Three Assyrian Kings Erased: study finds rulers scrubbed from king list

Representative Image of three ancient Assyrian kings emerging from obscurity amid cuneiform tablets (AI-generated image) For nearly a century, historians have relied on the Assyrian King List as the authoritative record of who ruled the ancient Assyrian Empire, especially during its later centuries. Now, new research suggests that record was never as complete or impartial as scholars believed. By re-examining damaged inscriptions, worn cuneiform tablets and a heavily altered stone monument, two researchers have reconstructed the reigns of three Assyrian kings whose names never made it into the official chronology at all. Their findings indicate these rulers were not simply forgotten by accident, but may have been deliberately removed from the record because their reigns complicated a carefully managed story of orderly royal succession, one that Assyria's own scribes appear to have curated rather than simply recorded.Why historians trusted the Assyrian King List for so longThe Assyrian King List, often referred to by scholars as the AKL, has functioned for decades as the backbone of Assyrian chronology, particularly for the empire's final stretch of history known as the Neo-Assyrian...