Adrammelech and Sharezer murdered king Sennacherib



 

“One day, while [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch,

his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped

to the land of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place”.

 

2 Kings 19:37

 

 

 

Tobit 1:21 collaborates this, but without naming the two regicidal sons:

 

“… two of Sennacherib's sons assassinated him and then escaped to the mountains of Ararat. Another son, Esarhaddon, became emperor and put Ahikar, my brother Anael's son, in charge of all the financial affairs of the empire”.

 

Tobit 1:21

 

 

As far as I (Damien Mackey) am aware, “Sharezer” has not yet been positively identified.

Emil G. Kraeling thinks that: “Sharezer was probably not a son” (“The Death of Sennacherib”, Jstor 53, No. 4, December, 1933, cf. note 32).

 

Thanks to professor Simo Parpola, “Adrammelech” has been identified as one of Sennacherib’s known sons: http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/introduction/murderersennacherib.htm   

 

 

THE MURDERER OF SENNACHERIB

The news of the murder of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, on 20 Tebet, 681, was received with mixed feelings but certainly with strong emotion alI over the ancient Near East. In Israel and Babylonia, it was hailed as godsent punishment for the "godless" deeds of a hated despot; in Assyria, the reaction must have been overwhelmingly horror and resentment. Not surprisingly, then, the event is relatively well reported or referred to in contemporary and later sources, both cuneiform and non-cuneiform, and has been the subject of considerable scholar]y debate as well. In spite of all this attention, however, the most central thing about the whole affair has remained an open question: the identity of the murderer. While alI our sources agree that he was one of the king's own sons, his name js not known from any cunciform text, and the names offered by the Bible and Berossus, alI of them evidently textually corrupt, have not been satisfactorily explained and are accordingly looked at with understandable suspicion. A theory favored in the early days of Assyriology, according to which these names should be viewed as corruptions of Ardior Arad-Ninlil. a son of Scnnacherib known from a contemporary legal document, has gradually had to give way to an entirely different interpretatjon, according to which the murderer (or at least the mastermind behind the murder) was none but Sennacherib's heir-designate and successor to throne himself, Esarhaddon, who would have been forced to engineer the assassination in order to avoid being replaced by one of his brothers. The weakness of this theory is that it is in disagreement not only with Esarhaddon's own account of the course of events, which puts the blame on his brothers, but also with the traditions of the Bible and Berossus; it also involves a lot of reading between the lines. For these reasons, it has not been universally accepted either, and the case is largely viewed as unsolved for lack of clear-cut, conclusive evidence.   In this paper I hope to show that the available evidence is not at alI so elusive as is commonly thought, and actually suffices for determining the identity of the assassin with reasonable certainty. There is a Neo-Babylonian letter, published decades ago, which explicitly states the name of the murderer, and this name is not only known to have been borne by a son of Sennacherib but it also virtuaIIy agrees with the name forms found in the Bible and at Berossus. The text in question, R. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters (=ABL) XI no.1091 (Chicago 1911), has escaped attention because it was completely misunderstood and mistranslated by its editor, Leroy Waterman; the name has remained unidentified because its actual pronunciation has been obscured by its misleading logographic speIIing. In what foIIows, I shaII analyse both the letter and the name in detail and finaIIy integrate tile new evidence with the previously known facts in a brief reassessment of the murder and its prehistory.   