1390 BC, conventional) with Ben-Hadad himself, through the latter's alter ego, Abdi-Ashirta. I believe the name Tushratta, or Dushratta, to be simply a variant of Abdi-Ashirta, spelled Abdi-Ashrati in EA#138,102, 116 (thus Ab-DU-ASHRATTA), meaning "slave of [the goddess] Asherath". Rib-Addi and other EA correspondents may well have had the meaning of his name in mind when they referred to Abdi-Ashirta as "the slave", "the dog". It is a Western Semitic name. As for the name, Mitanni (var Matiene), it may perhaps equate to the Book of Tobit's 1:14 Midian [amended from Media], the area east of the Jordan.

Tushratta of Mitanni's also being the most wily Ben-Hadad/Abdi-Ashirta would certainly account for the former's duplicity and ambition that had so amazed Campbell in regard to an invasion of the Phoenician coast [1400]:

The present writer has no satisfactory explanation beyond reaffirming what has already been stated; in a time of political intrigue everyone is seeking to gain power and wealth for himself. With the Egyptian king not in a position to check for himself ..., the king of Mitanni knows he can probably get away with such a raid and then let his word stand against that of any other.

This, I suggest, reflects the early arrogance of Ben-Hadad (in those days for example when he led the coalition against Israel) (1 Kings 20:1-6), before he had begun to decline politically. Tushratta places himself on a par with pharaoh Amenhotep III, addressing the great pharaoh as "thy brother".[1450]

Though he may genuinely have been a power almost on a par with pharaoh in those days. It would follow that, if Ben-Hadad (Abdi-Ashirta) were Tushratta, king of Mitanni, then the realm of Ben-Hadad must equate approximately to that of Mitanni.

At about the same time (judging at least by Mercer's numbering of the EA Letters) as Tushratta's raid on Sumur, Rib-Addi made the following protest about Abdi-Ashirta to pharaoh (EA#76): "... is he the king of Mitanna [Mitanni] or the king of Kasse [Babylon] that he seeks to take the land of the king [Pharaoh] himself". As Tushratta, I believe that Abdi-Ashirta was indeed "the king of ... [Mitanni]"; or was at least aspiring to be. And we shall also find that he, as ruler of Assyria, was even making raids into Kassite (Kasse) lands in Babylonia. This king was forever attempting to expand his kingdom both eastwards and westwards. But eventually his ambition would prove to be his downfall.

Tushratta's Death

The ultimate decline of Tushratta (Ben-Hadad) was aggravated by the disloyalty of his 'brother', Artatama, who had come to an agreement with the Hittites. Finally, Tushratta was - like Abdi-Ashirta/Ben-Hadad - assassinated, and Tushratta's son, Kurtiwaza (var. Mattiwaza), seems to have been implicated in the plot [1500]. Presumably Kurtiwaza is the same as Aziru/Hazael because he [1600]:

- was the successor of Tushratta (Abdi-Ashirta/Ben-Hadad I); and
- he probably assassinated the latter. Tushratta's death gave Suppiluliumas [1700], the Hittite king, an opportunity of interfering in the affairs of Mitanni, especially after Kurtiwaza formed an alliance with Suppiluliumas (probably under duress). It also gave golden opportunities to Artatama, as we shall see in our next section.

EA's Assyrians

Introductory Comments

The revision that I am pursuing demands that the Middle Assyro-Babylonian period be merged with the Neo Assyro-Babylonian period. And I have already made some efforts in the direction of creating such a merger.

Here I shall suggest a further link.

We saw in another of my papers [1800] that there occurs an almost complete 250-year blank in Middle Assyrian history after the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244-1208 BC, conventional dating). A similar situation has occurred in the case of Tiglath-pileser I (ca. 1115-1077 & T.P. II ca. 967-935), whom I have identified with the neo-Assyrian Tiglath-pileser III, thereby deleting the blanks.

My solution to the unwanted gap pertaining to Tukulti-Ninurta I is the same as with Tiglath-pileser I, to lower him on the time scale and to link him to a later namesake. In the case of Tukulti-Ninurta I, this means a lowering on the time scale by some 3 centuries+ and linking him to the far less well known Tukulti-Ninurta II, the father of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC, conventional dating), the father of Shalmaneser III (c. 858-824 BC). This would mean that the son who slew Tukulti-Ninurta I [1900], Ashur-nadin-apli [2000] (var. Ashurnasirpal), was the same as Ashurnasirpal II father of Shalmaneser III [2100]. Sweeney has also made this connection between Ashurnasirpal I and II, though he differs from me by indentifying Ashurnasirpal with Assurubalit [2200]:

An Assyrian Great King named Tukulti-Ninurta, last of the so-called Middle Assyrian rulers, was murdered in a palace conspiracy by one of his own sons. The Babylonian Chronicle [2300] gives us the name of the patricide: Ashurnasirpal. According to conventional ideas, this was the first king of that name to rule in Assyria, though five centuries later another Ashurnasirpal, who was also son of a king Tukulti-Ninurta, launched a great age of Assyrian power and expansion.
It will be obvious that the present writer regards Ashurnasirpal I and Ashurnasirpal II … who … launches a great epoch of Assyrian power and expansion (as the same person).

That Ashurnasirpal II was a patricide would probably not come as too great a surprise to anyone who knows much about this most cruel of kings.

Anyway, this will all be discussed further on.

The Assuruballit Problem [TAP]

We now arrive at what I consider to be about the greatest problem that the revision has encountered, known as "The Assuruballit Problem" [hereafter TAP]. At least it ranks alongside where to locate Ramses II as a major problem for a Velikovskian-based revision.

TAP is this:

If EA is to be lowered to the mid-C9th BC, as Velikovsky argued, why 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)?

That Assuruballit is a problem for the revision cannot be denied. However, he turns out to be a real problem for the conventional system as well. Whereas Assuruballit's father - as given in EA - was called Assur-nadin-ahe, his father is given in the King List as Eriba-Adad, not Assur-nadin-ahe. Here I take the main part of James' account of the problem for the conventional system of this Assuruballit[2400]:

... Assyria and Egypt (14th century BC)

The only synchronism between named kings of Egypt and Assyria during the Late Bronze Age is provided by two letters from the El-Amarna collection (EA 15, 16). These were written by Assuruballit, King of Assyria, one (EA 16) being addressed to Pharaoh Naphuria, the cuneiform version of Neferkheprure, prenomen of Akhenaten. Their author is assumed to be the Assuruballit known from the Assyrian King List and dated by its chronology to the 14th century BC. Although universally accepted, the identification is not without problems. In EA 16 Assuruballit mentions that his father Assur-nadin-ahhe corresponded with Egypt; yet the King List and the available monuments agree in describing Assuruballit as the son of Eriba-Adad. In his introduction to the inscriptions of Assur-uballit I, Luckenbill reviewed a possible explanation:

The word 'father' [abu] may here have the meaning 'ancestor', as often in the Assyrian texts, but even so our difficulties are not cleared up. In the texts... Assur-ubal-lit does not include Assur-nâdin-ahę among his ancestors, although he carries his line back six generations.

