Medieval Syriac tales characterize Sennacherib as an archetypical pagan king assassinated as part of a family feud, whose children convert to Christianity. Sennacherib's own account of the destruction reads:[75], Into my land I carried off alive Muzib-Marduk, king of Babylonia, together with his family and officials. [70], Sennacherib met his enemies in battle near the city of Halule. [121], The discovery of Sennacherib's own inscriptions in the 19thcentury, in which brutal and cruel acts such as ordering the throats of his Elamite enemies to be slit, and their hands and lips cut off, amplified his already ferocious reputation. [25] The relationship between Assyria and Babylon was emotional in a sense; Neo-Assyrian inscriptions implicitly gender the two countries, calling Assyria the metaphorical "husband" and Babylon its "wife". Since Smith, the site has experienced several periods of intense excavation and study; Rassam returned from 1878 to 1882, the Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge oversaw excavations from 1889 to 1891, the Assyriologist Leonard William King from 1903 to 1904 and the Assyriologist Reginald Campbell Thompson in 1905 and from 1931 to 1932. Because the Assyrians venerated the long history and culture of Babylon, it was preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king, or by the Assyrian king in a personal union. [48], The account of the blockade erected around Jerusalem is different from the sieges described in Sennacherib's annals and the massive reliefs in Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, which depict the successful siege of Lachish rather than events at Jerusalem. [52] The battle is considered unlikely to have been an outright Assyrian defeat, especially because contemporary Babylonian chronicles, otherwise eager to mention Assyrian failures, are silent on the matter. [48] It is possible that the story of the mice infestation is an allusion to some kind of disease striking the Assyrian camp, possibly the septicemic plague. These are significant artifacts as they record Sennacherib's campaign into Judah in 701 BC. [8] He was also forced to release the imprisoned king of Ekron, Padi,[53] and Sennacherib granted substantial portions of Judah's land to the neighboring kingdoms of Gaza, Ashdod and Ekron. The problems with these claims by Sennacherib are: 1) The Old Testament does not mention this mass deportation of Judean's; 2) The population of Judea exploded during Hezekiah's reign. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the role he plays in the Hebrew Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. Sennacherib prism. [63], Successfully landing on the Elamite coast, the Assyrians then hunted and attacked the Chaldean refugees, something that both Babylonian and Assyrian sources hold went well for the Assyrians. [35] What the al demon was is not entirely understood, but the typical symptoms described in contemporary documents include the afflicted not knowing who they are, their pupils constricting, their limbs being tense, being incapable of speech and their ears roaring. 701. The oldest traces of human settlement at its location are from the 7th millenniumBC, and from the 4thmillennium BC and onward it formed an important administrative center in the north. Elayi believes Sennacherib's greatest flaw was "his irascible, vindictive and impatient character" and that he, when emotional, could be pushed to make irrational decisions. He corresponded with and sent gifts to western rulers like Hezekiah, probably hoping to assemble a vast anti-Assyrian alliance. [89] Sennacherib constructed beautiful gardens at his new palace, importing various plants and herbs from throughout his empire and beyond. In the Aggadah Because Sennacherib might have considered a two-front war too risky, Marduk-apla-iddina was left unchallenged for several months. [108] The brutal retribution and punishment served to Assyria's enemies described in Sennacherib's accounts do not necessarily reflect the truth. Sennacherib 's campaign in the Levant in 701 BCE was a military campaign undertaken by the Neo-Assyrian Empire to bring the region back under control following a rebellion against Assyrian rule in 705 BCE. to 681 B.C. Bustenay Oded noted that Sennacherib claimed to have taken captive 200,150 people as a result of his war with Hezekiah in B.C. [55] One of Sennacherib's first measures was to remove Bel-ibni from the Babylonian throne, either because of incompetence or complicity,[32] and he was brought back to Assyria, whereafter he is not heard of again in the sources. [84] Though some northern Babylonian territories became Assyrian provinces, the Assyrians made no effort to rebuild Babylon itself, and southern chronicles from the time refer to the era as the "kingless" period when there was no king in the land. Sennacherib , (died January 681 bc), King of Assyria (r. 705/704-681 bc), son and successor of Sargon II.Between 703 and 689 he undertook six campaigns against Elam (southwestern Iran), which was stirring up Chaldean and Aramaean tribes in Babylonia; Babylon