The beginning of ABL 1091 is lost. The first three extant lines are fragmentary, but sufficiently much of them remains to suggest that they referred to certain "Babylonian brothers'. of the writer (or writers).lu From line 4' on the text can be foIIowed better. The persons just mentioned gain knowledge of a "treaty of rebeIIion", and subsequently one of them requests an audience with the king. The expression for this is "to say the king's word" which, as shown by J. N. Postgate years ago.l It implies that the person in question applied to the king as the supreme judge and should consequently have been sent directly to the Palace. This, however, is not what happens in the present case. Two Assyrian officials appear and question the man. Having found whom his appeal concerns, they cover his face and take him away. This, in itself. is perhaps not significant, for ordinary people were not permitted to look at the king face to face. But what foIIows is startling. The man is not taken to the king but to Arad-Ninlil, the very person he wanted to talk about, and (his face stiII covered) is ordered to speak out. Clearly under the i]lusion that he is speaking to the king, he subsequently dec]ares: "Your son AradNinlil is going to kiII you. " Things now take a drastic course. The face of the man is uncovered: he is interrogated by Arad-Ninlil: and after that he is put to death along with his comrades mentioned in the beginning of the letter. The remaining seven lines are too fragmentary to be properly understood.   To bring home the significance of this letter, let me put together some basic facts. The first is that it was clearly the "treaty of rebellion" mentioned at the beginning of the text that induced the unfortunate man to appeal to the king; second, that his information concerned Arad-Ninlil; and third, that because of this information, he and alI his comrades knowing about the "treaty of rebellion " instantly got killed. Accordingly, we may conclude that the assertion "Your son Arad-Ninlil will kill you" was something Arad-Ninlil did not want to become publicly known; and since this statement was meant for the ears of the king, it is evident (1) that the person Arad-Ninlil intended to kill was the king himself and (2) that Arad-Ninlil himself was the king's own son. It follows that AradNinlil was involved in a conspiracy aiming at the murder of the king, and quite obviously was the leading figure in it. Nowhere in the letter is the name Arad-Ninlil preserved completely; the last sign LÍL is broken away or damaged in alI instances. But no other Sargonid prince with a name beginning with the sign ARAD is known, so the restoration of the final element can be regarded as certain. Since Arad-Ninlil is only attested as a son of Sennacherib, the king referred to in the text can only be Sennacherib.   On the other hand. it is clear that the letter itself cannot have been addressed to Sennacherib. Had the writer wanted to warn the king of a threatening assassination, he would have expressed himself differently. Hence, one must conclude that the letter was written after the murder had already taken place, and therefore probably was addressed to Esarhaddon. As this king must. from the beginning, have been reasonably well informed about his father's murder, it would be absurd to assume that the purpose of the writer was simply to inform the king about the identity of the murderer. His aim was certainly different. If we consider the text more closely. it is easy to see that the writer took the leading role of Arad-Ninlil in the conspiracy as generally known: but what he is trying to make clear is that the two officials mentioned in the letter were responsible for the death of the informer and therefore by implication also involved in the conspiracy.Both men. Nabu-sum-iskun and Sillâ. are w.ell known as officials of Sennacherib who continued in their offices through the early years of Esarhaddon: the Kuyunjik letter archiye contains many denunciations against the latter. The present letter clearly is in the same category. and by using as an argument against Sillâ his role in silencing the informer, it actually implies that the prediction "your son Arad-Ninlil will kill you" had become a fact meanwhile.   Thus, the letter just discussed powerfully supports the position of the scholars who have seen in Arad-Ninlil the likeliest candidate for the murderer of Sennacherib. and in fact makes it a matter of yirtual certainty. We may hence pass on to a serious reconsideration of the problem of how to satisfactorily relate the name Arad-Ninlil to the names of the murderer (Adrammelech/Adramelos/Ardumuzan) given in the Bible and the BerossuS excerpts.   