Significant853 BCE
Battle of Qarqar
Qarqar, Orontes River valley, Syria
Estimated casualties
14K – 25Kestimated dead
Assyrian royal inscription claims 14,000 (later versions 25,000) coalition dead; these are propaganda figures and the battle was likely indecisive, as Shalmaneser campaigned in the region repeatedly afterward.
SOURCEShalmaneser III's Annals (Kurkh Monolith)
Shalmaneser III of Assyria fought a coalition of eleven Levantine kings led by Hadadezer of Damascus and including Ahab of Israel near the Orontes River. Though Assyrian inscriptions claimed victory, the battle halted Assyrian advance into Syria and is the earliest event where the number of combatants is recorded with some specificity.
Belligerents2
- Neo-Assyrian Empire
- Syrian-Levantine coalition of eleven kings
ON THE MAPNeo-Assyrian Empire
Sources
- Wikipedia: Battle of Qarqar
- Livius.org (Jona Lendering)
- Wikipedia — text reused under CC BY-SA 4.0
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Cite as: Battle of Qarqar (853 BCE). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/c/battle-of-qarqar · Sources & methodology