was sacked during the last campaign. The army raised by Arda-Mulissu and Nabu-shar-usur met Esarhaddon's forces in Hanigalbat, a region in the western parts of the empire. Sennacherib had at least seven sons and one daughter. [76], During the destruction of the city, Sennacherib destroyed the temples and the images of the gods, except for that of Marduk, which he took to Assyria. Throughout the history of the Assyrian Empire, Babylon had caused problems and had even been destroyed by the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I in c. 1225 BCE. To take the city, the Assyrians constructed a great siege mound, a ramp made of earth and stone, to reach the top of Lachish's walls. He destroyed Babylon in 689 bc and, with the peace of his empire thus assured, devoted himself to rebuilding his capital, Nineveh. [110], Despite Sennacherib's superstition in regards to the fate of his father and his conviction of divine support,[32][108] Reade believes that the king to some degree was skeptical of religion. The latter fleet was then used to transport the Assyrian army to the city of Opis, where the ships were then pulled ashore and transported overland to a canal that linked to the Euphrates. Sennacherib described Bel-ibni as "a native of Babylon who grew up in my palace like a young puppy". His most famous work in the city is the Southwest Palace, which Sennacherib named his "Palace without Rival". [7] Like his immediate predecessors, Sennacherib took the ruling titles of both Assyria and Babylonia when he became king, but his reign in Babylonia was less stable. He thought he could take them for himself. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The final step in the palace's construction was the erection of colossal statues depicting bulls and lions, characteristic of Late Assyrian architecture. His army still existed when he conducted campaigns in 702 BCE and from 699 BCE until 697 BCE, when he made several campaigns in the mountains east of Assyria, during one of which he received tribute from the Medes. Ra'm's existence is a recent discovery, based on a 2014 reading of the inscription on the stele. [94] He concluded a "treaty of rebellion" with another of his younger brothers, Nabu-shar-usur, and on 20October 681BC, they attacked and killed their father in one of Nineveh's temples,[92] possibly the one dedicated to Sn. The passage describing the seizure of the property of the gods and the destruction of some of their statues is one of the few where Sennacherib uses "my people" rather than "I". Humban-menanu and his commander, Humban-undasha, led the Babylonian and Elamite forces. He was assassinated by one of his own sons in a temple of Nineveh. Sennacherib assumed several new epithets never used by Assyrian kings, such as "guardian of the right" and "lover of justice", suggesting a desire to leave a personal mark on a new era beginning with his reign. For unknown reasons, Sargon never took him on his military campaigns. [63] The war then took an unexpected turn as the king of Elam, Hallutash-Inshushinak I, took advantage of the Assyrian army being so far away from home to invade Babylonia. They then besieged and took numerous cities. Sennacherib, on a magnificent throne, watches as prisoners are brought before him and sometimes executed. They probably received a scribal education, learning arithmetic and how to read and write in Sumerian and Akkadian. He sits on a throne and watches as prisoners are brought before him and executed. Puzur-Sin Ashur-dugul Ashur-apla-idi Nasir-Sin Sin-namir Ipqi-Ishtar Adad-salulu Adasi Although Sennacherib at last got his revenge on Marduk-apla-iddina, his arch-enemy had not lived to see it, having died of natural causes before the Assyrians landed in Elam. Accession. [2] Nineveh had been the designated seat of the Assyrian crown prince since the reign of Tiglath-Pileser. They will be called my War Eagles. Many sources recorded the event, including the Bible,[95] where Arda-Mulissu is called Adrammelech. For example, the god Ashur is portrayed frequently with a female companion, probably the goddess Mullissu. Arda-Mulissu and Nabu-shar-usur survived this purge, escaping as exiles to the northern kingdom of Urartu. [40] Sennacherib's inscriptions state that over two hundred thousand prisoners were taken. tian army engaged the Assyrian army. The reasons for this are debated, but it is known that a short time later, Judah was once again paying tribute to the Assyrian Empire. 32 Hezekiah had been completely faithful to the Lord. Son and successor of Sargon, he led expeditions to subdue Phoenicia and Palestine in 701 bc, and defeated the Elamite-Chaldean alliance in 691 bc. [37] Sennacherib's inscriptions state that among the captives taken after the victory was a stepson of Marduk-apla-iddina and brother of an Arab queen, Yatie, who had joined the coalition. Faced with a massive Assyrian army nearby, many of the Levantine rulers, including Budu-ilu of Ammon, Kamusu-nadbi of Moab, Mitinti of Ashdod and Malik-rammu of Edom, quickly submitted to Sennacherib to avoid retribution. Sennacherib spent much time and effort to rid the empire of Sargon's imagery. After they had destroyed the city, the Assyrians deported the survivors to the Assyrian Empire, forcing some of them to work on Sennacherib's building projects, and others to serve in the king's personal guard. [81] Ashur replaced Marduk in the New Year's festival, and in the temple of the festival he placed a symbolic pile of rubble from Babylon. 