Actually, there is hardly any problem here at all. We are now in a position to show that the traditional reading of the (logographically spelled) Assyrian name, on which the earlier comparisons were based (and which has also been used here for convenience) is incorrect and should be abolished. In particular, the theophoric element at the end of the name (d-NIN.LÍL) has to be read [Mulissu] or [Mullêsu], not *Ninlil. This reading, first tentatively suggested by E. Reiner twelve years ago and since then increasingly well documented, represents the Neo-Assyrian form of the Akkadian name of the goddess Ninlil, attested as Mulliltum in an Old-Babylonian god list. It appears to have been very wide-spread in the first millennium, and is actually attested in syllabic spellings of the very name under consideration. On the other hand, the reading of the first element (ARAD) can be determined as [ arda] or [ ardi] on the basis of occasional syllabic spellings in contemporary and earlier Assyrian texts. And once the reading Arda-Mulissi has been established, the names of the murderer found in the non-cuneiform sources become relatively easy to explain. The Biblical Adrammelech differs from the Assyrian name only in two respects: the metathesis or r and d, and the replacement of shin at the end of the name by kaph. The former point is negligible since r and d were virtually homographic and therefore easy to confuse in early Hebrew and Aramaic script;26 the second can be explained as a scribal error. It is not difficult to imagine a scribe correcting a seemingly nonsensical "meles" to "melek", a frequent final element in North-West Semitic personal names. The Berossian name forms show an even better match. The form Adramelos found in the Abydenos excerpt is virtually identical with Arda-Mulissi save for the already discussed metathesis of r and d (which may have been influenced by the familiarity of Eusebius with the Biblical form). The name Ardumuzan agrees with Arda-Mulissi up to its last syllable which can only be due to textual corruption. It is important to note that in this name, the metathesis of r and d does not take place.   In sum, it can be stated that all three names can be relatively easily traced back to Arda-Mulissi; and "then one comes to think about it. it would be very hard if not impossible to find another Assyrian name "which could provide as satisfactory an explanation for them as this one does. The identification of Arad-Ninliu Arda-Mulissi as the murderer of Sennacherib can thus be considered doubly assured. But "what were his motives, and how did he end up doing what he did? My reconstruction of the course of events is as follows: In 694, Sennacherib eldest son and heir-designate Assur-nãdin-sumi is captured by Babylonians and carried off to Elam; he is no more heard of. The second-eldest son, Arda-Mulissi, now has every reason to expect to be the next crown prince; however, he is outmaneuvered from this position in favor of Esarhaddon, another son of Sennacherib. This one is younger than Arda-Mulissi but becomes the favorite son of Sennacherib thanks to his mother Naqia, who is not the mother of ArdaMulissi. Eventually, Esarhaddon is officially proclaimed crown prince, and all Assyria is made to swear allegiance to him. However, ArdaMulissi enjoys considerable popularity among certain circles who would like to see him as their future king rather than sickly Esarhaddon. As years pass, the opposition to Esarhaddon grows, while at the same time Arda-Mulissi and his brother(s) gain in popularity. This political development leads to a turn of events, but not to the one hoped for by ArdaMulissi and his supporters. Foreseeing trouble, Sennacherib sends Esarhaddon away from the capital to the western provinces; yet he does not revise the order of succession. In this situation, Arda-Mulissi and his borther(s) soon find themselves in a stalemate. On the one hand, they are at their political zenith while their rival brother has to languish in exile; on the other hand, the latter remains the crown prince, and there is nothing his brothers can do about it since the position of Sennacherib remains unchanged and Esarhaddon himself is out of reach in the provinces. Supposing he were able to score military victories, his popularity would undoubtedly rise while that of his brothers might easily start to sink. The only way for them to make good of the situation, it seems, is to act swiftly and take over the kingship by force. A "treaty of rebellion" is concluded; and probably not much later, Sennacherib is stabbed to death by Arda-Mulissi or, perhaps, crushed alive under a winged bull colossus guarding the temple where he had been praying at the time of the murder. This reconstruction closely follows Esarhaddon's own account of the events. and similar interpretations have been presented earlier by others.