While the El-Amarna letter may well reflect some other relationship (e.g. adoptive) other than direct filiation between Assuruballit I and an Assu-nadin-ahhe, this is merely hypothetical, and the possibility remains that the El-Amarna correspondent was not the Assuruballit son of Eriba-Adad known from the monuments, but another, as yet unattested, ruler.

Thus the much vaunted synchronism between Akhenaten and Assuruballit I, the main linch-pin between Egyptian and Assyrian Late Bronze Age chronologies, is flawed and must be treated with caution.

My Proposed Solution for TAP

What I am about to propose by way of a solution is unorthodox. But I think that it does manage to solve certain problems. The reader will however need to get used to the multiple alter ego's of Ben-Hadad I in the remaining sections of this paper.

My solution has its basis in the fact that Tushratta of Mitanni - whom I have identified as Ben-Hadad I/Abdi-Ashirta - had apparent control of Assyrian Nineveh at least. We saw that Tushratta had been in a position to give a statue of Ishtar of Nineveh to pharaoh Amenhotep III. Had not Rib-Addi complained that Abdi-Ashirta was aspiring to be, not only king of Mitanni, but also of Kasse? Putting all this together, the Syrian king Ben-Hadad I/Abdi-Ashirta (i.e. Tushratta) must have been - I believe - the same as the Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II. "With [Ashurnasirpal] we meet the first great Assyrian monarch of the new period. Ambition, energy, courage, vanity, cruelty, magnificence" [2500]. This certainly reads like Ben-Hadad/Tushratta. And we recall from a previous comment [2600] that Ashurnasirpal had overrun the Kassites: "The fear of my sovereignty prevailed as far as the country of Karduniash; the might of my weapons overwhelmed the country of Kaldu". Moreover, Ashurnasirpal's razzias to the Mediterranean coast resemble those of Tushratta/Abdi-Ashirta [2700]:

'I cleaned my weapons in the deep sea [Mediterranean] and performed sheep-offerings to the gods. The tribute of the sea-coast - from the inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Mahallata, Maiza, Kaiza, Amurru, and (of) Arvad which is (an island) in the sea … their tribute I received and they embraced my feet'.

Amongst these suppliants would have been Rib-Addi of Byblos.

So, Ashurnasirpal fits the bill as the 'pretentious' Abdi-Ashirta as frequently complained about by Rib-Addi, aspiring to be at once king of Mitanni and king of the Chaldeans (Kasse), [EA#76]. Taken by surprise, the Hittite princes of northern Syria had offered no resistance to Ashurnasirpal. Likewise, Tushratta had defeated the Hittites. One of his letters describes a portion of "booty" taken from the "land of Hatte" that he had sent to pharaoh [2800].

Chronologically, the commencements of the 'reigns' of Ben-Hadad I (c. 880 BC) and king Ashurnasirpal of Assyria (c. 883 BC) are very close. But the endings do not match.

I believe that the duration of Ashurnasirpal's reign needs to be eked out well beyond his conventional date of death at c.859 BC, to correspond with the long-reigning Ben-Hadad (died c. 840 BC). I shall soon show too why I think that Ashurnasirpal's successor, Shalmaneser III, needs to be lowered a bit on the time scale.

My identification of Ashurnasirpal as the Syrian, Ben-Hadad, might account for the problem for both convention and the revision of why Assuruballit's father is called, now Assur-nadin-ahhe, now Eriba-Adad. I believe that it is the same person, Ashur-nadin-apli/Ashurnasirpal, with the name Eriba-Adad being closer to the Syrian name, Ben-Hadad. Assuruballit, son of Assur-nadin-ahhe, or son of Eriba-Adad, would then be Aziru/Hazael, son of Ben-Hadad. There was an Aramaean Eriba-Adad (so-called II), conqueror of Assyria, who nicely matches my reconstructed Ben-Hadad conquest-wise in that this Eriba-Adad II "claims to have ruled Assyria and the Aramaeans, and catalogs conquests far and wide that have been compared with those of Tiglath-pileser I" [2900].

Now, we saw earlier that Ben-Hadad's father was one Tab-rimmon [3000] It is interesting therefore that Ashur-nadin-ahhe's (i.e. Ashurnasirpal's) father is given as Ashur-rim-nishesu in the royal records; both names containing at least the rim element [3100].

A seeming problem for my proposed EA Assyrian revision though is that the king lists we have been discussing do not name Tukulti-Ninurta at all as father of Ashur-nadin-ahhe (or Eriba-Adad), even though the latter, as Ashurnasirpal, is said to have been the son of Tukulti-Ninurta. But my revision may also have the potential to solve this problem given that in Mitannian affairs for this same period there were apparently two branches of the same royal family vying for supremacy [3200]:

"Over the relatively short period of the Amarna archive, from about 1365 to 1335 [sic], the Mittani [his spelling] state suffered a number of internal and external difficulties. Internally, two branches of the royal family competed for the throne, each seeking support for their respective claims from outside powers. Tushratta, who corresponded with the Egyptian King Amenhotep III (ruled 1390-53), had been placed on the throne by the murderer of his older brother. Initially Egypt had resented this state of affairs, and only after Tushratta executed his brother's murderer did its king reestablish diplomatic relations."

Here, in the case of Tukulti-Ninurta, I might need to rely on Luckenbill's explanation above that "father" may sometimes mean "ancestor". The incident of the assassination however might have been picked up in the EA letters in regard to Tushratta; a king who had not only a tragic end but also a murky beginning.

EA#17, in which we learn about the assassination of Artaššumara, eldest brother of Tushratta, deals with a conflict beyween Tushratta and the regent, Tuhi, and the death of Tuhi at the hand of Tushratta. This Tuhi might possibly therefore be Tukulti-Ninurta, murdered by Tushratta (at the urging apparently of Amenhotep III) in Tushratta's guise as Ashurnasirpal. If so, then (in regard to Tukulti-Ninurta) Luckenbill's explanation might also come at least partially into play, that "father" sometimes means "ancestor."

