Tell al-Rimah Stele Naming Joash of Samaria
The contextually excavated stele of Adad-nirari III records tribute from Ia'asu the Samarian, securely identifying Joash of Israel while revealing how Assyria recast changing relations among Damascus, Samaria, Tyre, and Sidon.
- Artifact date
- Early eighth century BC, approximately 797 BC
- Discovered
- 1967
- Findspot
- Tell al-Rimah, northern Iraq
- Current location
- Iraq Museum, Baghdad
What archaeologists can actually examine
The Tell al-Rimah stele is a slightly under-life-size royal monument of Adad-nirari III whose cuneiform text summarizes campaigns and imperial arrangements in northern Mesopotamia and the west. A surviving passage reports tribute from Mari of Damascus, Ia'asu the Samarian, and the rulers of Tyre and Sidon. Name, title, capital designation, and early eighth-century chronology make Ia'asu a secure reference to Joash or Jehoash, king of Israel. The stele therefore gives the northern king an external Assyrian attestation and places Samaria within a tribute network that the biblical account does not explicitly describe. It also helps explain the weakening of Damascus that permitted Israelite recovery. Yet the inscription compresses years of activity into a royal claim and does not narrate Joash's battles, Elisha's oracle, or the exact mechanism by which Israel regained towns.
Joash is named as the Samarian
The royal name, capital designation, and chronology securely identify the biblical king of Israel.
Israel paid tribute to Adad-nirari III
The stele reveals an Assyrian relationship not narrated in the biblical account of Joash.
Damascus and Samaria share one imperial text
Their juxtaposition helps reconstruct the regional realignment behind Israel's recovery from Aram.
The stele was excavated in meaningful context
It stood beside a podium in a Late Assyrian shrine rather than arriving through an undocumented antiquities market.
The campaign account is rhetorically compressed
Its 'one year' formulation summarizes multiple operations and cannot be read as a literal itinerary.
Follow the evidence from discovery to debate
Move through the find in a deliberate order: establish its provenance, examine the surviving object, place it in time, and then weigh the scholarly interpretation.
How the find came to light
During the British School of Archaeology in Iraq's 1967 season at Tell al-Rimah, excavators found the stele standing in position beside a podium inside the cella of a Late Assyrian shrine. Stephanie Page, the expedition epigrapher, published it in 1968. That controlled context is unusually informative because many Assyrian royal stelae were moved or recovered without precise records. The monument was already ancient when placed in the later shrine, and nine of its twenty-one inscribed lines had been deliberately erased, probably as part of a later political intervention. Its preservation nevertheless allowed Page to document material, measurements, imagery, text, and erasures together. Now held in the Iraq Museum as IM 70543, the stele has been re-edited in royal-inscription corpora and compared with the Saba'a stele and Calah slab to reconstruct Adad-nirari's western campaigns.
What you are looking at
Carved from a single parabolic slab of hard grey crystalline 'Mosul marble,' the stele measures about 1.30 meters high and 0.69 meters wide at the base. Adad-nirari III appears slightly smaller than life size, his right hand raised in a gesture of devotion before symbols of major deities. Twenty-one horizontal cuneiform lines run across the figure's skirt rather than the frame or sides. Nine lines were erased in antiquity, leaving the lower historical and grant sections especially complicated. No paint was visible when excavated. The stone's image and text operate together: the king stands perpetually before the gods while the inscription defines conquest, tribute, and the authority of his governor Nergal-eresh. Modern photographs can show the whole royal figure, but close readings require drawings or transliterations because the Joash line is not visually obvious to an untrained viewer.
Where it belongs in history
Adad-nirari III reigned approximately 811-783 BC. His western campaigns fall between about 805 and 796 BC in the Assyrian eponym sequence, while the Tell al-Rimah text is commonly associated with the later part of that interval, often around 797 BC. Joash of Israel reigned in the same early eighth-century window. The stele claims that the king accomplished extensive campaigns 'in one year,' but scholars treat that as a literary convention summarizing several operations rather than a literal twelve-month itinerary. Damascus had dominated Israel under Hazael and Ben-hadad; Assyrian pressure on Damascus altered that regional balance. Joash's tribute need not mean that Assyria directly occupied Samaria. It shows diplomatic or tributary submission within a larger realignment from which Israel could simultaneously benefit against Aram.