So-called “Minoans” were the Philistines

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

  

 

 

Those whom Sir Arthur Evans fancifully named ‘the Minoans’,

based on the popular legend of King Minos, son of Zeus,

are biblically and historically attested as the Philistines.  

 

 

 

 

Gavin Menzies has followed Arthur Evans in labelling as “Minoans” the great sea-faring and trading nation that is the very focal point of his fascinating book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History's Greatest Mystery Revealed (HarperCollins, 2011). Though the ex-submariner, Menzies, can sometimes ‘go a bit overboard’ - or, should I say, he can become a bit ‘airborne’ (and don’t we all?) - he is often highly informative and is always eminently readable.

According to the brief summary of the book that we find at Menzies’ own site: http://www.gavinmenzies.net/lost-empire-atlantis/the-book/

 

 

... the Minoans. It’s long been known that this extraordinary civilisation, with its great palaces and sea ports based in Crete and nearby Thera (now called Santorini), had a level of sophistication that belied its place in the Bronze Age world but never before has the extent of its reach been uncovered.

 

Through painstaking research, including recent DNA evidence, Menzies has pieced together an incredible picture of a cultured people who traded with India and Mesopotamia, Africa and Western Europe, including Britain and Ireland, and even sailed to North America.

 

Menzies reveals that copper found at Minoan sites can only have come from Lake Superior, and that it was copper, combined with tin from Cornwall and elsewhere, to make bronze, that gave the Minoans their wealth. He uses knowledge gleaned as a naval captain to explore ancient shipbuilding and navigation techniques and explain how the Minoans were able to travel so far. He looks at why the Minoan empire, which was 1500 years ahead of China and Greece in terms of science, architecture, art and language, disappeared so abruptly and what led to her destruction. ...

 

[End of quote]

 

The Philistines

 

Thanks to Dr. Donovan Courville (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, Loma Linda CA, 1971), we can trace the Philistines - through their distinctive pottery - all the way back to Neolithic Knossos (Crete). And this, despite J. C. Greenfield’s assertion: “There is no evidence for a Philistine occupation of Crete, nor do the facts about the Philistines, known from archaeological and literary sources, betray any relationship between them and Crete” (IDB, 1962, vol. 1, p. 534). The distinctive type of pottery that Courville has identified as belonging to the biblical Philistines is well described in this quote that he has taken from Kathleen Kenyon:

 

The pottery does in fact provide very useful evidence about culture. The first interesting point is the wealth of a particular class of painted pottery …. The decoration is bichrome, nearly always red and black, and the most typical vessels have a combination of metopes enclosing a bird or a fish with geometric decoration such as a “Union Jack” pattern or a Catherine wheel. At Megiddo the first bichrome pottery is attributed to Stratum X, but all the published material comes from tombs intrusive into this level. It is in fact characteristic of Stratum IX. Similar pottery is found in great profusion in southern Palestine … Very similar vessels are also found on the east coast of Cyprus and on the coastal Syrian sites as far north as Ras Shamra. [Emphasis Courville’s]

 

By contrast, the pottery of the ‘Sea Peoples’ - a maritime confederation confusingly identified sometimes as the early biblical Philistines, their pottery like, but not identical to the distinctive Philistine pottery as described above - was Aegean (Late Helladic), not Cretan.  

 

The indispensable “Table of Nations” (Genesis 10), informs us that the Philistines were a Hamitic people, descendants of Ham’s “son”, Mizraim (or Egypt) (v. 6).

Genesis 10:13: “Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, Pathrusites, Kasluhites (from whom the Philistines came) and Caphtorites”.

These earliest Philistines would be represented by the users of this distinctive pottery at Neolithic I level Knossos (Dr. Courville):

 

With the evidences thus far noted before us, we are now in a position to examine the archaeological reports from Crete for evidences of the early occupation of this site by the Caphtorim (who are either identical to the Philistines of later Scripture or are closely related to them culturally). We now have at least an approximate idea of the nature of the culture for which we are looking ….

 

… we can hardly be wrong in recognizing the earliest occupants of Crete as the people who represented the beginnings of the people later known in Scripture as the Philistines, by virtue of the stated origin of the Philistines in Crete. This concept holds regardless of the name that may be applied to this early era by scholars.

The only site at which Cretan archaeology has been examined for its earliest occupants is at the site of the palace at Knossos. At this site deep test pits were dug into the earlier occupation levels. If there is any archaeological evidence available from Crete for its earliest period, it should then be found from the archaeology of these test pits. The pottery found there is described by Dr. Furness, who is cited by Hutchinson.

 

“Dr. Furness divides the early Neolithic I fabrics into (a) coarse unburnished ware and (b) fine burnished ware, only differing from the former in that the pot walls are thinner, the clay better mixed, and the burnish more carefully executed. The surface colour is usually black, but examples also occur of red, buff or yellow, sometimes brilliant red or orange, and sometimes highly variegated sherds”.

 

A relation was observed between the decoration of some of this pottery from early Neolithic I in Crete with that at the site of Alalakh ….

