Assyrian King Sargon II,Otherwise Known As

Sennacherib

by

Damien F. Mackey

Introduction

The ancient Assyrians in their war records often remind me ofthe relentless Daleks of that sixties cult TV series, 'DoctorWho', that irresistible army of aggressive robots who wentaround chanting "We will exterminate. We will exterminate". For,throughout the Assyrian war records, recurs the monotonousmantra. "I destroyed, I devastated. I burned with fire". No hint of mercy or

pity here; but, as with the Daleks, repetitive and totalconquest. Assyria, often likened to the Nazis, was athoroughgoing military nation, highly disciplined. Hercharacteristics were destructive invasion, deportation and taxation. Theprophet Nahum mocked the Assyrian war cry with his: "...Devastation, desolation, and destruction!" (2:10) This is not to say, however, that the Assyrians were mindlessDaleks. Apart from being awesome warriors, the Assyrian kingscould be great builders and patrons of the arts. Some of themshowed a lively interest in literature, music, mathematics andantiquity, even in archaeology. They also kept well-orderedbureaucratic records (the year-by-year Limmu or eponym lists -officials in office). Eric Aitchison, who has been highlycritical of the over-reliance by historians on the Limmulists, explains in "The Limmu Lists and Thiele's Blunder" (Undated):

Pick up any good book on Assyrian History and you will be told that theAssyrians recorded the annual progress of their history by the simple expedientof naming each year after an official. Relying on this format, astuteAssyriologists have reconstructed an unbroken chain reaching from 648 backas far as 893 with additional partial records of limited value punctuating theperiod to 1103. For the time span 703 through to 860, the name of each Limmuis enhanced by a brief note recalling the highlight of his year in office. ....

And how do the Limmu lists stand up for the time ofSennacherib? Eric again:

Before we wax so bold as to challenge this perceived snug arrangement, wemust also take on board the received opinion that the history of Assyriabecomes more accurate as we come forward in time. Specifically the near-endkings from Assurbanipal (626/668), through Esarhaddon (669/680) toSennacherib (681/704) are considered rock solid.

Apart from the Limmu lists, much of our information for thesuccession of neo-Assyrian kings, who ruled for periods overBabylon, is provided by the Babylonian Chronicle, anotherfoundation document for Assyro-Babylonian history, and byPtolemy's Canon. But these are late compilations. Of theformer, we have only a copy of an original made in the 22ndyear of Darius I of Persia (conventionally dated to c. 500BC); centuries after the neo-Assyrian times upon which we arefocusing in this article. And Ptolemy came centuries later

still. As with the reconstruction of Egyptian chronology, sowith the Assyro-Babylonian, has too much reliance been placedon late sources of information.The monotonous repetition from Assyrian king to Assyrian kingmay be assuaged in part by revisionist folding, turning twokings into one. If feasibility permits. Anyway, 'fold' isprecisely what we are going to attempt to do here with SargonII and Sennacherib.I had previously suspected, and had written it into articles,that there must have been an overlap of at least 7 years inthe reigns of Sargon II and Sennacherib. This is already afairly radical departure from the conventional opinion whichconsiders co-regencies to be rare - virtually non existent -amongst neo-Assyrian kings. And convention gives absolutely nohint whatsoever of any co-regency for Sargon II andSennacherib in particular, who are dated, respectively, to721-705 BC and 704-681 BC. What had struck me, however, wasthat Sargon's 12th and 15th year campaigns were worded verysimilarly to Sennacherib's first two campaigns.

Sargon: "In my twelfth year of reign,Marduk-apal-iddina [Merodach-baladan] and Shuturnahundu, theElamite ... I ... smote with the sword,and conquered ..."

And:

Sargon: "Talta, king of the Ellipi ...reached the appointed limit of life ...Ispabara [his son] ... fled into ... thefortress of Marubishti, ... that fortressthey overwhelmed as with a net. ...people ... I brought up."

Sennacherib: "In my firstcampaign I accomplished thedefeat of Merodach-baladan ...together with the army of Elam,his ally ....".

And:

Sennacherib: "... I turned andtook the road to the land ofthe Ellipi. ... Ispabara, theirking, ... fled .... The citiesof Marubishti and Akkuddu, ...I destroyed .... Peoples of thelands my hands had conquered Isettled therein".

