science

Tell Ashtara

Tell Ashtara is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tell Ashtara rather than just read about it. In short: Tell Ashtara (Arabic: تل عشترة) is an archaeological mound south of Damascus. The Bronze Age city that once stood here may have been mentioned in the Amarna letters correspondence of 1350 BC as Aštartu, and is usually identified with the Biblical city of Ashtaroth.

Key takeaways

Tell Ashtara belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tell Ashtara to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tell Ashtara from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tell Ashtara (Arabic: تل عشترة) is an archaeological mound south of Damascus. The Bronze Age city that once stood here may have been mentioned in the Amarna letters correspondence of 1350 BC as Aštartu, and is usually identified with the Biblical city of Ashtaroth.

Aštartu in Egyptian texts

Thutmosid period Aštartu is mentioned in the Annals of Thutmose III at the Temple of Karnak as 'Astarot, which Emmanuel de Rougé and Ludwig Borchardt identify with Biblical Ashtaroth and which Tomkins and Gaston Maspero identify with Tell Ashtarah.

Amarna period Aštartu is only referenced in two of the 382-letter Amarna corpus, in letters EA 256 and EA 197 (EA stands for 'el-Amarna'). It is mentioned twice in the cuneiform Amarna letters from Tell el-Amarna in 1350 BC. EA 197 is catalogued as "Biryawaza's plight". Biryawaza was the mayor of Damascus, called Dimasqu in the letters' Akkadian. EA 256 is a story concerning Mutbaal, the son of Labaya, and the Habiru, in regard to the whereabouts of Ayyab, who may be in Pihilu, modern day Pella, Jordan, and is a letter of intrigue, catalogued as "Oaths and denials", and lists 7 cities located in the Golan area. Ayyab was the king of Aštartu. He authored of one surviving letter to the Egyptian pharaoh, listed as EA 364.

Ashteroth in the Assyrian relief Ashteroth (Tell Ashtara) is mentioned in the Assyrian relief in 730/727 BC, stored in the British Museum. It is a town where Levites lived. The relief depicts the Assyrians removing the people from Ashteroth in 730–727 BC. The relief was excavated at Nimrud by Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1851. The name Ashteroth is inscribed in cuneiform script on the top of the relief. The king in the lower register is Tiglath-pileser III. This is the first exile of the people out of Israel into Assyria. This event is mentioned in the Bible in 2 Kings 15:29. (“In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.”) The floppy turbans and pointed shoes and the style of the cloaks are typical for Israel at that period and shown on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, which is very close to it in the Assyrian section of the British Museum in London. The Black Obelisk is dated to about 825 BC. It was also excavated at Nimrud by Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1848. It shows king Jehu of Israel (or his representative) offering tribute to Shalmaneser III on the second register down.

See also Asherah Ashteroth Karnaim, initially simply Karnaim, a Biblical city who annexed the name of its neighbour, the city of Ashteroth Ayyab, mayor of Aštartu Shutu (for the name "Ayyab") Aram Damascus

References

Moran, William L. The Amarna Letters. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 1992. (softcover, ISBN 0-8018-6715-0)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tell Ashtara

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tell Ashtara claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tell Ashtara before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tell Ashtara ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tell Ashtara

In research: Tell Ashtara appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tell Ashtara in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tell Ashtara is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Amarna letters locations, Archaeological sites in Daraa Governorate, Canaanite cities, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tell Ashtara outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tell Ashtara in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tell Ashtara means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tell Ashtara out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tell Ashtara in simple terms?

Why does Tell Ashtara matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tell Ashtara?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tell Ashtara.