(Post by A.D. Riddle)
In the previous weekend’s Roundup, Todd mentioned a new book entitled Triumph and Betrayal: Assyria’s Path to Empire, 935–745 BC, by Alexander Johannes Edmonds (2025). It is available as a free download (pdf or epub) from the publisher, De Gruyter.
I began reading Edmonds this past week, and learned quite early in the book that the author makes the astonishing claim that three previously-unknown kings from the Neo-Assyrian period have been identified—two by Edmonds and one by Eckart Frahm. (I say “previously unknown,” but that is to say unknown to scholarship of the past few centuries—obviously Assyrians from the 8th–10th centuries BC would have known about them.) Edmonds states that the presence of these “new” kings “serves to explain previously enigmatic periods within Assyrian history.” It will be interesting to see what kind of response Edmonds’ work receives. Time will tell.
For comparison, here are the two lists of kings compared side-by-side. The names in pink are the newly-identified kings. If there is a new Tiglath-pileser and a new Shalmaneser, that will make quite a mess out of all my notes and teaching materials.