So while the Arameans played a more prominent role than the Assyrians for much of 9th century, the situation slowly changed. Already the so called Black Obelisk of Shalmanacer III the 3rd, shows either Yehu or Yehu's representative, his emissary. Who prostrates himself before the king and kisses his feet. And this inscription, the inscription that is on the stele, the Black Obelisk, tells about all the tribute that the Assyrian king received from Jehu. Assyrian king Adad-nirari the III campaigned almost every year of his 28 years of. 28 year reign. And he laid siege to Damascus in 803 BC, which radically weakened this military competitor of Israel. And because Arum-Damascus was weakened, it was possible for Jehoash and later Jeroboam the second to reconquer some of the lost territories in the Galilee and then in the Trans Jordan. And then reestablish some of the prosperity that the Omrides had enjoyed. These kings of Israel who reigned from about 787 to 747, about 40 years, were subservient to Assyria and the official imperial records attest to the tribute they faithfully paid to. Assyrian vassals. The prosperity of the age was due to the increased production of olive oil and wine and, throughout their kingdom, which are attested. This production is attested really wonderfully to see in the Sa, so-called Samaria Ostraca. You can see an image here. These are receipts for the delivery of wine and oil. And they are important for various reasons not least because the personal names on them attest to the centrality of the god Ute vavfe or Yaywe in this region of Israel at the time. Now these 40 years of prosperity came to an end with the rise of the expansionist ruler Assyrian ruler Tiglath Pileser the third. Reigning 745. To 727. Within about 25 years, most of the kingdoms of the Levant had been conquered, the northern Levant, the Assyrian kingdom was by this time, far greater than any power of the Levants. Sumeria, the capital of Israel was about 50 times smaller than Nimrud, the Assyrian capital. At first, Israel remained loyal to Assyria. Thus King Manahem, who reigned from 746 to 737 is remembered in the Bible as paying 37 tons of silver to Assyria in order to maintain Israel's independence. This tribute was paid. In order to buy liberty by independence. And to see how he came up with that money, you can read 2 Kings 15:19 to20. A few years later, in 733, 732, the states of the Levant formed a coalition against Assyria. With Rezin the King of Aram-Damascus as one of the main players as well as Pekah, King of Israel, and they tried to force the kingdom of Judah to join their side. They even seem to have attempted to place a new ruler on the throne in Jerusalem, although they were unsuccessful. According to the Biblical account, you can see this in second Kings 16:5 through 9, and Isaiah 7:1 through 9. The King of Judah, Ahaz, sought the help of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III, who came and wiped out Aram-Damascus, and then seized the northern. And Trans Jordanian territories of Israel. Israel will be, was the, effectively reduced back to its core territories in the Ephraimites hill country. It was now just a petty kingdom surrounding the city of Samaria. One has to be a bit skeptical about the Biblical claim that Ahas is the one who brought Tiglath Pileser to the land. The authors, the Biblical authors, see grand geopolitical events from the perspective of actions undertaken in Jerusalem. We do know, though, from Assyrian records that Ahaz of Judah paid tribute to the Assyrians. Meanwhile, in Samaria the King Pekah was deposed by the Assyrians and replaced by Hosea. Tiglath-Pileser claims himself to have placed Hosea on the throne, and he exacts from him, according to his records, a yearly tribute in gold and silver. From what had and this tribute is much more reduced than what the Biblical sources claim from Menahem because the kingdom was also much smaller than it was during the reign of Menahem. After the death of Tiglat glacier the third in 727. Hosea attempted a revolt with the help of Egypt. The decision was a catastrophic one. Shalmaneser the fifth, sorry all these names, but you don't need to focus on the names, but Shalmaneser the V is now, is the one who replaces Tiglath-Pileser the third after his death. He comes and besieges Samaria for several months. And either he himself of his successor Sargon II, a more famous name. Conquer the city of Samaria between 722 and 720. The kingdom of Israel had fallen. Sargon reports how he made it an Imperial province. From this kingdom of Samaria and I'm going to read here, you can follow along it's very broken. So I'll jump over here. At the beginning of my Royal rule I breaks off, the town of the Samaritans I besieged. And conquered for the god, it's all broken there, who let me achieve this great triumph. And then he says I led away as prisoners 27,290 inhabitants of it, and equipped from them among them, soldiers to man, 50 chariots for my own royal corp. So he's saying in that, he's taken from the inhabitants of Samaria, men to man his chariots once again testifying to the role that chariots played in Israel's formation as a kingdom, as a state. The rebuilt a town of Samaria, I rebuilt better than it was before and settled there and people from countries which I had conquered, another inscription tells about these people, most of them being Arabian groups. And then I placed an officer or general of mine as governor over them and then this last expression, which is a famous one that is used often in the inscriptions up until the reign of Sargon or Senngherib is I counted them among the citizens of Assyria so the attempt here is to really. Take conquered populations and bring them together to form a greater Assyrian number of subjects. That means that they also had to pay just as if they were a Assyrian citizen. Pay tribute taxes. So from the official sources we know the names of many of the Assyrian governors who ruled in Samaria. Now, we'll come back to the Assyrian deportation practices later next week. But I should note here that scholars reckoned with an exile of really only 10 to 20% of the population both of the Samarian. Kingdom and before that, when there were annexing the territories that had once been or once belonged to the Kingdom of Israel. This means that we must assume that many would have been around, if 90% were left or 80% were left, many would have been around to carry on Israel's traditions. After it was destroyed. And that's a very important factor to consider when we think about the formation of the Bible, that with Israel's deportation doesn't mean that all Israel was carried away, that everybody had been exiled, that there was still something going on in the land. And that something might have been the formation of some of Biblical writings.