Tushratta (Ben-Hadad) would eventually suffer the same horrible fate.

Since Hazael had had to murder Ben-Hadad to come to power, this may indicate that he was not the intended heir.[3350] Shalmaneser III, who probably was the heir, will contemptuously call Hazael, "the son of a nobody", likely indicating that Hazael was Ben-Hadad's son by a concubine [3400]. EA, as we have seen, makes various references to "the sons of Abdi-Ashirta", with whose rise Byblos and its harried ruler Rib-Addi faced the same threat all over again as had been the case when confronted by the aggressive Abdi-Ashirta. Thus Campbell [3500]: "Letter 129 mentions Abdi-Aširta in line 5, …Line 7 then carries the familiar cry of Rib-Adda, "who are they, the dogs …", strongly suggesting that the sons of Abdi-Aširta are the subject of the outburst".

These 'sons of Abdi-Ashirta' would include Shalmaneser III and Hazael as well, I suggest. These sons were as duplicitous as were their predecessors.

Assurubalit's/Hazael's alliance with the Hittites, as Aziru, must have been of benefit to Artatama, who had come to an agreement of neutrality with Suppiluliumas [3600]. Sweeney explains the situation in a revised context (though complicating it by his identification of the Mitannians with the Medes) [3700]:

Artatama immediately set about forging a powerful alliance with Ashuruballit. Indeed both he and his son Shuttarna, who ruled in the neighbouring kingdom of Khurri, made the whole of Mitanni a virtual Assyrian protectorate. Artatama sent rich presents to Ashuruballit, whilst Shuttarna destroyed the palace built by Tushratta and gave away the rich materials stored therein to the Assyrian.

Scholars view with amazement the behaviour of these two Mitannian kings, and speak of a "sellout" to Assyria. It is conjectured, with justification, that their actions can be explained as an attempt to buy an alliance with Assyria in preparation for an impending war with the Hittites. Suppiluliumas had already dealt serious damage to the kingdom of Tushratta, and it is felt that the new Mitanni rulers feared more of the same. Nevertheless, scholars remain puzzled as to why the Mitannians should stage such a complete surrender to Ashuruballit, going so far as to restore to the Assyrians national treasures looted from Nineveh and Ashur in the time of Shaushtatar.

Surely an alliance with the Hittites themselves could have been bought at less cost! There is however a logical explanation, though one not yet considered by mainstream scholarship. Ashuruballit, notwithstanding his Assyrian name, was a Mitannian; and the so-called Middle Assyrian state he founded is but a new phase of the Mitanni/Medish [sic] rule in Assyria. This latter region, it appears, became the … centre of power, with the capital itself being moved … to Ashur. That Ashuruballit was king of Mitanni (or Hanigalbat) is in any case no secret, as he states the fact very clearly in a well-known letter to Akhnaton,

"When Ashur-nadin-ahhe, my father, wrote to Egypt, twenty talents of gold were sent to him. When the king of Hanigalbat [Mitanni] wrote to your father in Egypt he sent twenty talents of gold to him [Now] I am […] king of Hanigalbat, but you send me […] of gold and it is not enough for the pay of my messengers on the journey to and fro."

The fact that only two EA letters of Assuruballit are preserved might indicate that Shalmaneser III had soon managed to get the upper hand in Assyria, with Assuruballit/ Aziru/Hazael retaining control of Syria. Whilst Shalmaneser III would continue his father's policy of aggression towards the Hittites, Assuruballit/Aziru, most reluctantly at first, would be forced to make an alliance with them.

Shalmaneser III

My reconstruction would mean a lowering of dates for Shalmaneser III; a point also observed as necessary by Sweeney [3800]:

Ashurnasirpal II, we are told, reigned for twenty-five years as king of Assyria, and took part in military action almost every summer for the first nine years; after which no further expeditions are recorded. This is a strange circumstance to say the least, in view of the relish with which the king described the details of his various exploits in the field. Such being the case, it would appear that he became ill or incapacitated in some way, and for the final sixteen years of his reign entrusted the defense of the kingdom to the crown prince - the future Shalmaneser III.

There may indeed have been a long co-regency (quite common in the ancient East), and this seems all the more likely when we consider the otherwise uncommon length of Shalmaneser's reign, almost forty years.

My new revision for Shalmaneser III would now require also this important modification:

The Adad-idri [Hadadezer], or Biridri, with whose coalition Shalmaneser III fought at Qarqar (supposedly 853 BC) - interestingly identified by Velikovsky with the Biridia of EA, Egyptian governor in Syro-Palestine [3900] - could no longer be Ben-Hadad as is usually thought. Not only was Ben-Hadad - according to this reconstruction - the father of the Shalmaneser III who attacked the coalition, but he was already a spent force by the time that he had made peace with king Ahab of Israel, who was most definitely a part of the Qarqar coalition. So Ben-Hadad would hardly have been in a position by then to lead a major coalition against Assyria. Rather this coalition leader was an Egyptian appointee, Biridia.

The troublesome Aziru (Assuruballit) was finally ordered to the court of Egypt to give an account of himself. He procrastinated as long as he could, because, as he claimed, the king of Hatti was threatening his own territories (EA#164:18ff.), including the city of Tunip (e.g. EA#165: 38ff.). From a later letter, EA#169, we learn that Aziru did eventually go to the pharaoh. His further activities though are to be learned, not from the EA letters, but from the Bible (as Hazael) and the Hittite records; the treaties from the Hittite capital of Bogazköy.

Aziru is said to have been hostile to Suppiluliumas, but was eventually "brought ... to servitude". This may have happened shortly after his return from Egypt, and was probably prompted by Suppiluliumas' successful siege of Carchemish.

Several revealing statements in the Hittite documents are attributed to Kurtiwaza/Aziru. Firstly, we are told, he had fled from Burnaburiash, the Kassite King of Babylon - also an EA correspondent. But Burnaburiash, it seems, had sought to take his life. Kurtiwaza next presented himself to Suppiluliumas. Kurtiwaza is made to say: "... in the days of my father [Tushratta], the Assyrian, his servant rebelled and withheld tribute". These "days" would probably coincide with the waning power of Tushratta, especially when his brother Artatama had turned against him. Anyway, Suppiluliumas eagerly seized the opportunity of Kurtiwaza's/Aziru's presence, and he secured the allegiance with a marriage alliance. Kurtiwaza's installment on his father's throne was backed by the presence of a Hittite army.