Added to this was the possibility that ‘they’ had built‘their’ respective 'Palace Without Rival' close in time, because theaccounts of each were worded almost identically. EricAitchison alerted me to the incredible similarity in languagebetween these two accounts:

Sargon: "Palaces of ivory, maple,boxwood, musukkani-wood (mulberry?),cedar, cypress, juniper, pine andpistachio, the "Palace without Rival", formy royal abode .... with great beams ofcedar I roofed them. Door-leaves ofcypress and maple I bound with ...shining bronze and set them up in theirgates. A portico, patterned after a Hittite(Syrian) palace, which in the tongue ofAmurru they call a bit-hilanni, I builtbefore their gates. Eight lions, in pairs,weighing 4610 talents, of shining bronze,fashioned according to the workmanshipof Ninagal, and of dazzling brightness;four cedar columns, exceedingly high,each 1 GAR in thickness ... I placed on topof the lion-colossi, I set them up as poststo support their doors. Mountain-sheep(as) mighty protecting deities, I cunninglyconstructed out of great blocks ofmountain stone, and, setting themtoward the four winds ... I adorned theirentrances. Great slabs of limestone, - the(enemy) towns which my hands hadcaptured I sculptured thereon and I hadthem set up around their (interior) walls; Imade them objects of astonishment".

Sennacherib: "Thereon I hadthem build a palace of ivory,maple, boxwood, mulberry(musukannu), cedar, cypress ...pistachio, the "Palace withouta Rival", for my royal abode. Beams ofceda .... Great door-leaves of cypress,whose odour ... I bound with shiningcopper and set them up in their doors. Aportico, patterned after a Hittite (Syrian)palace, which they call in the Amoritetongue a bit-hilani, I constructed insidethem (the doors) .... Eight lions, open atthe knee, advancing, constructed out of11,400 talents of shining bronze, of theworkmanship of the god Nin-a-gal, andfull of splendour ... two great cedarpillars, (which) I placed upon the lions(colossi), I set up as posts to support theirdoors. Four mountain sheep, asprotecting deities ... of great blocks ofmountain stone ... I fashioned cunningly,and setting them towards the four winds(directions), I adorned their entrances.Great slabs of limestone, the enemytribes, whom my hands had conquered,dragged through them (the doors), and Iset them up around the walls, - I madethem objects of astonishment".

{For a drawn floor plan of the `Palace without Rival' see BAR, Vol.X, Mar/Apr 1984, p. 54}.

Eric himself had concluded in his same article that these musthave been joint projects by Sargon and his co-regent son.

But, as I continued to muse on these things, the thoughtstruck me eventually that it was not just a case of co-regency, but that this was the same person talking. That Sargoncould be, say, the title of a king whose personal name wasSennacherib (Sin-ahhê-eriba, 'the god Sin has compensated (thedeath of) the brothers'. Sharru-kîn, 'true king') and that, as

regards the two 'Palace[s] Without a Rival', it was the same king,with the same architect(s), doing all of this building.To test this new theory of only one king, I tried interweavingall eight of Sennacherib's war campaigns with the regnal yearaccounts of Sargon. The results were far more positive than Icould have hoped for. I found that there emerged a perfectchronological tapestry. I shall retrace this interweaving pattern in Part Two - thecrucial section of this article - after firstly giving alittle bit more background on Sargon and pointing to strengthsand weaknesses in the conventional scheme.

Part One

Sargon was for many centuries a complete mystery as CharlesBoutflower explained (The Book of Isaiah I-XXXIX, London, Soc. forPromoting Christian Knowledge, 1930, p. 110) with reference toIsaiah's verse 20:1: "The year that the Turtan came to Ashdod,when Sargon king of Assyria sent him":

... Our last chapter introduced us to Sargon, the founderof the last and greatest dynasty of Assyria's warriorkings. Of the dynasty which he founded Sargon was theablest monarch: indeed he is regarded by some as thegreatest of all Assyrian kings, though others would beinclined to give the preference to Tiglathpileser. For longages the only mention of this great king was found in theopening verse of Isa. 20, which heads this chapter.Accordingly, the older Biblical commentators were muchpuzzled as to who Sargon could be. Was he Sennacherib? orShalmaneser? or a successor of Shalmaneser and immediatepredecessor of Sennacherib?

The early archaeological efforts of the mid-C19th solved theproblem, so Boutflower thought:

The mystery was at length solved when the first Assyrianpalace, brought to light by the excavations of Botta atKhorsabad in 1842, proved to be the palace of Sargon,erected by him in his new city of Dur-Sargon: and it waspresently seen that the last guess was the right one.

