Abstract

Dabigu (Tell Dabiq) Iron Age fortified city located in northeastern Syria on the west bank of the Quwaiq r. (Lipi?ski, 2000: 167, map). In C9, Dabigu was among the territories west of the Euphrates belonging to the Aramaean kingdom Bit-Adini, then ruled by Ahuni. It was one of six fortified cities of the kingdom which the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III placed under siege during his campaign against Ahuni in his second regnal year (857) (*RIMA 3: 11, 18, 35, 51, 64). (Shalmaneser’s reference to Dabigu as ‘a fortress-city of Hatti’ reflects the M1 Assyrian, Urartian, and Hebrew practice of designating the Taurus region and Syria as ‘the Land of Hatti’.) The cities were captured and their inhabitants either massacred or carried off as booty. Dabigu’s conquest is also recorded on one of the bronze bands from Balawat (*RIMA 3: 142) (see Imgur-Enlil). The reliefs on the band show the city defended by a crenellated double wall with flanking towers. Following his conquest of it, Shalmaneser may have used Dabigu as a military base for his later campaigns west of the Euphrates.