Image Details

Erich Lessing

On the second register from the top of the Black Obelisk, the Israelite king Jehu (841–814 B.C.) prostrates himself before King Shalmaneser. The stela’s cuneiform inscription identifies the figure as “Jehu, son of Omri”—which does not mean that Jehu was the son of the biblical king Omri (882–871 B.C.) but that he ruled the House of Omri. This inscription is an extremely rare extra-biblical attestation of two biblical kings.