On one of twenty relief panels on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.C.E.), the caption to an image of a foreign dignitary kneeling before the Assyrian king has occasioned much interest ever since its discovery at Nimrud in 1846. The caption reads: "Tribute of Jehu 'son' of Omri: I received from him silver, gold, a golden saplu-bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king, (and) wooden purihtu." Jehu, according to the Hebrew Bible, was not literally the son of king Omri; rather he was the trusted, but soon-to-be insubordinate, commander of the army of king Joram, who was Omri's son. At the instigation of the prophet Elisha, Jehu overthrew the Omride dynasty in Israel, as well as the ruling dynasty in neighboring Judah, in a bloody coup d'etat (II Kings...