 

Continuing to cite Dr. Furness, Hutchinson commented:

 

Dr. Furness justly observes that “as the pottery of the late Neolithic phases seems to have developed at Knossos without a break, it is to the earliest that one must look for evidence of origin of foreign connections”, and she therefore stresses the importance of a small group with plastic decoration that seems mainly confined to the Early Neolithic I levels, consisting of rows of pellets immediately under the rim (paralleled on burnished pottery of Chalcolithic [predynastic] date from Gullucek in the Alaca [Alalakh] district of Asia Minor). [Emphasis Courville’s]

 

While the Archaeological Ages of early Crete cannot with certainty be correlated with the corresponding eras on the mainland, it would seem that Chalcolithic on the mainland is later than Early Neolithic in Crete; hence any influence of one culture on the other is more probably an influence of early Cretan culture on that of the mainland. This is in agreement with Scripture to the effect that the Philistines migrated from Crete to what is now the mainland at some point prior to the time of Abraham.[[1]]

[End of quotes]

 

Late Chalcolithic, we have already learned, pertains to the era of Abram (Abraham), when the Philistines were apparently in southern Canaan:

 

Better archaeological model for Abraham

 

https://www.academia.edu/31214563/Better_archaeological_model_for_Abraham

 

We next find the Philistines in the land of Palestine (the Gaza region) at the time of Joshua. Was there a Philistine migration out of Crete (“Caphtor”) at the time of the Exodus migration out of Egypt? (Amos 9:7): “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?”

Dr. John Bimson becomes interesting at this point, as previously I have written:

 

Here I take up Bimson’s account of this biblical tradition:[2]

 

There is a tradition preserved in Joshua 13:2-3 and Judges 3:3 that the Philistines were established in Canaan by the end of the Conquest, and that the Israelites had been unable to oust them from the coastal plain …. There is also an indication that the main Philistine influx had not occurred very much prior to the Conquest. As we shall see below, the Philistines are the people referred to as “the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor” in Deuteronomy 2:23 … where it is said that a people called the Avvim originally occupied the region around Gaza, and that the Caphtorim “destroyed them and settled in their stead”. Josh. 13:2-3 mentions Philistines and Avvim together as peoples whom the Israelites had failed to dislodge from southern Canaan. This suggests that the Philistines had not completely replaced the Avvim by the end of Joshua’s life. I would suggest, in fact, that the war referred to in Ex. 13:17, which was apparently taking place in “the land of the Philistines” at the time of the Exodus, was the war of the Avvim against the newly arrived Philistines.

 

As conventionally viewed, the end of MB II C coincides with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt. Bimson however, in his efforts to provide a revised stratigraphy for the revision of history, has synchronised MB II C instead with the start of Hyksos rule. He will argue here in some detail that the building and refortifying of cities at this time was the work of the Avvim against the invading Philistines, with some of the new settlements, however, likely having been built by the Philistines themselves.

 

[End of quote]

 

I have further written on Dr. Bimson’s laudable effort to bring some archaeological sanity to this era:

 

Bimson has grappled with trying to distinguish between what might have been archaeological evidence for the Philistines and evidence for the Hyksos, though in actual fact it may be fruitless to try to discern a clear distinction in this case. Thus he writes:[3] 

 

Finds at Tell el-Ajjul, in the Philistine plain, about 5 miles SW of Gaza, present a particularly interesting situation. As I have shown elsewhere, the “Palace I” city (City III) at Tell el-Ajjul was destroyed at the end of the MBA, the following phase of occupation (City II) belonging to LB I …. There is some uncertainty as to exactly when bichrome ware first appeared at Tell el-Ajjul.

Fragments have been found in the courtyard area of Palace I, but some writers suggest that this area remained in use into the period of Palace II, and that the bichrome ware should therefore be regarded as intrusive in the Palace I level ….

It seems feasible to suggest that the invading Philistines were responsible for the destruction of City III, though it is also possible that its destruction was the work of Amalekites occupying the Negeb (where we find them settled a short while after the Exodus; cf. Num. 13:29); in view of Velikovsky’s identification of the biblical Amalekites with the Hyksos … the Amalekite occupation of the Negeb could plausibly be dated, like the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, to roughly the time of the Exodus …. But if our arguments have been correct thus far, the evidence of the bichrome ware favours the Philistines as the newcomers to the site, and as the builders of City II.