Sweeney has this to say of Kurtiwaza's 'triumph' [4000]:

Tushratta, we are told, was killed by one of his own sons, a man named Kurtiwaza (also read Mattiwaza), who fled, half naked, to the court of Suppiluliumas. The Hittite king then put an army at the disposal of Kurtiwaza, who proceeded to subdue the lands of Mitanni in the name of his Hittite master. We know that this campaign was successful, and that Kurtiwaza actually entered Washukanni … ; thus being rewarded for his treachery with the kingship of the Mitanni … Empire. To seal the alliance, Kurtiwaza was given the daughter of Suppiluliumas in marriage.

The wealthiest satrapy won by Kurtiwaza was Assyria, and indeed he must have had an Assyrian throne-name, though this is supposedly unknown. The present writer holds however that Kurtiwaza's Assyrian title (indeed titles) are well-known, and that he initially called himself Ashuruballit….

EA's Babylonians

Here we might expect the revision to become a real bottleneck with a crush of the following kings in Babylonia:

(i) the standard mid-C9th BC Babylonian VIII kings;
(ii) the EA Kassite kings who have been lowered by 500 years to the mid-C9th BC;
(iii) the last kings of the Hammurabic dynasty who should also continue into our revised EA era; and further complicating this
(iv) any Assyrian interference in - and occupation of - Babylonia.

Such a bottleneck is not a problem though for the conventional system, which has neither

(i) the Kassites, nor
(iii) Hammurabi's descendants, situated anywhere near the mid-C9th BC, but centuries earlier.

To prevent such an unwelcome crush (i-iv), I intend to argue basically that (a) the Kassites of EA do not constitute a separate Babylonian dynasty at all, but are, rather, a further extension of Syro-Mitannian power into Babylonia; (b) the Hammurabic descendants are just another branch of the Mitannians, with ever-decreasing influence over Babylonia; (c) the Babylonian VIII dynasty was largely a very unspectacular dynasty anyway and may have ruled Babylonia only intermittently.

Point (a) will also cover the matter of any Assyrian interference, since the Assyrian kings of the time were - as I have argued - of Syro-Mitannian origin.

This rearrangement, far from leaving us with a crush in Babylonia, will actually yield more space than could have been expected. Here is the new argument.

The Kassites

My view that the Kassites were simply the semi-nomadic Chaldeo-Aramaean kings - particularly Ben-Hadad/Abdi-Ashirta - who had encroached as far SE as Babylonia squares well with Rib-Addi's complaint that Abdi-Ashirta had begun to act like a king of "Kasse" [EA3104]. My composite Syro-Mitannian king, Ben-Hadad/Abdi-Ashirta/Tushratta, now therefore grows another leg to become also pharaoh Amenhotep III's Kassite contemporary, Kadashman-Enlil (d. c.1375 BC, conventional dating). We recall Tushratta's fondness for Egyptian gold, and his marrying of his daughters to Amenhotep III and Akhnaton. Similarly we read about "the Kassite Kadashman-Enlil I [who] added his sister and daughter to [Amenhotep III's] opulent harem and received from him large quantities of gold" [4100].

And this arrangement also enables for my revison to dovetail with Velikovsky's in regard to the latter's view that the famous EA Kassite king Burnaburiash (c. 1375 -1347 BC, conventional dating) was Shalmaneser III himself in the latter's role as ruler of Babylon [4200]. For Burnaburiash was the son of Kadashman-Enlil (var. Kurigalzu) [4300], that is, Ben-Hadad, and I have already identified Shalmaneser III as a son of Ben-Hadad. Burnaburiash was yet another "Great King" at the time of pharaoh Akhnaton. He, like Tushratta, addressed the pharaoh as "thy brother".

We recall that Kurtiwaza, after having slain his father, Tushratta, fled to Burnaburiash. This would make sense given that Kurtiwaza equates to Hazael/Aziru who was a brother of Burnaburiash/Shalmaneser III according to this revision. But not only did Burnaburiash not give his brother political asylum, he even tried to kill him. Later though Aziru, as Assuruballit, would marry his daughter Maballitat-sherua to Burnaburiash. Suppiluliumas also made a treaty of marriage with Burnaburiash, exchanging daughters.

The EA Kassites appear to have been simply the Assyrian kings of Syro-Mitannian origin (hence the Chaldean link) who ruled Babylonia periodically. This would account, in part, for the embarrassing dearth of Kassite (i.e. Chaldean) archaeology in Babylonia itself.

Hammurabi's Descendants (Babylonian VIII Dynasty)

In a most recent work [4400], the entire 350-year period of Babylonian history from 978-627 BC has been labelled "Uncertain dynasties". To show just how vague is the period with which we are concerned here, from Hammurabi to EA, I give the following list - a part of those `uncertain dynasties' - from this new book [4500]:

"By Samsuiluna's thirtieth year, Nippur and other middle Babylonian cities [including Ur] ceased to be under Babylon's control."

Archaeologists are however at a loss to explain this [4700]:

"It is difficult to determine exactly what happened."

The cause may well have been the rise of powerful Syro-Kassite kings, who had begun to erode Babylon's territory. There appears to be a worrying dearth of Hammurabic archaeology anyway in Babylon [4800]:

"Due to extensive later rebuilding and the recent rise of the water table, the city of Babylon is virtually unknown archaeologically for this period, and only a handful of tablets from it have survived."

The third Hammurabic king, ABI-ESHUH, would likely be, in the context of my revision, a contemporary of Tukulti-Ninurta - [would likely be Nabu-shuma-ukin] - given that both Abi-eshuh and Tukulti-Ninurta found themselves opposed to a Kassite named Kashtiliash. Whilst, for Abi-eshuh, Kashtiliash I was a real handful [4900], Tukulti-Ninurta was completely victorious over Kashtiliash (so-called) IV [5000]:

"I forced Kashtiliash, King of Kar-Duniash, to give battle; I brought about the defeat of his armies, his warriors I overthrew. In the midst of that battle my hand captured Kashtiliash, the Kassite king. His royal neck I trod on with my feet, like a galtappu (stool). Stripped and bound, before Ashur my lord I brought him."

