THEME: Germanic raids In the middle of the ninth century BC, the Neo-Assyr- ian Empire was becoming the most powerful state in Mesopotamia. Expansion was not only an ideology but a necessity, or even a religious duty, in Assyrian culture. It was the duty of the king to carry the empire as far as possible, to all the four corners of the world. te Telve make a sand ISRAEL’S CHARIOT FORCE AT QARQAR By Haggai Olshanetsky W hen Shalmaneser III came to power in 859 BC, he aspired to do the same as his fore- bears. He decided to make a major mil- itary push towards the west, and in 854 BC his army marched towards modern day Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, where there lay many kingdoms and city states. Probably the Assyrians believed that none of these entities could withstand the might of Assyria. Therefore, Shalma- neser believed that the efort needed and resistance met would be minimal and the campaign would be short. As in numerous other cases in history, however, many of those kingdoms and city states that opposed him formed an alliance, called by the Assyrians the Twelve Kings’ Alliance, even though our source only gives the names of eleven members. The kings who formed the alliance thought that by combin- ing their forces they would have a chance against the Assyrians, and maybe even defeat them in pitched battle. Their belief was put to the test in 853 BC at Qarqar, a city ly- ing near a plain in modern-day north-western Syria. This battle was one of the largest and most important battles in antiquity. Moreover, if the fgures given by the Assyrians are cor- rect or even remotely close to the real fgures, it was one of the largest chariot engagements in history. By some it is considered a pivotal moment in the history of chariot warfare and a turning point in which cavalry proved itself superior to the chariot. But it seems to be a complicated issue with no clear-cut answer. As we will see, diferent participants viewed chariotry in a diferent way after the battle. The sources The main written source for the battle is the Kurkh Monolith. This source not only sketch- es a short portrait of the battle, but also lists the members of the Twelve Kings’ Alliance and the size of their forces present: “Qarqar, his royal city, I destroyed, I dev- astated, I burned with fre. 1,200 chariots, 1,200 cavalry, 20,000 sol- diers, of Hadad-ezer, of Aram (? Damascus); The Kurkh Monolith, found in Turkey in 1861, details the reign of Shalma- neser III. Now in the British Museum, it contains the only reference to 'Israel' in surviving Assyrian records as part of the description of Shalma- neser III's campaign and the Battle of Qarqar. The account breaks off right after the battle. That and the large number of spelling errors, suggests it was erected with some haste. © Sandra Alvarez