Esarhaddon's Treaty with Ba'al is an Assyrian clay tablet inscription describing a treaty between

Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his ...

(reigned 681 to 669 BC) and Ba'al of Tyre. It was found in the

Library of Ashurbanipal The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BC, including texts in vari ...

. The first fragment published, K 3500, was published in the mid-nineteenth century. It was identified as a combined tablet by

Hugo Winckler Hugo Winckler (4 July 1863 – 19 April 1913) was a German archaeologist and historian who uncovered the capital of the Hittite Empire (Hattusa) at Boğazkale, Turkey. A student of the languages of the ancient Middle East, he wrote extens ...

in his ''Altorientalische Forschungen'', II ("Ancient Near Eastern Studies") in 1898.''Altorientalische Forschungen'', Hugo Winckler
/ref> The treaty was part of a large two-column tablet containing an account of Esarhaddon's conquest of

Eber Nari Eber-Nari (Akkadian, also Ebir-Nari), Abar-Nahara עבר-נהרה (Aramaic) or 'Ābēr Nahrā (Syriac) meaning "Beyond the River" or "Across the River" in both the Akkadian and Imperial Aramaic languages of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, i.e., the Weste ...

. Under the terms of the treaty, Esarhaddon entrusted Baal with several settlements, including

Akko Acre ( ), known locally as Akko ( he, עַכּוֹ, ''ʻAkō'') or Akka ( ar, عكّا, ''ʻAkkā''), is a city in the coastal plain region of the Northern District of Israel. The city occupies an important location, sitting in a natural harb ...

, Dor, and

Byblos Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 880 ...

. The third column has received the most focus from scholars. The text is below:

Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, these cities which... The royal deputy whom I have appointed over you, ... the elders of your country, ... the royal deputy ... with them ... the ships ... do not listen to him, do not ... without the royal deputy; nor must you open a letter which I send you without the presence of the royal deputy. If the royal deputy is absent, wait for him and then open it, do not... If a ship of Ba'al or of the people of Tyre (KUR.ṣur-ri) is shipwrecked off the coast of the land of Pilistu (KUR.pi-lis-ti) or anywhere on the borders of Assyrian territory, everything that is on the ship belongs to Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, but one must not do any harm to any person on board ship, they should list their names and inform the king of Assyria... These are the ports of trade and the trade roads which Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, granted to his servant Ba'al; toward Akko (URU.a-ku-u), Dor (URU.du-uʾ-ri), in the entire district of Pilistu (KUR.pi-lis-te), and in all the cities within Assyrian territory, on the seacoast, and in Byblos (URU.gu-ub-lu), across the
Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
(KUR.lab-na- a, all the cities in the mountains, all the cities of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, which Esarhaddon, king of Assyria gave to Ba'al ..., to the people of Tyre (KUR.ṣur-ri), in their ships or all those who cross over, in the towns of Ba'al, his towns, his manors, his wharves, which ..., to ..., as many as lie in the outlying regions, as in the past ... they..., nobody should harm their ships. Inland, in his district, in his manors...

External links

The Tablet in the British Museum

The Assyrian Eponym Canon
George Smith, 1875, page 140 *

ANET Anet () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of north-central France. It lies 14 km north-northeast of Dreux between the rivers Eure and Vesgre, the latter flowing into the former some 4 km no ...

, p533
State Archives of Assyria Online (SAAo)
SAA02 005 * https://books.google.com/books?id=1zi2i_C1aNkC&pg=PA222&lpg=PA222 * https://www.academia.edu/829037/Did_Nehemiah_Own_Tyrian_Goods_Trade_between_Judea_and_Phoenicia_during_the_Achaemenid_Period * https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1507593/1507593#page/n12/mode/1up * https://www.jstor.org/stable/23283872 * http://cdli.ucla.edu/P336126

References

{{reflist 7th-century BC inscriptions 1898 archaeological discoveries Assyrian inscriptions 7th century BC in Assyria History of Palestine (region) Library of Ashurbanipal 7th-century BC treaties 675 BC Esarhaddon History of Phoenicia