Shawn Zelig Aster, «Israelite Embassies to Assyria in the First Half of the Eighth Century», Vol. 97 (2016) 175-198
This article shows that the kingdom of Israel sent ambassadors on an annual basis to the Assyrian empire during much of the reign of Jeroboam II, and it explores the implications of these contacts for the interpretation of Isaiah 1–39 and Hosea. These diplomatic contacts are based on points Fales has raised regarding nimrud Wine List 4 (ND 6212), whose importance for biblical studies has hitherto not been recognized. The recipients of the wine rations in this list are to be identified as ambassadors of weaker kingdoms, among them Samaria, who visited Assyria to pay tribute.
ISRAeLITe eMBASSIeS To ASSyRIA 183
vidual or two or three different persons. Another official with this
name was in charge of deportees in the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (nD
2443) (PNAE 3/1, 1173).
Adad-uballiª: 1) eponym of the year 785 and governor of Tam-
nunna; 2) grandfather of the scribe of a medical tablet (PNAE 1/1 41).
Mannu-k¥-Adad: 1) eponym of the year 773 and governor of
Raqmat; 2) slave from Calah in the reign of Adad-nirari III; 3) an in-
dividual in charge of the steward and governor of Calah, probably in
the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III; 4) an individual from Calah mentioned
in administrative text nD 2707 from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III or
Sargon II; 5) a witness in conveyance document CTn 2 82, sometime
in the eighth century (PNAE 2/2 681).
The only period in which we find all three of these officials men-
tioned together is the reign of Adad-nirari III in the first third of the
eighth century 26.
Furthermore, nWL 4 was found in SW6, a location in the south-
west palace which served as a wine cellar, where other wine lists were
also found. The clearly datable texts from SW6 all appear to cluster
around the period 784-779. In this location, the following texts were
also found: nWL 3, nWL 5, and TFS 147. Fales notes that we find
definite dates for the texts known as nWL 3 (784 BCe) and nWL 5
(779 BCe) 27. The text known as TFS 147 could date either to 781 or
723, depending on how one reads the eponym, but the latter date
“would extend by more than a decade the lower chronological limit of
the texts”, and is therefore inadmissible 28. The grouping of the datable
texts in this find-spot shows that nWL 4 should be dated, as kinnier
Wilson suggested, somewhere around the period 791-779. More
26
note that although Ôilli-ißtar and Mannu-k¥-Adad are known in the reign
of Tiglath-Pileser III, the absence of an official bearing the name Adad-uballiª
from the administrative record during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III makes it un-
likely that nWL 4 dates to the late eighth century. The three two-part volumes of
PnAe were published at Helsinki between 1998 and 2011 by the neo-Assyrian
Text Corpus Project, edited by Simo Parpola, karen Radner, and Heather D. Baker.
27
FALeS, “A Fresh Look at the nimrud Wine Lists”, 364.
28
Dalley and Postgate (The Tablets from Fort Shalmaneser, 23) agree with
these dates. In contrast to Fales (“A Fresh Look at the nimrud Wine Lists”, 361-
380), however, they do not explicitly exclude the possibility that this text dates to
723. They nevertheless note that “no tablets of late 8th century can be identified”
in this room. They further note, “there is no reason to suppose that any of the SW6
texts belong to the later period”, i.e. to the period after 754 (The Tablets from Fort
Shalmaneser, 24).