200,150 people, great and . [80] Sennacherib described his defeat of the Babylonian rebels in the language of the Babylonian creation myth, identifying Babylon with the evil demon-goddess Tiamat and himself with Marduk. The son of Sargon II, it's believed Sennacherib became king around 705 when his father was killed in battle. So that it might be impossible in future days to recognize the site of that city and its temples, I utterly dissolved it with water and made it like inundated land. AbydosDynasty [42][43] Sennacherib's third campaign, directed against the kingdoms and city-states in the Levant, is very well-documented compared to many other events in the ancient Near East and is the best-documented event in the history of Israel during the First Temple period. The reason for Arda-Mulissu's sudden dismissal is unknown, but it is clear from contemporary inscriptions that he was very disappointed. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . [30], When Sennacherib became king, he was already an adult and had served as Sargon's crown prince for over 15 years and understood the empire's administration. Sennacherib is presented as akin to a ruthless predator, attacking Judah as a "wolf on the fold" in the famous 1815 poem The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron:[112]. Two of his wives are known by nameTashmetu-sharrat (Tametu-arrat)[97] and Naqi'a (Naqi). As the Assyrians were preparing to retake Ekron, Hezekiah's ally, Egypt, intervened in the conflict. When the Philistine city of Ashkelon succumbed, Sennacherib removed the king, his wife, sons, daughters, brothers, and kin, and exiled them back to Assyria. Sin-a-eriba, "Sin has increased (or replaced) the (lost) brothers."King of Assyria and Babylonia, 705-681 b.c.. 1. Except for Esarhaddon, who is known to be Naqi'a's son, which of Sennacherib's wives were his children's mothers is unknown. There is a tent behind him, his chariot is in the foreground, and his bodyguard are stationed around. [72] It is likely Babylon would have been in a poor position once it fell to Sennacherib in 689BC, having been besieged for over fifteen months. Fearing for his life, Marduk-apla-iddina had already fled the battlefield. In reliefs depicting both Sargon and Sennacherib, they are portrayed in discussion, appearing almost as equals. Wishing to consolidate his position as king, Nergal-ushezib took advantage of the situation and captured and plundered the city of Nippur. His appointment as king of Babylon and the new title suggests that Ashur-nadin-shumi was being groomed to succeed Sennacherib as the king of Assyria upon his death. During Sargon's longer absences from the Assyrian heartland, Sennacherib's residence would have served as the center of government in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, with the crown prince taking on significant administrative and political responsibilities. In the words of the Assyriologist Eckart Frahm, "the Assyrians were in love with Babylon, but also wished to dominate her". The rooms and courtyards of his Neo-Assyrian Southwest Palace at Nineveh were decorated with a series of detailed carved stone panels. He later replaced him with a younger son, Esarhaddon, in 684BC, for unknown reasons. The overwhelming majority of scholars accept Arad-Mulissu's guilt as a matter of fact. She was referred to as the "queen mother" during Esarhaddon's reign, but as she was Esarhaddon's mother, the title may have been bestowed upon her either late in Sennacherib's reign or by Esarhaddon. [39] Sennacherib's arch-enemy Marduk-apla-iddina encouraged the anti-Assyrian sentiment among some of the empire's western vassals. The Assyrians defeated the Egyptian expedition in a battle near the city of Eltekeh. [39] Because his previous policy of reigning as king of both Assyria and Babylonia had evidently failed, Sennacherib attempted another method, appointing a native Babylonian who had grown up at the Assyrian court, Bel-ibni, as his vassal king of the south. According to Elayi, Sennacherib was "certainly intelligent, skillful, with an ability of adaptation", but "his sense of piety was contradictory, as, on the one hand, he impiously destroyed the statues of gods and temples of Babylon while, on the other hand, he used to consult the gods before acting and prayed to them". [32], After the Babylonian war, Sennacherib's second campaign was in the Zagros Mountains. He got ready to attack them. Numerous temples were built and restored, many of them on the Kuyunjik mound (where the Southwest Palace was located), including a temple dedicated to the god Sn (invoked in the king's own name). [57], Ashur-nadin-shumi was also titled