Shalmaneser V (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "Salmānu is foremost"; Biblical Hebrew: ) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 727 BC to his deposition and death in 722 BC. Though Shalmaneser V's brief reign is poorly known from contemporary sources, he remains known for the conquest of Samaria and the fall of the Kingdom of Israel, though the conclusion of that campaign is sometimes attributed to his successor, Sargon II, instead.
Shalmaneser V is known to have campaigned extensively in the lands west of the Assyrian heartland, warring not only against the Israelites, but also against the Phoenician city-states and against kingdoms in Anatolia. Though he successfully annexed some lands to the Assyrian Empire, his campaigns resulted in long and drawn-out sieges lasting several years, some being unresolved at the end of his reign. The circumstances of his deposition and death are not clear, though they were likely violent, and it is unlikely that Sargon II was his legitimate heir. It is possible that Sargon II was entirely unrelated, which would make Shalmaneser V the final king of the Adaside dynasty, which had ruled Assyria for almost a thousand years.
Shalmaneser V is also known under the name Ululayu ( , meaning "one who [was born] in the month Ulūlu"), possibly his birth name, which is used instead of his regnal name Shalmaneser in some non-contemporary sources. Contemporary official documents from his reign exclusively refer to the king as Shalmaneser, not Ululayu, meaning that it is unlikely that the latter was ever used as an official regnal name.
Background
Name
The name Shalmaneser, rendered by contemporaries as in Assyria and in Babylonia, was only ever borne by Assyrian monarchs and never given to anyone other than a king. This suggests that it was exclusively a regnal name, assumed by Shalmaneser V, and by the four previous Assyrian kings to use the name, probably upon their accession to the position of crown prince and then more publicly after they rose to the throne itself. The name means "Salmānu is foremost", Salmānu (literally "friendly one") being a deity popular in the Middle Assyrian period and exclusively worshipped within Assyrian territory, possibly being a friendly manifestation of the Assyrian national deity Ashur. Other interpretations of the meaning of also exist, it could alternatively mean "likeness of Anu" or possibly "worshipper of fire". Shalmaneser V is unlikely to have taken the regnal name due to its actual etymological meaning, but rather due to its associations with his glorious ancestors and distant predecessors Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BC) and Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC), well-known for their conquests in the lands west of the Assyrian heartland.
The modern English-language rendition of the name, 'Shalmaneser', comes from how the name appears in Hebrew in the Bible, שלמנאסר (). The Hebrew rendition has its own meaning, not the same one as the original Assyrian version: 'Shalmaneser' is derived from the Hebrew words (to be whole, to make complete) and (to bind, to tie up), effectively meaning something akin to "peace in chains" or "covenant of recompense".
Shalmaneser V is also known by the name Ululayu, meaning "one who (was born) in the month Ulūlu". Several non-contemporary sources, such as the Ptolemaic Canon, the Babylonian King List and the works of later Greco-Roman historians, use this name, or a variation thereof (such as the Greek ) in place of his actual regnal name. This has historically been interpreted as Ululayu having been a second regnal name of Shalmaneser, but while the name also appears in a handful of contemporary sources, letters sent by Shalmaneser when he was the crown prince to his father Tiglath-Pileser, these are not formal documents. There is no evidence that contemporary official documents ever referred to him as Ululayu. There is also no evidence that any other Assyrian king ever used more than one regnal name in their lifetime. Nevertheless, Shalmaneser V was evidently remembered by later generations as Ululayu, which, going by the context in which it was used, might have been his birth name.
Some sources anglicise the name Shalmaneser as Salmanasser.For example: Isaac Newton's The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended:
Shalmaneser as crown prince Shalmaneser V was the son and heir of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC). Several letters sent by Shalmaneser to his father while Shalmaneser was still the crown prince (using the name Ululayu) are known, all beginning with the standard formula "To the king, my lord: your servant Ululayu. The best of health to the king, my lord! Assyria is well, the temples are well, all the king’s forts are well. The king, my lord, can be glad indeed". This introduction served as a routine report, telling the king that all was well in the crown prince's lands. Further contents of the letters record several activities conducted by Shalmaneser while he was crown prince, such as detaining emissaries who had passed through certain cities without his permission, and the transportation of goods. Most of his responsibilities appear to have been diplomatic in nature or related to the palace household.
Though it is clear from the letters that Shalmaneser controlled lands on behalf of his father while he was crown prince, it is not entirely clear where he was located. Though his letter on detaining the emissaries specifies that the emissaries had passed through the region of Til-Barsip and Guzana (in modern Syria), it also states that they had been detained at the more eastern site of Kubaneše, meaning that Shalmaneser may have been located close to the Assyrian heartland, rather than in the western provinces. That his letters mention that "Assyria is well" could indicate that his area of responsibility was in central Assyria. The Assyriologists Keiko Yamada and Shigeo Yamada suggested in 2017 that Shalmaneser's letters were sent at a time when Tiglath-Pileser was away on campaign and the crown prince was residing at Nimrud as regent. Yamada and Yamada noted that this was speculative and that Shalmaneser, as crown prince, is also likely to have participated in his father's campaigns.
