Archaeological Artifacts that Support the Bible: The Black Obelisk

Austen Henry Layard, a 28 year old Englishman arrived in Mosul a city on the west bank of the Tigris River in October of 1845. Layard was interested in archeological ruins and received funds from Sir Stratford Canning to set up an excavation site at Nimrud. The governor of the area Mohammed Pasha, was somewhat of a tyrant and it would have been dangerous for Layard to give his real reasons for being in the area, so he was able to get letters from the British embassy stating that he was there to hunt wild boar.

On November 8, Layard and a few men set out on the Tigris River. They met up with a native to the area, Awad II, who was employed to gather and supervise men for excavation. Awad II provided six men the next morning and excavation began. Layard was sure that the Pasha knew of his excavations and returned to Mosul a few days later to give an account of what they had found. He expected that the Pasha would stop their excavations, but he did not. Instead a soldier was sent to represent the Pasha at the excavations. The Pasha did eventually try to stop the excavations but Layard convinced him otherwise. Layard then requested a decree from the Ottoman government which would allow him to continue working without interruption. A week before Christmas the Pasha was replaced with a younger, more fair-minded general and Layard went to Baghdad to arrange removal of the artifacts he had found.

Within a year excavations had been increased, Layard had found huge chambers, inscribed slabs and even pavement six feet below. Layard believed that there was a building near the center of the excavation site and had workers begin to dig in the area. After many days without finding anything, Layard was about to give up when a worker uncovered a column of marble. They continued excavating the item and a black obelisk was soon uncovered. Layard wrote of the object, "From the nature, therefore, of the bas-reliefs, it is natural to conjecture that the monument was erected to commemorate the conquest of India, or of some other country far to the east of Assyria, and on the confines of the Indian peninsula. The name of the king, whose deeds it appears to record, is the same as that on the center bulls; and it is introduced by a genealogical list containing many other royal names." The obelisk is seven feet tall with 190 lines of text on each side and twenty panels of relief sculptures. It took six months for the artifact Layard found to arrive in England, and it was a year before translations of the texts began to come in. It was learned that the inscription recounted important events of the Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser III.

How it supports the Bible

The obelisk records tributes paid to the king by leaders of other countries. There is one inscription which records the tribute of Jehu, the Isrealite king spoken of in 1 and 2 Kings of the Old Testament.