mru rt, a title that could be interpreted either as the "pre-eminent son" or the "firstborn son". SeventeenthDynasty, (15001100 BCE)Kidinuid dynastyIgehalkid dynastyUntash-Napirisha, Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II, Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini Sennacherib knew that the glowing embers of rebellion might soon flare into a raging conflagration, a fire that might consume his throne. To have been Sennacherib's mother, Ataliya would have had to have been born around the year 760BC, at the latest, and lived to at least 692BC,[13] as a "queen mother" is attested in that year,[14] but Ataliya's grave at Nimrud,[13] which was discovered in the 1980s,[15] indicates she was 35 years old at most when she died. In his annals, Sennacherib claimed that he destroyed 46 fortified cities and towns of Judah and took 200,150 captives, although the number of captives is seen today widely as exaggeration. The Assyrian campaign (described as an act of aggression rather than as a response to Hezekiah's rebellious activities) is seen as doomed to fail from the start. Sennacherib's only known sister, Ahat-abisha, was married off to Ambaris, the king of Tabal, but probably returned to Assyria after Sargon's first successful campaign against Tabal. Sennacherib was the king of Assyria from 704-681 BC and was famous for his building projects. The event is often portrayed as an apocalyptic scenario, with Hezekiah portrayed as a messianic figure and Sennacherib and his armies being personifications of Gog and Magog. [65][66] In Ashur-nadin-shumi's place, a native Babylonian, Nergal-ushezib, became Babylon's king. As he was king by 692 BC, but not described in Assyrian sources as "revolting" until 691 BC, it is possible that his rule was initially accepted by Sennacherib. Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef, (Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser Shalmaneser Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon Sennacherib Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II, Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes. The two fleets then combined into one and continued down to the Persian Gulf. Nineveh was the capital of the powerful ancient Assyrian empire, located in modern-day northern Iraq. [23] The two kingdoms had competed since the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14thcenturyBC, and in the 8thcenturyBC, the Assyrians consistently gained the upper hand. Many of Sennacherib's reliefs are exhibited today at the Vorderasiatisches Museum, the British Museum, the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris. A tent is behind him; there is a chariot in the foreground and bodyguards stationed around. In the stories, Sennacherib's armies are destroyed when Hezekiah recites Hallel psalms on the eve of Passover. Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, two scribes, standing side by side at right, record the number of the enemy slain in a campaign in southern Mesopotamia. As the name Ashur-ili-muballissu appears in the list of personal names, alongside fragmentary names that could possibly be reconstructed as Ashur-nadin-shumi (or Ashur-shumu-ushabshi) and Esarhaddon, it is also possible that the other personal names were names of further sons of Sennacherib. Though the biblical narrative holds that divine intervention by an angel ended Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem by destroying the Assyrian army, an outright Assyrian defeat is unlikely as Hezekiah submitted to Sennacherib at the end of the campaign. For most of Sennacherib's reign, the queen was Tashmetu-sharrat, whose name literally means "Tashmetum is queen". Sennacherib then hunted for Marduk-apla-iddina, a hunt so intense the Chaldean escaped on boats with his people across the Persian Gulf, taking refuge in the Elamite city of Nagitu. Instead, his inscriptions often portrayed the most important parts of his reign as his large-scale building projects. Most of Sennacherib's campaigns were not aimed at conquest, but at suppressing revolts against his rule, restoring lost territories and securing treasure to finance his building projects. Sennacherib. [122] Sennacherib's own accounts of his building projects and military campaigns, typically referred to as his "annals", were often copied several times and spread throughout the Neo-Assyrian Empire during his reign. The reign of Assyrian king Sennacherib (705-681 BCE) was chiefly characterized by his difficulties with Babylon. First discovered and excavated from 1847 to 1851 by the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, the discovery of reliefs depicting Sennacherib's siege of Lachish in the Southwest Palace was the first archaeological confirmation of an event described in the Bible. [117], Though Assyria had more than a hundred kings throughout its long history, Sennacherib (along with his son Esarhaddon and grandsons Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin) is one of the few kings who was remembered and figured in Aramaic and Syriac folklore long after the kingdom