This Kashtiliash I/IV, against whom "Tukulti-Ninurta acted without being provoked" [5100], could therefore be the Artassumara, eldest brother of Tushratta, who was murdered; murdered presumably by Tukulti-Ninurta himself. This would not have been a good time for Abi-eshuh to have been a king of Babylon, caught between powerful feuding Kassites. An indication of the chaos that ensued at the time was that, during Tukulti-Ninurta's reign, according to Roux [5200]:

"Three princes, puppets of the Assyrian, sat in quick succession on the throne of Babylon."

Eventually Tukulti-Ninurta was in turn murdered by Ashurnasirpal, a revolt that might have its echo in this note from the Babylonian chronicle [5300]:

"The nobles of Akkad and Kar-Duniash revolted, and they sat Adad-shum-usur on the throne of his father."

The next Hammurabic king was AMMIDITANA, who would have been a contemporary of Ashurnasirpal. The latter's Babylonian contemporary is usually considered to have been Nabu-apla-iddina, whose 30-plus years of reign "(887-855?)" as given by Roux [5400] compares well with the 30-plus years accredited to Ammiditana (1683-1647).

"Under [Hammurabi's] fourth successor, Ammisaduqa, a list of ancestors of the dynasty explicitly recognized that they were Amorite" [5500].

In fact: "A list of ancestors of Shamsi-Adad found in Assur contained the same Amorite names as those given by Ammisaduqa." [5600]

AMMISADUQA could be Shalmaneser III's Babylonian contemporary, Marduk-zakir-shumi.

Our Table above leaves us with plenty of space in which to insert the reigns of these final Hammurabians, the last of whom is named SAMSUDITANA. Now, it was in his time, according to a late chronicle [5700], that:

"Against Samsu-ditana the men of Hatti marched, against the land of Akkad."

This catastrophic incident for Babylon is commonly thought to have occurred in about 1595 BC. More specifically, a Hittite text connects it to the time of Mursilis [5800]:

"Thereafter he (Mursilis) went to Babylon and occupied Babylon; he also attacked the Hurrians and kept the prisoners and possessions from Babylon at Hattusas."

What would further complicate the situation in Babylon at the time would be the Kassite interference therein; notably, Assuruballit's interference after the death of Burnaburiash (i.e. Shalmaneser III).

Van der Mieroop again [5900]:

"Assur-uballit had made Assyria sufficiently powerful for Burnaburiash to have married his daughter as his main wife. When the Babylonian [sic] king died, his son Kara-hardash took over, but was assassinated in a rebellion. Assur-uballit did not appreciate his grandson's murder, and invaded Babylonia to place Kurigalzu II on the throne."

Given Assuruballit's alliance with the Hittites (as Aziru), his intervention in Babylon may well have coincided with the raid by the Hittite Mursilis upon Babylon.

Certainly, the contemporary Assyrian king, Shamsi-Adad V (son of Shalmaneser III), had great trouble with Babylon, and is said to have "deported two Babylonian kings in succession." [6000] His reign may indeed have seen the end of the Hammurabic era in Babylon, since: "A chronicle mentions that there were no kings in Babylon for more than a decade."

The Hammurabians

Probably the explanation is to be found in the origins of the Hammurabic dynasty which was Amorite, not Babylonian. "…Hammurabi of Babylon, who came to rule a large urbanized territory, still referred to himself as "king of the Amorites" [6100]. The kings of this dynasty were - like Zimri-Lim the grandfather of Ben-Hadad, who had close connections with Iarim Lim of Yamkhad [6200] - originally from western Syria; hence their western Semitic names. "Under [Hammurabi's] fourth successor, Ammisaduqa, a list of ancestors of the dynasty explicitly recognized that they were Amorite" [6300]. In fact:"A list of ancestors of Shamsi-Adad found in Assur contained the same Amorite names as those given by Ammisaduqa" [6400].

There is a suspicious similarity of names in Hammurabi's ancestor, Sumuabum, and an ancestor of Hammurabi of Yamkhad (c.1760 BC) - a contemporary of Hammurabi the Great - Sumu'epuh.

Like Iarim-lim (Hiram), the powerful descendants of Hammurabi probably largely called the shots in Babylonia from afar. We saw in D that Iarim-Lim, though situated at Aleppo, was powerful enough to control affairs as far as distant Elam. This is what I suspect the Hammurabic dynasty was largely doing in parallel with its brother Mitannian dynasty (Ben-Hadad's) that had its origins with Zimri-Lim. This would explain the apparent dearth, again, of Hammurabic archaeology in Babylon [6500]: "Due to extensive later rebuilding and the recent rise of the water table, the city of Babylon is virtually unknown archaeologically for this period, and only a handful of tablets from it have survived".

To the End of the Hammurabic Dynasty

Samsuiluna's successor was Abi-eshu (c.1711-1684 BC, conventional), who, though he repelled a Kassite attack, "was unable to prevent the Kassite chief Kashtiliash I from becoming King of Hana" [6600]. On a revised scale, this would make Abi-eshuh a contemporary of Tukulti-Ninurta who defeated Kashtiliash and conquered Babylon [6700]. The possibility must also be considered that Abi-eshu was Tukulti-Ninurta himself; Tukulti-Ninurta perhaps being from a Mitannian line different from - though closely connected to - Tushratta's.

Kashtiliash would presumably be a Kassite predecessor of Ben-Hadad/Kadasman-Enlil.

Later Hammurabians, with names like Ammidatana and Samsuditana, would probably find their place amongst that second stream of Mitannians, Artatama and Šutarna, now ruling the Hurri lands (Urartu?). With early names from the Hammurabian dynasty (Sumu'epuh and Hammurabi) found in Yamkhad, and later names found as rulers of Hurri, we can conclude that the Hammurabic Amorites ruled from Yamkhad to the borders of Assyria. And, when the occasion allowed it, they also controlled Assyria and Babylonia.

I think that it is no coincidence that when the Hittite king Mursilis I (c. 1620-1590 BC, conventional) - to be folded with Mursilis II - eventually brought an end to the glorious kingdom of Yamkhad, destroying the city of Aleppo [6800], he then went on to take and plunder Babylon, then ruled by Samsuditana, thus effectively bringing to an end the Hammurabic dynasty.

The Syrian

(i) Ben-Hadad is absolutely crucial in our efforts to establish EA in the mid-C9th BC. He is
(ii) Abdi-Ashirta of Amurru (Velikovsky);
(iii) Tushratta/Dushratta (name connection with Abdi-Ashirta);
(iv) Ashurnasirpal, given that Tushratta ruled Nineveh;
(v) Kadashman-Enlil, given that Ashurnasirpal conquered the Kassites.

