The Assyrian Dislocation

By Daniel Gregg

When Assyrian scribes in the court of Ashurbanipal in the 7th century compiled the Synchronistic King List, they were not using ancient contemporary records to establish historical synchronisms. Such archives would consist of one king referring to another, or letters back and forth between kings or diplomatic records. The had no such records. Rather what they had was a Babylonian King List with regnal years in it, and an Assyrian King List. Using the data in the two king lists they dead-reckoned backwards to see what the synchronisms (or parallel timelines) would be. They then created the Synchronistic King List without the reign data. They just listed the Babylonian kings they though were contempoary with Assyrian kings next to each other.

For its day in the court of Ashurbanipal, the Synchronistic King List was an artificial academic reconstruction. It was not a primary source, which is to say, it was not a contemporary recording of history by an eyewitness who saw it. Nor, for that matter, was it based on source documents that were primary sources. King lists are by nature later compilations. And it is very possible that something was omitted in the sources. In fact, it is agreed by historians of Babylonia and Assyria that the list indeed has severe dislocations, even if they should disagree on which parts have the dislocations.

When we turn to contemporary documents, a different picture emerges. Firstly, the Biblical record reveals that the Assyrians omited a 46-year block and a 6-year block from their history . During these periods, civil war or external invasion disrupted the appointment of eponymous officials, whose names served as "year names" and to be used in economic tablets. When the Assyrian scribes worked to compile the limmu lists, they could not add eponymous names for years where no official was appointed. Rather than admit to the missing years once the country was on its feet, the scribes at the central court simply cleansed the timeline of the embarassing time period.

These omitted years caused the first and most immediate dislocation in the Synchronistic King List, which is not just revealed by biblical chronology.

Due to the omitted 52 years, modern Assyriologists struggle with the high synchronisms in the Amarna diplomacy. They are forced to pull the Assyrian chronology downward so tightly that it barely has the ability to reach upward to the Amarna synchronisms. By a combination of placing the Assyrian kings too late after Amarna and padding some of the Assyrian reigns between Burnaburiaš II and Shalmaneser III, they manage to compensate for the loss of 46 years between Aššur-nērārī V and Tiglath-pileser III, and 6 years between Shalmaneser III and Šamšī-Adad V.

Even though the lost years are revealed by the biblical chronology and synchronisms between Ahab and Shalmaneser III, and Shalmaneser III and Jehu, as well as Adad-nērārī III and Jehoash of Israel, Assyriologists have been caught short because they dismiss the biblical synchronisms that create the regency after Amaziah, and the interregnum after Jeroboam II. Furthermore, they are absolved of having to pay attention to biblical chronology by Thiele's reductionist coregencies, through which these periods, known to all previous biblical chronologists, are made to disappear.

Truly, though, the problem was created by the Assyrian court itself. It allowed the creation of eponymous lists that omitted years for which eponyms never existed. That is, years for which no officials were appointed to lend their names to the years as a "year names." The disaster of the Synchronistic King List is Exhibit A of the Assyrians' own lack of knowledge of their own history, or their own lack of concern over accounting for every year. They simply did not have the ethos for recording a true history that was nurtured by a biblical world view among Christians and Jews. However, this old pagan ethos is increasing even among Christians and Jews, who are rewriting their own history to justify theological prejudices, —for example, the Seder Olam deleting over 100 years of Persian history, or Christians who delete the sabbatical year system when trying to explain Daniel 9.

The Synchronistic King List places the Babylonian king Simbar-Šipak (2nd Sealand Dynasty) up against Erība-Adad II, Šamši-Adad IV, Ashurnasirpal I, and Shalmaneser II. However, the omitted 52 years (46 + 6 = 52) show that the proper contemporaries of Simbar-Šipak were: Aššur-nārārī IV and Aššur-rabi II. And in fact, Shalmaneser II ended his reign in the year just before Simbar-Šipak took the throne (1069 BC).

Confirmation of this upward shift of Assyrian chronology by 52 years comes from the Religious Chronicle Solar Eclipse (BM 35968). This is dated in the 7th year of Simbar-Šipak, on July 31, 1063 BC. It was total at Basra in Iraq.

This synchronism allows us to bypass the Babylonian Dark Ages, a period for which Nabonassar was responsible, because according to Berossus of Cos, he erased it.

