|
The Kurkh Monoliths are two Assyrian stelae that contain a description of the reigns of Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III. The Monoliths were discovered in 1861 by a British archaeologist John George Taylor, who was the British Consul-General stationed in the Ottoman Eyalet of Kurdistan, in a town called Kurkh, which is now known as Üçtepe, in the district of Bismil, in the province of Diyarbakir of Turkey. Both stelae were donated by Taylor to the British Museum in 1863.〔British Museum Collection ()〕 The Shalmaneser III monolith contains a description of the Battle of Qarqar at the end. This description contains the name "A-ha-ab-bu Sir-ila-a-a" which is generally accepted to be a reference to Ahab king of Israel,〔The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship edited by Frederick E. Greenspahn, NYU Press, 2008 (P.11 )〕〔Ancient Canaan and Israel: New Perspectives By Jonathan Michael Golden, ABC-CLIO, 2004, (P.275 )〕 although it is the only possible reference to the term "Israel" in Assyrian and Babylonian records, a fact brought up by some scholars who dispute the proposed translation.〔(Israel in Transition 2: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIA, edited by Lester L. Grabbe ), p56, quote "The single case where "Israel" is mentioned is Shalmaneser's account of his battle with the coalition at Qarqar"〕 It is also one of only four known ancient inscriptions interpreted to mention the term "Israel", the others being the Merneptah Stele, the Tel Dan Stele, and the Mesha Stele. This description is also the oldest document that mentions the Arabs.〔(''The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent, 9th–5th Centuries B.C.'' ), p. 75〕 According to the inscription Ahab committed a force of 2,000 chariots and 10,000 foot soldiers to the Assyrian war coalition.〔Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography edited by Ada Cohen, Steven E. Kangas P:126〕 ==Discovery== The location of the discovery at the town called "Kurkh" was described as
then in the Ottoman Eyalet of Kurdistan in Al-Jazira. The location was also known as Kerh or Kerh-i Dicle and is now known as Üçtepe, in the district of Bismil, in the province of Diyarbakir of Turkey.〔Ancient Locations (Tidu? Kurkh ) Site accessed July 5, 2014〕〔Aynur Özfırat. ("Üçtepe and Diyarbakır Area During the Early-Middle Bronze Ages" ), pages 117-126 in Workshop on Looking North: The Socio-economic Dynamics of the Northern Mesopotamian and Anatolian Regions during the Late Third and Early Second Millenium BC. 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Rome, 5-10 May 2008), eds N. Laneri, P. Pfälzner and S. Valentini, 117-126, Wiesbaden 2012: Harrassowitz Verlag, Studien zur Urbanisierung Nordmesopotamiens Supplementa.〕 Kurkh was initially identified by Henry Rawlinson as the ancient city of Tushhan. This identification was challenged by Karlheinz Kessler in 1980, who proposed ancient Tidu.〔Karlheinz Kessler, Untersuchungen zur historischen Topographie Nordmesopotamiens, 1980, pp117-120〕〔Nadav Na'aman, (''Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors: Interaction and Counteraction : Collected Essays'' ), Eisenbrauns, 2005. p. 2 ISBN 1575061082〕 Taylor described his find as follows: "...I had the good fortune to discover a stone slab bearing the effigy of an Assyrian king, and covered on both sides with long inscriptions in the cuneiform character, to within 2 feet of its base, which had purposely been left bare to admit of its being sunk erect in the ground, as a trophy commemorative of its capture by the king, and at the point probably where his legions effected their forced entry into the city. Some little way below it, on the slope of the mound, and nearly entirely concealed by debris, I exhumed another perfect relic of the same description." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kurkh Monoliths」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|