Stratigraphy

Here I shall simply follow Rohl's stratigraphy for Jericho, which both confirms what was said in `Old Kingdom', Part C, adds strength to `Zimri Lim' in Part D, but which is also important for the light it throws on a contemporary of Ahab's, relevant to this section, E [6900]:

It was during the twenty-three year reign of AHAB that the ruin-mound of Jericho was reoccupied on a permanent basis by the Israelite clan chieftain, Hiel of Bethel. As had been the custom for centuries in the ancient Levant, Hiel ritually sacrificed his eldest and youngest sons, Abiram and Segub, in order to lay their bodies as foundation deposits beneath the chieftain's new residence and town gate. Thus Joshua's curse, made before the smoldering ruins of Jericho over five centuries earlier, came to be fulfilled. [1.Kings 16:34; Joshua 6:26]

Accursed before Yahweh be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city (of Jericho)! On his first-born will he lay its foundations! On his youngest son will he set up its gates! [Joshua 6:26]

Hiel's new town is represented in the archaeological record by Iron Age pottery found at Jericho, the succeeding phases of which continue on down into Byzantine times. Now that the Holy Land stratigraphical timeline has been re-synchronised with … biblical history …the pattern of archaeological remains at Tell es-Sultan (the ruin mound of Jericho) corresponds remarkably with the biblical narrative.

First the well-fortified Middle Bronze II-B city is destroyed by fire and abandoned for decades, its walls having tumbled down in an earthquake - this, of course, is Joshua's Jericho destroyed during the … conquest of the Promised Land. A brief occupation of the site by Eglon, ruler of Moab, follows (represented by the 'Middle Building' and LB I pottery). Then, after several centuries, there is another brief reoccupation by David's ambassadors in 1000 BC (re-use of the Middle Building and LB II-A pottery). This too was abandoned and the site left to the wind and rain for a further one hundred and ninety years before Hiel's resettlement in 869 BC (the Iron Age I remains).[7000]

The Jericho of the conventional chronology - a site which consistently failed to match the biblical story at every archaeological stage - moves out of the realms of mythology and suddenly fits like a freshly cut key.

