>According to an article published in The Independent (U.K.), archaeologists excavating a 2,700 year old temple at Tayinat, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, “have discovered evidence that its inhabitants prominently displayed a tablet which bore a pledge of loyalty to the heir of an Assyrian king.”
The following is an excerpt from the article published in The Independent:
The city of Tayinat was built on the Amuq plain, on the Orontes River near the modern day Syrian border. The Assyrian Empire conquered it in 738 BC, with a governor being appointed to oversee it. The city’s temple is about 12 meters by six meters in size, and pre-dates the conquest. The excavations at Tayinat are led by Professor Tim Harrison of the University of Toronto.
The discovery of the tablets adds new insight into how the Assyrians controlled Tayinat. Using careful field recording and textual analysis the team discovered that it was elevated on a platform in the temple’s cella, a part of the building also known as the “holy of holies.”
The oath declares that the city’s governor, and possibly other citizens, would recognize Ashurbanipal as the heir to the throne of the Assyrian Empire, after his father’s (king Esarhaddon’s) death. Nearly identical oaths have been found at the site of Nimrud in modern day Iraq.
“You shall protect him in country and in town, fall and die for him. You shall speak with him in the truth of your heart, give him sound advice loyally, and smooth his way in every respect,” the oaths read. A long list of curses is cast upon anyone who breaks the oath.
The presence of the oath tablet at Tayinat affirms Ashurbanipal’s claim that his father caused all the people of Assyria, great and small, to take the oath,” said team epigrapher Professor Jacob Lauinger of John Hopkins University.
Read the article in its entirety here.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
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Tags: Archaeology, Loyalty Tablet, Tayinat, Ashurbanipal
Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 