Ashteroth Karnaim () was a city east of the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...

Bashan Bashan (; ; or ''Basanitis'') is the ancient, biblical name used for the northernmost region of Transjordan during the Iron Age. It is situated in modern-day Jordan and Syria. Its western part, nowadays known as the Golan Heights, was occupied b ...

in the northern part of the Transjordan There were originally two neighbouring cities, Ashtaroth, and northeast of it Karnaim, the latter annexing the name of the former after Ashtaroth's decline and becoming known as Ashteroth Karnaim. Ashteroth Karnaim was mentioned under this name in the

Battle of Siddim The Battle of the Vale of Siddim, also often called the War of Nine Kings or the Slaughter of Chedorlaomer, is an event in the Hebrew Bible book of that occurs in the days of Abram and Lot. The Vale of Siddim was the battleground for the cities ...

in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

and in Joshua 12:4, where it is rendered simply as "Ashtaroth". Karnaim is also mentioned by the prophet Amos in Amos 6:13, where those in Israel are boasting to have taken it. Karnaim/Ashteroth Karnaim is considered to be the same as the Karnein of the

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

mentioned in 2 Maccabees 12:21, rendered in the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English Bible translations, Early Modern English translation of the Christianity, Christian Bible for the Church of England, wh ...

as Carnion, and possibly as "Carnaim" in

1 Maccabees 1 Maccabees, also known as the First Book of Maccabees, First Maccabees, and abbreviated as 1 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which details the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire as well as the founding and earliest hi ...

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...

(c. 260/265–340) writes of Karneia/Karnaia, a large village in

Arabia Petraea Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province or simply Arabia, was a frontier Roman province, province of the Roman Empire beginning in the 2nd century. It consisted of the former Nabataean Kingdom in the southern Levant, th ...

, where a house of

Job Work, labor (labour in Commonwealth English), occupation or job is the intentional activity people perform to support the needs and desires of themselves, other people, or organizations. In the context of economics, work can be seen as the huma ...

was identified by tradition.

Ashteroth in the Assyrian relief

Tell Ashtara is mentioned in the Assyrian relief in 730/727 BCE, which is in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The relief depicts the

Assyrians Assyrians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians share descent directly from the ancient Assyrians, one of the key civilizations of Mesopotamia. While they are distinct from ot ...

removing the people from Ashteroth in 730–727 BC. The relief was excavated at

Nimrud Nimrud (; ) is an ancient Assyrian people, Assyrian city (original Assyrian name Kalḫu, biblical name Calah) located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah (), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. ...

Austen Henry Layard Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in It ...

in 1851. The name Ashteroth is inscribed in cuneiform on the top of the relief. The king in the lower register is Tiglath-Pileser III. This event is known as the

Assyrian captivity The Assyrian captivity, also called the Assyrian exile, is the period in the history of ancient Israel and Judah during which tens of thousands of Israelites from the Kingdom of Israel were dispossessed and forcibly relocated by the Neo-Assyrian ...

. It is mentioned in 2 Kings 15:29: "In the days of King

Pekah Pekah (, ''Peqaḥ''; ''Paqaḫa'' 'pa-qa-ḫa'' ) was the eighteenth and penultimate king of Israel. He was a captain in the army of king Pekahiah of Israel, whom he killed to become king. Pekah was the son of Remaliah. Pekah became king in ...

of Israel, King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maachah, Janohah,

Kedesh Kedesh (alternate spellings: Qedesh, Cadesh, Cydessa) was an ancient Canaanite and later Israelite settlement in Upper Galilee, mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. Its remains are located in Tel Kedesh, northeast of the modern Kibbut ...

, Hazor-Gilead,

Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...

, the entire region of

Naphtali According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali (; ) was the sixth son of Jacob, the second of his two sons with Bilhah. He was the founder of the Israelite tribe of Naphtali. Some biblical commentators have suggested that the name ''Naphtali'' ma ...