[0100] In the records of Assyria by D.D. Luckenbill we read: "To the cities of Nikdime (and) Nikdiera I drew near. They became frightened at my mighty, awe inspiring weapons and my grim warfare, cast themeselves upon the sea in wicker(?) boats. I followed after them in boats of (goat skins), fought a great battle on the sea, defeated them, and with their blood I dyed the sea like wool."[`Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia', NY 1968, Vol. II, Sec. 609, p. 215;]
An invading king made a proclamation found at Ras Shamra/Ugarit and written in ancient Hebrew using cuneiform characters was an order to expell all foreigners and reads as follows: "... the Jaman (Ionians), the people of Didyme, the Khar (Carians), the Cypriots, all foreigners, together with the king Nikmed " were to be expelled "... all those who pillage you, all those who oppress you, all those who ruin you." [Hrozny, `Les Ioniens a Ras-Shamra', Archiv Orientalni, Vol. IV (1932), 171; Dhorme, Revue biblique, Vol. XL (1931), 37-39.]
"... From the mountain Amanus I departed, crossed the Orontes river and approached Alimush/Alisar, the fortress town of Sapalulme from Hattina. To save his life, Sapalulme from Hattina [called for] Ahuni, man of Adini, Sangara from Carchemish, Haianu from Sam'al, Kate from Que, Pihirim from Hilukka, Bur-Anate from Iasbuq Ada[...] ... Assyria..." [Pritchard, `Records of Assyrian and Babylonian Historical Texts', p. 189; I.Velikovsky, `Revolutions in Egypt and Israel', http://www.varchive.org/tac/revegis.htm; Claude F.A. Schaeffer, `Stratigraphie Comparée et Chronologie de l'Asie Occidentale', London, 1948, p. 312-327]
There seems to be little doubt that the city of Nikdime was Ugarit/Ras Shamra of Niqmed/Nikmed and the invading king was the same whose record we read above. The city of Nikdime, like the city of Nikmed, was located close to the Mediterranean Sea. Ugarit/Ras Shamra was known as a city whose skilled workers used a particular sea shell to produce a dye used to color wool products.
During this time king Nebopaliddin (conv. 888-854 BC) reigned in the city of Sippar. This king is shown being led by his hand by a priest before the sun god in a drawing on a cuneiform stone plaque. [D.P. Volz, `Die Biblischen Altertümer', p. 174; ]
[0200] Arnuwandas was supposed to have been a brother of Suppiluliumas.; N.K. Sanders, `The Sea Peoples', 1978, p. 33.
[0300] If Shalmaiati of EA#155 is indeed Shalmaneser III then his name does occur in the EA correspondence. From EA#151 we learn that Ugarit was burned.
[0400] REIDEL, W., Untersuchungen zu den Tell-el Amarna-Briefen, (Tübingen, 1920) RUZ.
[0500] VELIKOVSKY, I., Oedipus and Akhnaton, (Abacus, 1960). VOA, Pt.1, identifies Tiy with Oedipus' mother, Jocasta. "My wife who is my mother", said Oedipus of Jocasta.; Sir Allan Gardiner, `Egypt of the Pharaohs' suggests that Nefertiti might have been Tadukhipa/var. Taduhiba but also says she had a sister in Egypt making that unlikely.; p. 213.; For TT120, tomb of Amenhotep III and Tiye, see Lyla Pinch Brock, Jewels in the Gebel: A Preliminary Report on the Tomb of Anen in JARCE, XXXVI, 1999, p. 71-85.; The much destroyed tomb is located in the necropolis of officials in the Sheikh Abd el Qurna area of Western Thebes.
[0600] CLAPHAM, P., "Hittites and Phrygians", C&AH, Vol. IV, pt.2 (LA, July, 1987). CHP, 85. It appears the Kassites at times used boundary stones. One such stone shows Melishipak presenting his daughter to a goddess Nanar.; `The Wycliffe Historical Geography of Bible Lands', Chicago, p. 24.
[0700] MERCER, S., The Tell El-Amarna Tablets, (Macmillan, Toronto, 1939). MTE, Excursus III: "Mitanni in the Tell El-Amarna Tablets".
[0800] Benhadad in Hebrew: -, `son', `worshipper of Hadad' or `Adados', the greatest deity of the Syrians. Benhadad in cuneiform, ; PSBA, Feb. 6, 1883, p. 71 `Black Obelisk'.
[0900] Baal is also referred to as 'Hd' [Hadad?] in the Ugaritic mythology.
[1000] HARRAK, A., Assyria and Hanigalbat, (Georg Olms Verlag, 1987). HAH, 1.
[1100] CHP, 89. See also Friedrich Ulmer, Von Beirut zum Tell Halaf, `Mythologisches' in Der Alte Orient, Leipzig, 1907, p. 38; showing the draped head of a goddess found at Tell Halaf located west of Mossul and south of Tell Brak. `For an image of the goddess `Ishtar' as the mother goddess see Morris Jastrow, `The Civilization of Babylonia & Assyria', Philad., London, 1915, Plate XXIX, Fig. 3, p. 218., Fig. 1. the god Nabu; 2. Ishtar as the goddess of war. See also (a) the Stela of Hammurabi (rev. time of Solomon) standing before the enthroned sun-god, p. 130; (b) the terracotta plaque a bearded man with a sword appears to stab a figure with the head of a sunburst, p. 139. Notice the headwear is the same as that of the sun-god on the Stela of Hammurabi, it probably shows horns which signify deification.; and (c) the cylinder-seal impression showing the seals owner being introduced to Ishtar (near the head is a sun burst) holding a curved scimitar, p. 140. [Shamash in Seton Lloyd, The Art of the Ancient Near East, p. 130, 139, 140.; BA, Vol. 47, No. 2, June 1984, p. 85, 105. This issue shows Puzur-Istar of Mari with a two horned headwear.]
[1200] Ibid., 17, referring to "the presumption of Tushratta".
[1300] Op. cit., 95-96.
[1400] Ibid., 96. According to this information Ben-Hadad's other names were: Tushratta, Abdi Ashirta, Abdi-Asrati and Ashurnasirpal II.
`Ben-hadad' and `Hazael' became the national heroes of Syrian history, and were not regarded just as two villains who might be found in any generation. It is a fact that 900 years after, in the days of Josephus Flavius, these two kings were honored as great builders, characters and great conquerors, and the citizens of Damascus cherished their memory as that of saints. Josephus, after describing the act of murder, wrote: "Adados and Azaelos who ruled after him are to this day honored as gods because of their benefactions and the building of temples with which they adorned the city of Damascus. And they have processions every day in honour of these kings and glory in their antiquity ..." [Josephus, `Antiquities', Book IX, Sec. 92-94]
[1450] In ancient texts `brother (sn)' can mean: equal (EA#1)or rival. See Jean Revez, The Metaphorical Use of the Kinship Term Brother in JARCE, Vol. XL, 2003, p. 123-131.
[1500] `Cambridge Ancient History', CAH, 7-8, 14-16; CAH I, Index to Kurtiwaza; ROUX, G., Ancient Iraq, (Penguin Books, 1964). RAI, 239. According to EA#24 the name of the grandfather of Tushratta was also Artatama.
[1600] A fragment of a burnt ivory veneer (2.8x0.8x0.2 cm) inscribed in Aramaic with the name of Hazael, doubtless the 9th century king of Damascus, can be seen in Mallowan, Nimrud and Its Remains, Vol. II, MNRII, p. 598 .
[1700] These kings are variously dated depending on whose scholar's data one follows: Suppiluliuma(s) I 1380-1340 (Gurney), c.1380-1336 (Roux), 1370/1344- 1330/1322 (Kuhrt).
[1800] Ashurnasirpal and Shalmaneser III are found to be, not C9th BC Late Bronze Age kings, cluttering up the revised EA age, but C8th BC Iron Age kings, very close in time to Tiglath-pileser III. The stela of Ashurnasirpal as it is displayed in the British Museum can be seen in BAR, Sep/Oct 2001, p. 52.
[1900] The `Treaty Tablet' of Esarhaddon, found in the throne-room at Nimrud, was sealed with 3 dynastic (not contemporary), cuneiform inscribed, seals: (1) a seal of the period of Shamshi-Adad I, (2) a seal possibly of Tukulti-Ninurta I, (3) a seal of Sennacherib. [Mallowan, Nimrud and Its Remains, Vol. I, p. 245-247, MNRI.]
See also Tilman Eickhoff, Kar Tukulti-Ninurta, Berlin, 1985 (in German). Presents the plan of the site and B&W aerial photographies, the buildings, historical comments, artifacts discovered.
