When archaeologists uncovered a towering black stone monument in the ruins of ancient Nineveh, they found something unprecedented: a carved image of a king of Israel submitting to a foreign empire.
No other archaeological artifact in the world shows this. It is the only known visual depiction of a biblical king of Israel ever discovered. The artifact is the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, a nearly 2-meter-tall monument found in 1846 and now displayed in the British Museum. It dates to the 9th century BCE and records the military victories of the Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser III over the kingdoms of the Levant.
One panel depicts a king of Israel bowing before the Assyrian ruler. The accompanying cuneiform inscription identifies him as Yehoash (Joash)—originally but incorrectly thought to read Jehu—, king of Israel, described using dynastic language tied to the House of Omri—exactly the political structure described in the Bible.
