8.1 QARQAR (853 BCE)

After marching against Shubria on the uppermost part of the Tigris in his fifth regnal year, Shalmaneser III crossed the Euphrates once more in his sixth regnal year (853 BCE) to face an unprecedented situation in the Assyrian records (Yamada 2000: 143). The Assyrian king encountered a large Syro-Palestinian coalition led by Aram-Damascus, Hamath and Israel. That confrontation took place at Qarqar, identified with Tell Qarqūr on the east bank of the Orontes, about 7 km from Jisr esh-Shughūr to the north of Hamath (Yamada 2000: 154). The account of the Qarqar confrontation is presented as the first real battle in Shalmaneser's 853 campaign (Younger 2007: 251) and is narrated in many of Shalmaneser's annals, of which the Kurkh Monolith is the most detailed (Table 8.1) (Yamada 2000: 143; Galil 2002: 42).

Shalmaneser's records, primarily the Kurkh Monolith, indicate that the alliance which faced Shalmaneser at Qarqar included most of the kingdoms of central, southern and western Syria-Palestine, which had escaped Shalmaneser's earlier campaigns (Cogan 2008: 18). All Assyrian records agree that the alliance was under the leadership of Damascus and Hamath; and the Kurkh Monolith adds Israel as a third important member in the coalition.

The Assyrian records, including the Monolith, refer to “twelve” participants in the coalition, although one is missing from the only list of names: that of the Monolith. The incoherence is usually explained as a scribal error involving Ba'asa of Beth-Rehob and Ammon (Yamada 2000: 160; Younger 2007: 256).