[End of quotes]

 

Next we come to the Philistines in the era of King Saul, for a proper appreciation of which I return to Dr. Courville’s thesis. He, initially contrasting the Aegean ware with that of the distinctive Philistine type, has written:

 

The new pottery found at Askelon [Ashkelon] at the opening of Iron I, and correlated with the invasion of the Sea Peoples, was identified as of Aegean origin. A similar, but not identical, pottery has been found in the territory north of Palestine belonging to the much earlier era of late Middle Bronze. By popular views, this is prior to the Israelite occupation of Palestine. By the altered chronology, this is the period of the late judges and the era of Saul.

… That the similar pottery of late Middle Bronze, occurring both in the north and in the south, is related to the culture found only in the south at the later date is apparent from the descriptions of the two cultures. Of this earlier culture, which should be dated to the time of Saul, Miss Kenyon commented:

 

The pottery does in fact provide very useful evidence about culture. The first interesting point is the wealth of a particular class of painted pottery …. The decoration is bichrome, nearly always red and black, and the most typical vessels have a combination of metopes enclosing a bird or a fish with geometric decoration such as a “Union Jack” pattern or a Catherine wheel. At Megiddo the first bichrome pottery is attributed to Stratum X, but all the published material comes from tombs intrusive into this level. It is in fact characteristic of Stratum IX. Similar pottery is found in great profusion in southern Palestine … Very similar vessels are also found on the east coast of Cyprus and on the coastal Syrian sites as far north as Ras Shamra. [Emphasis Courville’s]

 

Drawings of typical examples of this pottery show the same stylized bird with back-turned head that characterized the pottery centuries later at Askelon.

… The anachronisms and anomalies in the current views on the interpretation of this invasion and its effects on Palestine are replaced by a consistent picture, and one that is in agreement with the background provided by Scripture for the later era in the very late [sic] 8^th century B.C.

[End of quotes]

 

 

---

[1] It is interesting in light of this that Dr. J. Osgood has synchronized Chalcolithic En-geddi with the era of Abraham. ‘Times of Abraham’, p. 181.

[2] ‘The Arrival of the Philistines’, p. 13.

[3] ‘The Arrival of the Philistines’, pp. 14-15.

Ahiqar and Ahi-yaqar

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

  

  

“… if Ahiqar was not an ethnic Assyrian, he had evidently not only mastered the complicated cuneiform scribal art and absorbed the Assyrian culture in full, but also had gained the trust of his masters and the respect of the other courtiers for his wisdom”.

 

Takayoshi M. Oshima

 

 

 

 

 

Ahikar (or Achior in the Vulgate), the nephew of Tobit of the Israelite tribe of Naphtali, was a man of many parts, having famously served as a high official under Sennacherib - as the “Achior”, commander of the Elamites (not Ammonites), of the Book of Judith - then as second (ummânū) to Esarhaddon himself, who was Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’. See e.g. my article:

 

Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar

 

https://www.academia.edu/38017900/Esarhaddon_a_tolerable_fit_for_King_Nebuchednezzar

 

and who may also have been the “Bagoas” of the Book of Judith:

 

An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar II?

 

https://www.academia.edu/38114479/An_early_glimpse_of_Nebuchednezzar_II

 

Ahiqar was also known as “Arioch” (Judith 1:6): “Many nations joined forces with King Arphaxad—all the people who lived in the mountains, those who lived along the Tigris, Euphrates, and Hydaspes rivers, as well as those who lived in the plain ruled by King Arioch of Elam. …”.

“Governor”, or “commander”, would probably be more accurate here than “King”, though did not Sennacherib boast (Isaiah 10:8): ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’

As “Arioch”, Ahiqar figures again in the Book of Daniel. See e.g. my article:

 

Meeting of the wise - Arioch and Daniel

 

https://www.academia.edu/40551289/Meeting_of_the_wise_-_Arioch_and_Daniel

 

 

In Takayoshi M. Oshima’s article, “How “Mesopotamian” was Ahiqar the Wise? A Search for Ahiqar in Cuneiform Texts”, we learn that the famous sage, Ahiqar, was also known by this, his original, name, Ahī-yaqar. On p. 144 (section “Ahiqar in Cuneiform Texts from the 7th Century BCE”), we read:

https://www.academia.edu/34084863/How_Mesopotamian_was_Ahiqar_the_Wise_A_Search_for_Ahiqar_in_Cuneiform_Texts_Berlejung_Maeir_and_Sch%C3%BCle_eds_Wandering_Arameans_Arameans_Outside_Syria

