ISRAeLITe eMBASSIeS To ASSyRIA 185 this region 33. Furthermore, the term ßa bitœni, which kinnier Wilson at p. 93 interprets as “of the interior”, is paralleled in SAA I, 178/ABL 953/k892, where the term refers to the interior of a Syrian province, far- ther away from the desert. It would appear to refer to a city of Dan/Dana located “inside” an Assyrian province or territory, militating in favour of the origin of the Danites in r. 16 being in ad-Dana near kunalua. v. Identifying the foreigners in the nimrud wine lists A critical issue in interpreting these lists is determining the identity of the foreigners who received these allocations. kinnier Wilson sug- gested that they were prisoners from conquered territories who were in Calah as skilled labourers for palace building projects. To explain how and why these foreigners were allocated wine, kinnier Wilson views the lists as examples of a much larger system in which these in- dividuals were allocated a daily ration of wine 34. Tadmor considered kinnier Wilson’s suggestion to be improbable. He noted: “It is unlikely that the court would feed captives. Moreover, Adad-nirari and his successor did not wage war with Sam’al, Car- chemish, Melid or Samaria. All these might have been professional soldiers, merchants, or — what is perhaps more likely — ambassadors of their countries to the Assyrian court” 35. He makes this argument tentatively, and this position is followed by Hasegawa 36. Because of doubts as to the correct interpretation of the reason for the presence of all these foreigners at Calah, Israel eph’al presents a cautious interpretation of the Israelites’ presence: “An assumed col- laboration between Israel and Assyria against Damascus is only one possible explanation for the unaccountable presence of the ‘Samari- ans’ in Assyria” 37. eph’al and Tadmor were cautious not to see the 33 SIDDALL, Adad-nirari III, 65 34 kInnIeR WILSon, The Nimrud Wine Lists, 4. 35 H. TADMoR “Assyria and the West: The ninth Century and its Aftermath”, Unity and Diversity. essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient near east (eds. H. GoeDICke – J.J.M. RoBeRTS) (Baltimore, MD 1975) 36-48, here 42. 36 S. HASeGAWA, Aram and Israel during the Jehuite Dynasty (BZAW 434; Berlin 2012) 137-138. 37 eph’al appears to refer here to the hypothesis that Jeroboam was able to expand the borders of Israel in the early eighth century as a result of tacit collab- oration with Assyria: I. ePH’AL, “The Samarian(s) in the Assyrian Sources”, Ah, Assyria. Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient near eastern Historiography