It is possible that one of Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions records the crown prince by the name Shalmaneser (not Ululayu), possibly indicating that he had assumed that name already during his father's reign, but the text is fragmentary and it could also be a reference to the city of Til-Barsip (called Kar-Shalmaneser by the Assyrians).
Reign
Sources, artifacts, and activities
Shalmaneser appears to have become king of both Assyria and Babylonia upon his father's death without challenges. Few contemporary sources have survived from Shalmaneser's brief reign, which makes many of his activities as king poorly known and obscure.
With the exception of a handful of inscriptions on lion-shaped weights, there are no known commemorative inscriptions confidently attributable to Shalmaneser. There is an unpublished and fragmentary brick from the city of Apqu (in modern Syria) that might be referrable to Shalmaneser, indicating some building work in that city. Shalmaneser does not appear to have conducted any large construction projects in the great cities of the Assyrian heartland, such as Assur or Nimrud, and it is plausible that he spent most of his short reign waging war.
Babylonian chronicles state that Shalmaneser became king on the 25th day of the month Tebeth, following Tiglath-Pileser's death, and that he died in the month of Tebeth in his fifth year as king, with his successor Sargon II becoming king on the 12th day of that month. The Babylonian King List records him by the name Ululayu, confirms him as reigning in Babylonia for five years, and designates him as part of the "dynasty of Baltil" (Baltil being a reference to the oldest part of the city of Assur, essentially meaning that Shalmaneser was part of the "Assyrian dynasty"). There is only a single preserved contemporary source for Shalmaneser's reign in Babylonia, a legal document concerning a disputed sale of a slave, dated to his third regnal year.
Shalmaneser's coronation month, Tebeth, was very late in the year, corresponding to December–January, meaning that it is unlikely that he undertook any significant activities in 727 BC. Very little information is provided by any of the surviving sources for events of his reign. The Assyrian Eponym Chronicle, which records significant events for each year in Assyria, is fragmentary in the period covered by Shalmaneser's reign. It is plausible that the fragmentary entry for Shalmaneser's first full year, 726 BC, states that he stayed in the Assyrian capital that year, and the preposition (meaning "to"), preserved three times in the Chronicle for the subsequent years, suggests that he was away on military campaigns in 725, 724 and 723 BC. No information survives from 722 BC, his last year.
The lion-shaped weights preserved with inscriptions by Shalmaneser also contain the phrase "mina of the land" (a mina being an ancient Near Eastern unit of weight), possibly meaning "mina of the land (of Assyria)", which would suggest an attempt at establishing a unified national standard of weights.
Traditionally, Assyrian kings held the office of eponym (year name) in their second regnal year, a custom that had occurred regularly up to and including Tiglath-Pileser III's reign. Shalmaneser deviated from this custom, holding the office in his fourth regnal year. The kings of the Sargonid dynasty that succeeded Shalmaneser also took the office of eponym at different points in their reigns, or not at all, which implies that Shalmaneser issued some administrative reforms that were continued and respected by succeeding kings.
Rule in Babylonia It seems that Shalmaneser was relatively unopposed as king in Babylonia, though he appears to have faced some resistance from the Chaldean tribes in the south. A 7th century BC letter written in Aramaic records deportations of captives from Bit-Amukani by Tiglath-Pileser, from Bit-Dakkuri by Shalmaneser, from Dur-Sin by Sargon, and from (reading uncertain) by Sargon's successor, Sennacherib. In 1925, the Assyriologist Daniel David Luckenbill identified a fragmentary Babylonian inscription as belonging to Shalmaneser V, by identifying the last sign in the king's name in the inscription as representing , the last portion of Shalmaneser's name (Shalmaneser V was the only king of that name to rule Babylonia). The inscription mentions restoration work in the city of Borsippa and the conclusion of some campaign directed at rebels or enemies in the south, but it is too damaged to reveal who these enemies were. The fragmentary account in this inscription reads:
Conquest of Samaria and western wars
The city of Samaria, capital of the Kingdom of Israel, was besieged and captured by the Assyrians in the 720s BC. The city's fall ended the Kingdom of Israel, which became the Assyrian province of Samerina. On the aftermath of the conquest, nearly thirty thousand people were deported and resettled across the Assyrian Empire, as per the standard Assyrian way of dealing with defeated enemy peoples through resettlement. This specific resettlement is the basis of the narrative of the Ten Lost Tribes. There exists some debate as to whether the Assyrian king who captured Samaria was Shalmaneser V or Sargon II. Both the Babylonian Chronicle and the Bible (2 Kings 17:3–6 and 18:9–11) clearly ascribe the city's conquest to Shalmaneser (the Bible records a siege lasting three years), but Sargon claims in several of his inscriptions that he was the one who conquered it. Various explanations have been proposed for the contradiction.