 

Ahiqar in Cuneiform Texts from the 7th Century BCE According to the Ahiqar narrative, Ahiqar served the Assyrian kings Sennacherib and Esarhaddon as a high-ranking courtier, specifically as cupbearer, seal-holder, scribe, counsellor and treasurer. If this is true and if Ahiqar was not an ethnic Assyrian, he had evidently not only mastered the complicated cuneiform scribal art and absorbed the Assyrian culture in full, but also had gained the trust of his masters and the respect of the other courtiers for his wisdom. In order to verify this account, the obvious thing to do is to seek for an individual called Ahiqar or the like in the cuneiform texts from the time of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. And indeed we do find references to a man or men bearing the name Ahīyaqar.16 Thus, SAA 6, no. 123, line 1 (dated to 698, in the reign of Sennacherib) refers to an Ahī-yaqar, deputy governor of Arrapha (modern Kirkūk). The text SAA 6, no. 246, refers to a certain Ahī-yaqar who acted as a witness for a slave-sale (reign of Esarhaddon), but unfortunately his title has been lost (rev. 3). Furthermore, in SAA 6, no. 287 (dated to 670, in the reign of Esarhaddon), the name Ahī-yaqar appears as an eponym of the village Kapar-Ahī-yaqar (lit.: the village of Ahī-yaqar) that was located near Sippar (line 12). Finally, a man called Aqru is known from SAA 14, no. 215, rev. 10.17 Aqru is the adjective of the Akkadian waqāru, a cognate of yāqar, but the name could be a hypocoristic form of Ahī-yaqar. According to this text, Aqru was a cupbearer and citizen of Nineveh, just like Ahiqar in the legend. These references indeed prove that one or several persons called Ahī-yaqar existed and held important positions in the 7th century Assyrian administration .... because

 

And on p. 149 of the same article, we learn of “Ahiqar in the Uruk List of Sages”.

 

King Sage Designation Ayalu U4- dAn(60) abgal Alalgar U4- dAn(60)-du10.ga abgal Ammeluanna En.me-du10.ga abgal Ammegalanna En.me-galam.ma abgal Enmeušumgalanna En.me-bùlug.gá abgal Dumzi dAn(60)-en.líl.da abgal Enmeduranki Ù.tu-abzu abgal (Flood) Enmerkar Nun.gal-pirìg.gal abgal [Gilgam]eš dSîn(30)-lēqi(TI)-unninni(ÉR) lúummannu [Ibb]i-Sîn Kabtu(IDIM)-il-dMarduk(ŠÚ) lúummannu [Išbi]-Erra Si-dù = dEn-líl-ibni(DU) ummannu [Ab]i-Ešuh Gimil(ŠU)-dGula(ME.ME) and Ta-qišdGula(ME.ME) ummannū [Adad-apla-iddina? ] É-sag-gíl-ki-i-ni-apli(IBILA) ummannu Adad-apla-iddina É-sag-gíl-ki-i-ni-ub-ba ummannu Nebuchadnezzar (I) É-sag-gíl-ki-i-ni-ub-ba-LU43 ummannu Esarhaddon A.ba-dNINNU(5044-da-ri ummannu [šá lú]aḫ-la-«MI»-mu-ú i-qab-bu-ú ma-ḫu-ʾi-qa-a-ri45 [x(x)]x46 mni-qa-qu-ru-šu-ú (Nikarchos?) ....

Figure 10: Names and their definition in the Uruk List.

 

Some of these names may be duplicates, though, because of the need to fold, e.g. Middle and Neo Assyro-Babylonian history.

Thus, Nebuchednezzar I and his ummânū, É-sag-gíl-ki-i-ni-ub-ba, need to be folded (I think) with, respectively, Esarhaddon and his ummânū, a-ḫu-ʾi-qa-a-ri (or A.ba-dNINNU), that is, Ahī-yaqar (Aba-enlil-dari).

