Құдай кітабындағы Башан жеріндегі ежелгі қала – Аштерот Карнаим

Ancient city in the land of Bashan mentioned in the Hebrew Bible

Ashteroth Karnaim (עַשְׁתְּרֹת קַרְנַיִם), also rendered as Ashtaroth Karnaim, was a city in Bashan east of the Jordan River. A distinction is to be made between two neighbouring cities: Ashtaroth, and northeast of it Karnaim, the latter annexing the name of the former after Ashtaroth's decline and becoming known as Ashteroth Karnaim.

Tell Ashtara is mentioned in the Assyrian relief in 730/727 BCE, which is in the British Museum. It is a town where Levites lived. It is mentioned twice in the cuneiform Amarna letters of 1350 BC. The relief depicts the Assyrians removing the people from Ashteroth in 730–727 BC. The relief was excavated at Nimrud by Austen Henry Layard in 1851. The name Ashteroth is inscribed in cuneiform 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 King Pekah of Israel, King Tiglath pileser of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel beth maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor—Gilead, Galilee, the entire region of Naphtali; and he deported the inhabitants to Assyria." The Assyrians returned in 722/721 BC and removed the tribes of Israel to Assyria. This relief is hugely important because it shows the beginning of the exile of the 10 tribes of Israel. They never returned. The floppy turbans and pointed shoes and the style of the cloaks are typical for Israel at that period; the same clothes are shown on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III. The Black Obelisk is dated to about 825 BCE. It was also excavated at Nimrud by Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1848. It shows Jehu, King of Northern Israel, or his representative offering tribute to Shalmaneser III on the second register down. The clothes are the same as on the Ashteroth relief.

The name translates literally to "Astarte of the Two Horns". Astarte was a goddess of civilisation and fertility in Canaanite religion.

The identification of the two sites is not straightforward, but there is some degree of consensus.