Going backward from Simbar-Šipak to Amarna, our Babylonian king list is complete, right back to the reigns of Burnaburiaš II and Kadašman-Enlil I. Only very minor, accession-year-related adjustments are needed in the whole block from Kadašman-Enlil I to Simbar-Šipak. On the other hand, the conventional theory runs into big problems here.

On the other hand, the conventional theory runs into severe problems here. Due to the Assyrian error, mainstream chronologists pull the 7th year of Simbar-Šipak down to a later eclipse, and generating a massive contextual problem with the Amarna connections and the Late Bronze Age diplomatic network. The structural rigidity of the Babylonian king list in this period is unbroken from the Amarna period to Simbar-Šipak..

By incorrectly lowering the Babylonian chronological block, historians are forced to compress the Hittite kings. This shows up clearly with the eclipse recorded for the 10th year of Murš ili II, which should be dated to March 13, 1335 BC. This is solidly linked to Egypt's war with the Hittites, which began just before Muršili II's accession. The occasion of this war was when Tutankhamun's widowed queen tried to marry a Hittite prince. However, the prince was murdered, and King Šuppiluliuma I died of the plague. Then Muršili II became head of the Hittite state at the same time as the Amarna Pharaoh Ay.

Dating Ramesses II to 1304 BC is the key here, and as well, per Kitchen allowing Sethy I to reign 15 years, and Ramesses I for 2 years, then Horemheb for 14 years. The conventional chronology compresses the reign of Ay here down to 4 years. However the Mes Inscription gives 59 years for the entire period. This demonstrates that the compression of Ay's reign and truncation of Nefertiti's rule after Akhenaton died are incorrect.

King David and Simbar-Šipak came to power at the same time, in 1069 BC. The geopolitics plays out like this:

Phase 1: 1069–1055 BC — The Aramean Flood Peak

Mesopotamia in Anarchy: Prior to and during the initial years of David and Simbar-Shipak's reigns, the unchecked Aramean and Sutean migrations are at their absolute peak, flowing from west to east.
The Babylonian Front: The nomads devastate Babylonia, sacking Sippar and Nippur. Simbar-Shipak takes the throne in 1069 BC amid this rubble. He fights desperately to stabilize his core and, seeing Assyria equally crippled by the migration, marches north to seize and lay waste to the border fortress of Atlila.
The Assyrian Front: Ashur-rabi II (or his immediate predecessor) bears the initial brunt of this unchecked wave. This is the exact window where the Arameans aggressively seize Pitru and Mutkinu, pushing Assyria to its absolute breaking point.

Phase 2: Phase 2: ca. 1054 BC — The Shift to the West & King David’s Strike
- The Aramean Expansion Westward: Having successfully overrun parts of Assyria and Babylonia, the Aramean tribes turn back toward the West to consolidate a massive empire. Under Hadadezer of Aram-Zobah, they build a powerful coalition stretching all the way to the Euphrates, threatening the southern Levant.
- David’s Year 15 Campaign: In ca. 1054 BC, King David launches his preemptive strike. He does not trigger the Aramean migration; rather, he catches the Arameans at the tail end of Simbar-Shipak’s reign after they have already exhausted and fractured Mesopotamia.
- The Retaliation: When David shatters Hadadezer's coalition, he is fighting an Aramean power that is already overextended across thousands of miles. By crushing them in the West, David effectively breaks the backbone of the grand Aramean network.
Observations:
- Simbar-Shipak's Window of Opportunity: Simbar-Shipak’s capture of Atlila happens precisely because the Aramean wave is moving eastward unfiltered. Assyria is totally isolated and defenseless.
- David as the Unintentional Savior of Assyria: By crushing the western Aramean core in 1054 BC, David cuts off the reinforcements, wealth, and central command of the Aramean network. This acts as a sudden relief valve for Assyria. Though Ashur-rabi II cannot immediately reclaim his lost lands, David’s victory halts the momentum of the eastern invaders.
- The Century-Long Memory: When Ashurnasirpal II later marches to reclaim Atlila from Babylon ("Sibir"), he is reclaiming a fortress lost during that specific 1069–1054 BC window of maximum Mesopotamian vulnerability—the dark age that existed right before David stabilized the western frontier.