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© The Trustees of the British Museum

CHARIOTS OF IRE. Although the Israelite kings built their royal capital at Samaria, author David Ussishkin believes that Jezreel served as a kind of military capital. At this central, fortified base, Ahab’s fleet of chariots could run drills and prepare for battle. We have no examples of Israelite chariots, but they presumably resembled those of the encroaching Assyrians. In the ancient town of Enlil (modern Tell Balawat in Iraq), the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III built a temple with wooden gates decorated with reliefs on bronze strips depicting Shalmaneser’s military exploits. Several chariots are depicted and show the standard arrangement of two horses harnessed to a light chariot box with two wheels and carrying two men—a driver and an archer—with two quivers and a lance attached at the side.