EXHIBIT OF BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES. 1009 



reign. The upper part is occupied by five compartiueuts of bas-reliefs 

 running in horizontal bauds around the four sides, and representing 

 processions of tribute bearers from five nations. Il^arrow bands between 

 the compartments contain short legends descriptive of the scenes repre- 

 sented. The Black Obelisk and the other monuments of Shalmaneser II 

 supplement the Biblical narrative We learn from them that he was 

 the first Assyrian king, so far as is yet known, to come into relations 

 with Israel. Among the tribute bearers represented on the obelisk are 

 Israelites, and in the second row is a legend reading, '^Tribute of Ya'ua, 

 son of Humri : silver, gold, vials of gold, cups of gold, pans of gold, 

 vessels of gold, of lead, scepters for the King's hand, axes I received.''^ 

 In the record of the sixth year of his reign (854 B. C) Shalmaneser 

 relates his victorious campaign against Benhadad, King of Damascus 

 (in the inscription Dadidri), Ishiluna of Haraat, and their confederate 

 kings. From another inscription engraved by Sbalmaneser in the rocks 

 of Armenia it is learned that one of the allies of this great coalition 

 led by Benhadad against Assyria was Ahab, King of Israel (in the 

 Assyrian inscription Ahabbu Sirlai), who had furnished 2,000 chariots 

 and 10,000 soldiers. iSTeither of these facts — the i)articipation of Ahab 

 in the Syrian league and the payment of tribute to Shalmaneser by 

 Jehu — is recorded in the Bible. This King is not to be confounded 

 with Sbalmaneser IV (727-722 B. C), who is mentioned in II Kings 

 xviii, 9, in connection with the conquest of Samaria.'^ 



Cast of a bell, the original of which is in the Eoyal Museum of 

 Berlin. The bell is decorated in bas-relief with the fignre of Ea, the 

 Assyro-Babylonian divinity of the ocean, also called the " Lord of Pro- 

 found Wisdom," and hence considered as the god of science and culture. 

 He is represented in human form covered over by a fish. lie is prob- 

 ably identical with the Cannes, described by the Chaldean priest Bero- 

 sus as the founder of civilization. Through a mistaken etymology of 

 Dagon from Hebrew dag, fish, the Philistine divinity of that name, men- 

 tioned in I Samuel v, was thought to have been a fish god and identified 

 with the water god Ea. Dagon was also a divinity of the Assyro- 

 Brtbylonians, known by the nameof Dagan, but had no connection with 

 the water. He was considered by the Phenicians and, therefore, pre- 

 sumably, by the Philistines also, as the god of agriculture.^ Besides 

 the representation of Ea, there are also on the bell figures of several 

 demons and a priest. 



'II Kings ix and x. 



-This monument is described by Theo. G. Pinches, British ^Inseum, Guide to the 

 Nimroud Central Saloon, 188(3, pp. 26-45; the inscription is translated by Dr. Edward 

 Hincks, Dublin University Magazine, XLII, 1853, pp. 420-426; A. H. Sayce, Records 

 of the Past, V, pp. 27-42. 



'See A. H. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, 

 pp. 188, 189, and in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible under Uayoit, and The Sunday 

 School Times, May 27, 1893. 



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