; and he deported the inhabitants to Assyria." The floppy

turban A turban (from Persian language, Persian دولبند‌, ''dolband''; via Middle French ''turbant'') is a type of headwear based on cloth winding. Featuring many variations, it is worn as customary headwear by people of various cultures. Commun ...

s and pointed shoes and the style of the cloaks are typical for the Northern Kingdom in this period; the same clothes are shown on the

Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III is a black limestone Assyrian sculpture, Neo-Assyrian sculpture with many scenes in bas-relief and inscriptions. It comes from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in northern Iraq, and commemorates the deeds of King Shal ...

. The Black Obelisk is dated to about 825 BCE. It was also excavated at

in 1848. It shows

Jehu Jehu (; , meaning "Jah, Yah is He"; ''Ya'úa'' 'ia-ú-a'' ) was the tenth king of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), northern Kingdom of Israel since Jeroboam I, noted for exterminating the house of Ahab. He was the son of Jehoshaphat (father ...

, King of Northern Israel, or his representative offering tribute to

Shalmaneser III Shalmaneser III (''Šulmānu-ašarēdu'', "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 859 BC to 824 BC. His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations o ...

on the second register down.

Etymology

The name translates literally to "

Astarte Astarte (; , ) is the Greek language, Hellenized form of the Religions of the ancient Near East, Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic language ...

of the Two Horns". Astarte was a goddess of civilisation and fertility in

Canaanite religion Canaanite religion or Syro-Canaanite religions refers to the myths, cults and ritual practices of people in the Levant during roughly the first three millennia BC. Canaanite religions were polytheistic and in some cases monolatristic. They we ...

Identification

The identification of the two sites is not straightforward, but there is some degree of consensus.Wolf, Umhau C. (ed.), Notes. pp. 76-252.

Ashtaroth

* Tell Ashtara, north of the Yarmouk, is a site considered to be identical with Ashtaroth, a city mentioned in several

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

sources: the

Execration texts Execration texts, also referred to as proscription lists, are ancient Egyptian hieratic texts, listing enemies of the pharaoh, most often enemies of the Egyptian state or troublesome foreign neighbors. The texts were most often written upon stat ...

, Amarna letters (mid-14th century BCE) and the campaign list of

Ramesses III Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt, Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Some scholars date his reign from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC, and he is considered the last pharaoh of the New K ...

(r. 1186 to 1155 BCE). The city appears in Amarna letters EA 256 and EA 197 as ''Aš-tar-te/ti''.Galil, Gershon. "Ashtaroth in the Amarna Period", ''Israel Oriental Studies XVIII'', ed. Isre'el, Singer and Zadok, 1998, p. 373 In the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh ( ...

().

Karnaim/Ashteroth Karnaim

All sites identified by different scholars at different times as Karnaim/Ashteroth Karnaim lay in modern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

in the area of

Daraa Daraa (, Levantine Arabic: ) is a city in southwestern Syria, north of the border with Jordan. It is the capital of Daraa Governorate in the Hauran region. Located south of Damascus on the Damascus–Amman highway, it serves as a way sta ...

. * Al-Shaykh Saad is widely seen as the site of Ashteroth KarnaimNegev; Gibson, 2005, p. 277. Other possible sites proposed in the past are: * Al Churak, a site proposed by 14th-century topographer and traveller

Ishtori Haparchi Ishtori Haparchi (1280–1355), also Estori Haparchi and Ashtori ha-Parhi () is the pen name of the 14th-century Jewish physician, geographer, and traveller, Isaac HaKohen Ben Moses.''Encyclopedia Judaica'' Keter, Jerusalem, 1972, "Estori Ha-Parch ...

, aka Astori Pharchi, being eight miles northeast of the ancient ruins known as 'Draä'Rabbi Joseph Schwarz

and

''A descriptive geography and brief historical sketch of Palestine'', Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1850. Both sources accessed in July 2018 * Muzayrib, an ancient fortress town

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{refend Canaanite cities Torah cities Book of Genesis Book of Joshua Book of Amos Books of the Maccabees Levitical cities Astarte