had fallen. Mirroring the increased standing of the women of the royal family, during Sennacherib's time female deities were depicted more frequently. At the head of the Persian Gulf, a storm flooded the Assyrian camp and the Assyrian soldiers had to take refuge on their ships. [56] In the meantime, Sennacherib campaigned elsewhere. In the biblical account, however, Sennacherib was already at Libnah in Judah when he received the news that the Egyptians were coming (2 Kgs 19:8-9). Sennacherib thus marched first to what is now southern Iraq to face down the wily Babylonian King Merodach-Baladan, who was assisted by warlike Chaldean tribes and a powerful ally in Elam, which is now part of southern Iran. [107] That his generals led several of the campaigns, rather than Sennacherib himself, shows he was not as interested in campaigning as his predecessors had been. Arda-Mulissu's coronation was postponed, and Esarhaddon raised an army and seized Nineveh, installing himself as king as intended by Sennacherib. [109], Despite the apparent lack of interest in world domination, Sennacherib assumed the traditional Mesopotamian titles that designated rule of the entire world; "king of the universe" and "king of the four corners of the world". [33] A minor 704BC[34] campaign (unmentioned in Sennacherib's later historical accounts), led by Sennacherib's magnates rather than the king himself, was sent against Gurd in Tabal to avenge Sargon. [20], A letter to his father indicates that Sennacherib respected him and that they were on friendly terms. [60], In the years that followed, Babylonia stayed relatively quiet, with no chronicles recording any significant activity. The Nineveh described in Sennacherib's earliest accounts of its renovation was a city which at that point only existed in his imagination. The reasons for his policy towards his female relatives are unknown. The roof of the palace was constructed with cypress and cedar recovered from the mountains in the west, and the palace was illuminated through multiple windows and decorated with silver and bronze pegs on the inside and glazed bricks on the outside. Bel-ibni now faced the open revolts of two tribal leaders: Shuzubu (who later became Babylonian king under the name Mushezib-Marduk) and Marduk-apla-iddina, now an elderly man. There are also examples of a more naturalistic approach in the art; where colossal statues of bulls from Sargon's palace depict them with five legs so that four legs could be seen from either side and two from the front, Sennacherib's bulls all have four legs. [98] Their names were: A small tablet excavated at Nineveh lists the names of mythological Mesopotamian heroes, such as Gilgamesh, and some personal names. Sennacherib's ultimate treatment of Babylon, destroying the city and its temples, was sacrilege and the king appears to have neglected the temples in Assyria until he carried out a renovation of the temple of Ashur in Assur late in his reign. [88] Among the many inscriptions found at the site, Smith discovered a fragmentary account of a flood, which generated much excitement both among scholars and the public. The Assyrians had not marched on Babylon immediately, however, as military actions are recorded elsewhere. [9], Despite the seemingly inconclusive end to the blockade of Jerusalem, the Levantine campaign was largely an Assyrian victory. [18] Inscriptions suggest that Sennacherib and Tashmetu-sharrat had a loving relationship, with the king referring to her as "my beloved wife" and publicly praising her beauty. [30] His reaction to his father's fate was to distance himself from Sargon. Brinkman believed that Sennacherib's change in attitude came from a will to avenge his son and tiring of a city well within the borders of his empire repeatedly rebelling against his rule. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the role he plays in the Hebrew Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. The Assyrian king Sennacherib trained eagles for warfare. There, he subdued the Yasubigallians, a people from east of the Tigris river, and the Kassites, a people who had ruled Babylonia centuries before. In Midrash, examinations of the Old Testament and later stories, the events of 701BC are often explored in detail; many times featuring massive armies deployed by Sennacherib and pointing out how he repeatedly consulted astrologers on his campaign, delaying his actions. The campaign was disastrous, resulting in the defeat of the Assyrian army and the death of Sargon, whose corpse the Anatolians carried off. In most cases the Assyrians followed the principle of primogeniture, wherein the oldest son inherits. These names include Ile''e-bullutu-Aur, Aur-mukkani-ilija, Ana-Aur-taklak, Aur-bani-beli, Sama-andullau (or Sama-salamu) and Aur-akin-liti. Turning to the east, Sennacherib overwhelmed Philistine Ekron and suspended the bodies of its rebellious leaders on stakes throughout the city. The ancient Aramaic story of Ahikar portrays Sennacherib as a benevolent patron of the titular character Ahikar, with Esarhaddon portrayed more negatively.
