The Nimrud Slab, also known as the Calah
Orthostat
This article describes several characteristic architectural elements typical of European megalithic (Stone Age) structures.
Forecourt
In archaeology, a forecourt is the name given to the area in front of certain types of chamber tomb. Forecourts ...
Slab, is the top half of a "summary inscription" of the reign of
Adad-nirari III
Adad-nirari III (also Adad-narari) was a King of Assyria from 811 to 783 BC. Note that this assumes that the longer version of the Assyrian Eponym List, which has an additional eponym for Adad-nirari III, is the correct one. For the shorter eponym ...
(811 to 783 BC) discovered in 1854 in by
William Loftus in his excavations at
Nimrud
Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a m ...
on behalf of the ''Assyrian Excavation Fund''.
Ehrlich, p168
/ref>
It is the best known of the inscriptions of Adad-nirari III,
/ref> since it includes a description of early Assyrian conquests in Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
and Palestine.
The inscription was carved on a gypsum
Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywa ...
slab, and the surviving part of the inscription is thought to represent the top half of the original slab. The original slab is lost after it was thought to have been left behind in Nimrud. However, a squeeze was taken by Edwin Norris
Edwin Norris (24 October 1795 – 10 December 1872) was a British philologist, linguist and intrepid orientalist who wrote or compiled numerous works on the languages of Asia and Africa. His best-known works are his uncompleted ''Assyrian Dic ...
, which allowed the text to be published by Rawlinson.
The text as translated by Luckenbill as below:[
] subduedfrom the bank of the Euphrates, the land of Hatti, the land of Amurru in its entirety, the land of Tyre, the land of Sidon, the land of Humri, the land of Edom, the land of Palastu
Philistia (; Koine Greek (LXX): Γῆ τῶν Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''gê tôn Phulistieìm''), also known as the Philistine Pentapolis, was a confederation of cities in the Southwest Levant, which included the cities of Ashdod, Ash ...
, as far as the great sea of the setting sun. I imposed tax and tribute on them.
See also
* Saba'a Stele
The Saba'a Stele, also known as the Saba'a Inscription, is a boundary stone inscription of the reign of Adad-nirari III (811 to 783 BC) discovered in 1905 in two pieces in Saba'a, Sanjak of Zor, south of the Sinjar Mountains in modern Syria. It ...
* Tell al-Rimah stela
The Tell al-Rimah stela or the Stele of Adad-nirari III is a victory stele of Adad-nirari III which may include a reference to an early king of Samaria as " Jehoash the Samarian" which would be the first cuneiform mention of Samaria by that name.
...
External links
COS 2, 276, 2.114G
The Assyrian Eponym Canon
George Smith, 1875, page 115
References
{{reflist
9th-century BC inscriptions
8th-century BC inscriptions
1854 archaeological discoveries
Assyrian inscriptions
Philistia
Slab
Slab or SLAB may refer to:
Physical materials
* Concrete slab, a flat concrete plate used in construction
* Stone slab, a flat stone used in construction
* Slab (casting), a length of metal
* Slab (geology), that portion of a tectonic plate tha ...