The Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III

The stela stands 2.2 metres high and shows Shalmaneser III beneath the symbols of his gods, with cuneiform cut across the figure and the back: 156 lines in the edition, in two columns of 54 and 102. It was found in 1861 at Kurkh, now Üçtepe near Diyarbakır in Turkey, together with a stela of the king’s father. The text is an early version of the royal annals. It runs from the king’s accession to his sixth year and stops abruptly after the battle of Qarqar, so it was probably carved within a year of that campaign. The cutting is careless and contains scribal errors.

Column ii, lines 89–102, tells of the battle. Shalmaneser says that he burned Qarqar, was met by a coalition of twelve kings led by Hadad-ezer of Damascus and Irhuleni of Hamath, and killed 14,000 of their men. The list of allies includes “Ahab the Israelite” with 2,000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers. The stela is the only source that places Ahab at this battle; see Ahab at the Battle of Qarqar. It is a victory inscription and gives the Assyrian side alone. Later versions of the annals raise the number of enemy dead, and the king had to fight the same coalition again in the following years.