 

John Day, Robert P. Gordon, Hugh Godfrey Maturin Williamson write about the important sage, Ahiqar, in Wisdom in Ancient Israel, pp. 43-44:

 

The figure of Ahiqar has remained a source of interest to scholars in a variety of fields. The search for the real Ahiqar, the acclaimed wise scribe who served as chief counsellor to Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, was a scholarly preoccupation for many years. …. He had a sort of independent existence since he was known from a series of texts – the earliest being the Aramaic text from Elephantine, followed by the book of Tobit, known from the Apocrypha and the later Syriac, Armenian and Arabic texts of Ahiqar. …. An actual royal counsellor and high court official who had been removed from his position and later returned to it remains unknown.

 

Mackey’s comment: I have also identified this Ahiqar (var. Achior, Vulgate Book of Tobit) as the “Achior” (and also the “Arioch”) of the Book of Judith; and as the “Arioch” of the Book of Daniel.

Day et al. continue:

 

…. E. Reiner found the theme of the 'disgrace and rehabilitation of a minister' combined with that of the ‘ungrateful nephew’ in the 'Bilingual Proverbs’, and saw this as a sort of parallel to the Ahiqar story.

 

Mackey’s comment: For my identification of the ‘ungrateful nephew’, Nadin (var. Nadab), see my article:

 

"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith

 

https://www.academia.edu/36576110/_Nadin_Nadab_of_Tobit_is_the_Holofernes_of_Judi

 

Day et al. continue:

 

…. She [Reiner] also emphasized that in Mesopotamia the ummânu was not only a learned man or craftsman but was also a high official.

 

At the time that Reiner noted the existence of this theme in Babylonian wisdom literature, Ahiqar achieved a degree of reality with the discovery in Uruk, in the investigations of winter 1959/60, of a Late Babylonian tablet (W20030,7) dated to the 147th year of the Seleucid era (= 165 BCE).

 

Mackey’s comment: For my proposed radical revision of this Seleucid era, see my article:

 

A New Timetable for the Nativity of Jesus Christ

 

https://www.academia.edu/36672214/A_New_Timetable_for_the_Nativity_of_Jesus_Chri

 

Day et al. continue:

 

…. This tablet contains a list of antediluvian kings and their sages (apkallû) and postdiluvian kings and their scholars (ummânu). The postdiluvian kings run from Gilgamesh to Esarhaddon. This text informs us (p. 45, lines 19-20) that in the time of King Aššur-aḫ-iddina, one A-ba-^dninnu-da-ri (= Aba-enlil-dari), (whom) the Aḫlamu (i.e., Arameans) call Aḫ-'u-qa-ri (= Aḫuqar), was the ummânu. As was immediately noted, Aḫuqar was the equivalent of Aḥiqar. ….

The names of the ummânē of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon are known to us from a variety of sources, but Ahiqar's name does not appear in any contemporary source. ….

 

Mackey’s comment: But what is actually “contemporary” may now need to be seriously reconsidered if there is any weight to my series:

 

Aligning Neo Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part One: Shortening the Chaldean Dynasty

 

https://www.academia.edu/38330231/Aligning_Neo_Babylonia_with_Book_of_Daniel._Part_One_Shortening_the_Chaldean_Dynasty

 

Aligning Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part Two: Merging late neo-Assyrians with Chaldeans

 

https://www.academia.edu/38330399/Aligning_Neo-Babylonia_with_Book_of_Daniel._Part_Two_Merging_late_neo-Assyrians_with_Chaldeans

 

Day et al. continue:

 

Indeed, it has been recently claimed that the passage from the Uruk document 'is clearly fictitious and of no historical value’, for A-ba-^dninnu-da-ri was the name of a scholar known from the Middle Babylonian period.

 

Mackey’s comment: That is exactly what I would expect to find, the sage ummânu existing in both the so-called Middle and the neo Assyro-Babylonian periods, due to a necessary as demanded by revision) folding of the Middle into the later period.

Day et al. continue:

 

…. Yet, the listing of Ahiqar in a Late Babylonian tablet testifies to the fact that the role of Ahiqar, as known from the Aramaic version found at Elephantine, the book of Tobit, and the later Ahiqar sources, was firmly entrenched in Babylonian tradition.