[2000] ROUX, G., Ancient Iraq, (Penguin Books, 1964). RAI, 264.
[2100] Images of Shalmaneser III, son of Ashurnasirpal, can be seen in MNRI, p. 88-89.
[2200] SWEENEY, E., Ramessides, Medes and Persians, (2nd ed., 2001). E-mailed. SRM, 37. A basrelief from Niniveh of an Assyrian king hunting lions is also attributed to Ashurnasirpal. [Pritchard, `Records', Pl. 40.]
[2300] For more website information on these Chronicles visit: "http://www.seminary.georgefox.edu/courses/bst550/reports/DStahlnecker/Chronicles.html#1".
[2400] JAMES, P., Centuries of Darkness, London (Jonathan Cape, 1991). JCD, 340ff.
[2500] RAI, 288.
[2700] Ibid., 289. Compare EA#76, 62. See also D. Redford, Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times, Princeton, 1992, p. 170ff. A. Altmanm `The House of Abdiasirta, Ph.D. diss., Bar Ilan Univ., 1964. "Under a leadership of a family of Canaanite speaking individuals headed by their sheikh Abdi-ashirta, Amurru grew into a warlike canton that posed a political threat to its neighbors. It was Amurru's struggle for recognition and its perceived `manifest destiny' to expand to the Phoenician coast and the Orontes that posed the major problem in the northern empire for Egypt." None of this alters the revised chronology but rather corroberates it.; The text of the Ben-Hadad Inscription: "The stele which Bir-Hadad, son of Tab-Ramman son of Hadyan, king of Aram, set up for his lord Melqart, (the stele) which he vowed to him when he hearkened to his voice." BASOR, Oct. 1942, p. 23-29.
[2800] See CHP, 90.
[2900] Ibid., 118, n. 122; with reference to CAH, 469, and more fully, CAH, Vol.1:1, Index to "Eriba Adad II".
[3000] Tab-Rimmon, see 1.Kings 15:18.
[3100] JAMES, P., "Some Notes on the 'Assuruballit Problem'," SIS Review(UK, 1979). JNA, 19, Table 1. Ashur-rim-nishesu should then be the same as the Ashur-bel-nishesu, father of Eriba-Adad.
[3200] Van De Mieroop, M., `A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC', (Blackwell Publishing), Oxford, 2004, p.143.
[3300] C.W.Ceram, `Gods, Graves and Scholars', p. 291.
[3350] According to archaeologists, the name Haza'el was translated on a ivory fragment from a bed frame(?) found at Arslan Tash in 1928. It reads "... son of Amma, for our lord Haza'el in the year..." connected to 2.Kings 8:7-15. Who Amma was no one knows and if this Hazael was the biblical Hazael we cannot determine for sure, but he is called a lord and therefore could be from Hazael's time. We would have here than Hazael's name preserved in an extra biblical source written in Aramaic, vs. cuneiform.
[3400] RAI, 297. The death of Hadadezer is reported in the records of Shalmaneser III, "Hadad-ezer died. Hazel, the son of a nobody, seized the throne, mustered his large army and came out against me, offering battle and fight. I battled with him, his defeat I brought about. The wall of his camp I seized from him. To save his life he went up (into the mountain). As far as Damascus, his royal city, I advanced. ..." ; Luckenbill, Records of Assyria', Vol. I, Sec. 681.]
[3500] CAMPBELL, E., The Chronology of the Amarna Letters, (The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1964). CCA, 81-82.
[3600] CHP, 90.
[3700] SRM, 36-37.
[3800] Ibid., 38. In conventional history S(h)almanasar I. reigned from ca. 1274-1245 and Shalmaneser II. from ca. 1031-1020.
[3900] VAC, 298, 300, 302, 310, 319.
[4000] SRM, 37.
[4100] RAI, 257.
[4200] VAC, 307-309, 313, 317.
[4300] Cf. CCA, 36ff. & ALBRIGHT, W., "A Revision of Early Assyrian and Middle Babylonian Chronology", RA XVIII (1921). ARE, p. 91. For a clear B&W image of a general view of Enunmah showing the Kurigalzu walls and a brick-stamp see Sir Leonard Wooley, Ur Excavations, Vol. VIII, London 1965, Plate 1, 6. Among other items, shown also are the Via Sacra, Emurianabaag, the Sin-balatsuiqbi walls, the Larsa walls, the outer part and doorway of an inner chamber of the Isme-Dagan wall, a view of Giparku from a ziggurat, Kassite boundary stones, terra-cottasfigures, seals and a description of the city gate.
[4400] Van De Mieroop, M., `A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC' VME, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2004, VHA, p. 291-292. See also A.H. Sayce, `Babylonian Chronology' in PSBA, Feb. 1912, p. 163-172.
[4500] Ibid., 291. The name of an otherwise unknown king `Nabu-shum-libur', assigned to the 4th dynasty, appears on a duck-weight (BM#91432) found by Layard in the NW Palace of Nimrud reading: (1) "XXX ma-[na] kinu"; (2) "sa(ilu)Nabusumlibur sar kassati", Tr.: "30 mina, correct, of Nabu-sum-libur, king of hosts" in PSBA, XXIX, 1907, p. 221.
[4550] The early work on similar tablets was published by Theodore G. Pinches, Notes on a New List of Early Babylonian Kings in PSBA, Jan. 11, 1881, p. 37-49. Missing names include: Column I, Numbers 1 &2, Column II, #1, 27; Column III, #29-31; next 30 lines lost; Column IV, #13-20.]
[4600] Ibid., 108.
[4700] Ibid..
[4800] Ibid., 106.
[4900] RAI, 244.
[5000] Ibid., 264.
[5100] Ibid., 245.
[5200] Ibid.
[5300] Ibid.
[5400] RAI, Chronological Tables VI.
[5500] VME, 84.
[5600] Ibid.
[5700] RAI, 246.
[5800] Ibid., 245.
[5900] VME, 164-165.
[6000] Ibid., 199-200.
[6100] Ibid, 108. See also H.W.F. Saggs, The Greatness that was Babylon, N.Y., 1962.
[6200] Ibid. A Yarim-Lim figures in the history for Alalakh and Aleppo. In the Aleppo line the article mentions Yarim Lim, Hammurapi, Abba-Il, a second Yarim Lim and a Niqmepuh. The Alalakh line is represented by another Yarim Lim, ammitaqum(ma), another Hammurapi and Irkabtum. [BASOR #144, Dec. 1956, p. 28.]
[6300] Ibid.
[6400] Ibid.; Hezion ("vision"), the grandfather of Ben-hadad, king of Syria (1.Chr. 24:15). Many scholars identify Hezion with Rezon, the argument to consider a scribal error begs the question, `What was the name to which that error applied?'.
[6500] Ibid.
[6600] Ibid.
[6700] Ibid.
[6800] RAI, 244.
[6900] Ibid., 264. See also D. ROHL, The Lost Testament, (Century, Random House UK Ltd., 2002).RLT, p. 401.
[7000] Ibid. In the revised context a witness to the area of Jericho being settled subsequent to the time of King David comes from the discovery of Egyptian scarabs of the pharaohs Hatshepsut, Thutmose III and Amenhotep III in a cemetery northwest of Jericho according to BAR, Vol. XVI, Mar/Apr 1990, p. 53. In revised view the cemetery could very well represent a separate area independent of the history of Jericho itself. For images and information on Jericho see Bryant Wood, Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?', BAR, Vol. XVI, Mar/Apr 1990, p. 44-59.

Additional pieces of information not necessarily referenced in the above text:


[10000] Saushtatar (conv. 1500, 1430 BC; Succeeded by his son Artatama I.(Redford)), of him it is said that he took a silver-gold door from Assur and returned it to Assyria during Amarna times. [Stephen Macintyre, `Synchronistic History' (undocumented); See also Weidner, Politische Dokumente, p. 39; E.A. Speiser, JAOS 49 (1929), p. 269-270; Harrack, Assyria and Hanigalbat, p. 42-43; Quoted in D. Redford, Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times, Princeton, 1992, p. 162.]
[10100] A `Tudihaliya (Hittite king)' letter mentions a well known Assyrian noble `Babu-aha-iddina' of the Shalmaneser I/Tukulti Ninurta I period. Other interesting names occur in this: `Amurru-ashared' in the same letter and is mentioned in `Dur-katlimmu' correspondence. Certain letters KUB23:102 and KBo 1:14 have New Chronology-OC disputed interpretations. Also the RS34.165 letter probably from a Shalmaneser (or alternatively the son of Shalmaneser) mentioning a battle with Tudhaliya, king of Hittites.[Ibid. 500]