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Idol-quickening instructions, Babylonia, 6th century BCE. The “mouth-washing” ritual was a ceremony for transforming a newly manufactured idol into a living deity. The instructions include these…
This relief, from Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh, shows Sennacherib’s army attacking Lachish (an event alluded to in 2 Kings 18:14 and 17). Sennacherib is sitting on his throne outside the city…
On the day of the new moon of Kislimu (Kislev), Bil-barakki, son of Nani, will bring Dayana and hand her over to Hoshea. If he does not bring and hand over the woman, Bil-barakki will pay Hoshea 3…
In the eponymate of Dayan-Ashur, on the 14th of Aiaru (Iyyar), I set out from Nineveh . . .
I set out from the Euphrates and approached Aleppo. They (i.e., the inhabitants of Aleppo) were afraid of…
Year 7. The month Kislev. The king of Akkad mobilized his troops and marched to Hatti.
He encamped against the city of Judah and in the month Adar, day 2, he captured the city; he seized the king. He…
I besieged and captured Samaria. I took as spoil 27,290 people who live there; I organized (a contingent of) fifty of their chariots and I instructed the rest of them in correct conduct. I appointed…
Lot (puru), Assyria, 8th century BCE. The inscription identifies this as a lot (puru—the Akkadian form of Hebrew pur, the word used in Esther 3:7) that belonged to an Assyrian official named Yahalu…
The panel shown here is part of an obelisk that contains a long inscription summarizing the triumphs of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (r. 858–824 BCE) until the thirty-third year of his reign. The…
These are the slaves, the share in the paternal estate that Nir-Yama and Yahu-azza, sons of Ahikam, and Hagga, Yahu-izri, and Yahushu, sons of Ahikam, divided among themselves:
The slave woman Nana…
The flood story in the Atrahasis Epic, Babylonia, 17th century BCE. The epic relates the early history of humanity from creation through the flood. Apart from its polytheistic perspective, it has many…