Consensus, questions, and debate
Specialists generally accept Ia'asu the Samarian as Joash of Israel. The Akkadian form represents the royal name, while 'Samarian' identifies him through his capital and kingdom, an Assyrian usage that becomes common for Israel. Debate concerns chronology, campaign compression, and the identity of Mari of Damascus. Comparison with the Saba'a stele shows different tribute totals and selections, indicating that the texts are not straightforward duplicate ledgers. The statement that everything occurred in one year is rhetorically shaped. Scholars also examine the erased lines and the role of Nergal-eresh, whose provincial authority may have been contested or curtailed. None of these issues undermines the Joash reading; they govern how much wider political history may be built from the monument.
The biblical record beside the artifact
Second Kings 13:10-25 presents Joash ruling from Samaria, visiting the dying Elisha, and defeating Ben-hadad son of Hazael three times to recover Israelite towns. The stele independently names the king as 'the Samarian' and places him in the same regional world as Damascus. It does not describe those three victories, but Assyria's reduction of Damascus supplies a plausible geopolitical setting for Israel's recovery. Second Kings 14:8-16 and 2 Chronicles 25:17-24 recount Joash's later war with Amaziah of Judah; the stele says nothing about it. The inscription's biblical contribution is therefore exact but bounded: it verifies Joash as a contemporary ruler associated with Samaria and records a previously unmentioned Assyrian tribute relationship, while the prophetic and Judahite episodes remain unattested by this object.
2 Kings 13:10–25
10¶ In the thirty and seventh year of Joash king of Judah began Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz to reign over Israel in Samaria, [and reigned] sixteen years.
11And he did [that which was] evil in the sight of the LORD; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin: [but] he walked therein.
12And the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, and his might wherewith he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, [are] they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
13And Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat upon his throne: and Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
14¶ Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.
15And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows.
16And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand [upon it:] and Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands.
17And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened [it]. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD’s deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed [them].
18And he said, Take the arrows. And he took [them]. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed.
19And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed [it:] whereas now thou shalt smite Syria [but] thrice.
20¶ And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.
21And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band [of men;] and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.
22¶ But Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.
23And the LORD was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence as yet.
24So Hazael king of Syria died; and Ben-hadad his son reigned in his stead.
25And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. Three times did Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel.
A responsible historical conclusion
The stele inserts Joash into the written world of Assyria with unusual precision: a foreign king, his capital designation, and his place among neighboring rulers appear in a monument found in an imperial shrine. It expands the biblical portrait by revealing a tribute relationship that Kings omits and helps explain why Israel's fortunes improved as Damascus weakened. The find also demonstrates the value of archaeological context. Because excavators recorded the stone standing beside the shrine podium, readers can ask how an Assyrian royal image functioned in a provincial sacred space and why later authorities erased parts of it. Thus the object illuminates both Israelite geopolitics and the material performance of Assyrian power.
Included in these guides
See how this evidence file fits within a larger historical question.
Authoritative sources
Institutional catalogs, excavation reports, and academic publications let you examine the evidence beyond this summary.
A Stela of Adad-Nirari III and Nergal-Eresh from Tell al Rimah
IRAQ / Cambridge University Press for the British Institute for the Study of IraqPrimary excavation publication describing the in-situ find, measurements, material, image, erasures, text, and historical setting.
Adad-nerari III 07: Tell al-Rimah Stele
Royal Inscriptions of Assyria Online, University of PennsylvaniaScholarly corpus entry for RIMA 3 A.0.104.7 with transliteration, translation, and object identification.
The Assyrian Inscriptions of Adad-nirari III
Cambridge University PressFocused academic comparison of the Tell al-Rimah, Saba'a, and Calah texts, including Joash, Damascus, and campaign compression.
Text, Context, and Image: Taking Another Look at the Ubana Tarasu Gesture
IRAQ / Cambridge University PressRecent peer-reviewed study of the king's gesture and Assyrian stele imagery, explicitly including the Tell al-Rimah monument.
Upper portion of the Tell al-Rimah stele showing Adad-nirari III before divine symbols; the inscription includes tribute from Joash the Samarian. · Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) · CC BY-SA 4.0
View the image source and license