Or was it? And did this perhaps just prove that Sargon was areal person and that the Isaian record was reliable here?Historians are not fools, however, and there are some verystrong indicators that one should adhere to the textbook view,as summed up by Boutflower, that Sargon was "a successor ofShalmaneser and immediate predecessor of Sennacherib". Themost telling evidence of all that I find is the testimony ofSennacherib's son, Esarhaddon, who introduces himself in thefollowing fashion on several occasions: "I am Esarhaddon, kingof the universe, king of Assyria ... son of Sennacherib, kingof Assyria; (grand)son of Sargon, king of the universe, kingof Assyria."Has that statement already killed, stone dead, my theory thatSennacherib is Sargon? Certainly, in light of Esarhaddon'stitulary, I am going to have to fight very hard now to defendthe new view. So seemingly rock-solid has appeared to be thesuccession of Sargon and Sennacherib that I have been veryslow to come around even to questioning it. It is only thataccumulative data has lately prompted me to do this. I amgreatly encouraged though by the findings that will bepresented in Part Two, especially centered upon the siege ofAshdod, all of which prompts me to return again toBoutflower's "who Sargon could be". And to ponder: "Was heSennacherib?" And to answer it with a confident, Yes.Let us take a look firstly at the supposed strengths of theconventional view that Sennacherib was the son and successorof Sargon, with critical comments to follow:

Conventional Theory's Strengths

(i) Primary

I can find only two examples of a primary nature for theconventional view.By far the strongest support for convention in my opinion isEsarhaddon's above-quoted statement from what is called PrismS - and it appears in the same form in several other documentsas well - that he was 'son of Sennacherib and (grand)son ofSargon'.

Prism A in the British Museum is somewhat similar, though muchmore heavily bracketted (D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria andBabylonia, Vol. II NY, Greenwood Press, 1966, # 526.):

"[Esarhaddon, the great king, the mighty king, king of theuniverse, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king] of[Sumer] and Akkad, [son of Sennacherib, the great king, themighty king], king of Assyria, [(grand)son of Sargon, thegreat king, the mighty king], king of Assyria ...."

The first document, Prism S, would be enough to stop me deadin my tracks, were it not for other evidences in support of myproposed merger.The other, quasi-primary evidence is in regard to Sennacherib'saccession. One reads in history books of supposed documentaryevidence telling that Sargon was killed and that Sennacheribsat on the throne. Carl Olaf Jonsson gives it, bracketedagain, as follows ("The Foundations of the Assyro-BabylonianChronology", Chronology and Catastrophism Review, Vol. IX, UK, 1987,p. 21):

For the eponym Nashur(a)-bel (705 BC) one of the EponymChronicles (Cb6) adds the note that the king (= Sargon) waskilled, and that Sennacherib, on Ab 12, took his seat onthe throne.

What one notices in all of the above cases of what I havedeemed to be primary evidence is that bracketting is alwaysinvolved. Prism S, the most formidable testimony, has the word"(grand)son" in brackets. In Prism A, the entire titulary hasbeen square bracketed, which would indicate thatAssyriologists have added what they presume to have been inthe original text, now missing. And, regarding Sennacherib'saccession, Jonsson qualifies the un-named predecessor kingwith the bracketted "(= Sargon)".It was customary for the Assyrian kings to record theirtitulary back through father and grandfather. There are twonotable exceptions in neo-Assyrian history: interestingly,Sargon II and Sennacherib, who record neither father norgrandfather. John Russell's explanation for this omission isas follows (Sennacherib's Palace Without Rival at Nineveh, Uni. of ChicagoPress, 1991, p. 243):

In nearly every other Assyrian royal titulary, the name ofthe king was followed by a brief genealogy of the form `sonof PN1, who was son of PN2,' stressing the legitimacy ofthe king. As H. Tadmor has observed, such a statement neverappears in the titulary of Sennacherib. This omission issurprising since Sennacherib was unquestionably [sic] thelegitimate heir of Sargon II.Tadmor suggests that Sennacherib omitted his father's nameeither because of disapproval of Sargon's policies orbecause of the shameful manner of Sargon's death .... Thismay be, but it is important to note that Sargon alsoomitted the genealogy from his own titulary, presumablybecause, contrary to this name (Šarru-kên: "the king islegitimate"), he was evidently not truly the legitimateruler. Perhaps Sennacherib wished to avoid drawingattention to a flawed genealogy: the only way Sennacheribcould credibly have used the standard genealogicalformulation would have been with a statement such as"Sennacherib, son of Sargon, who was not the son ofShalmaneser", or "who was son of a nobody", and this isclearly worse than nothing at all.

That there was some unusual situation here cannot be doubted.And the bracketing that we find in Esarhaddon's titulary maybe a further reflection of it. By contrast, Esarhaddon's son,Ashurbanipal, required no such bracketing when he declared: "Iam Assurbanipal ... offspring of the loins of Esarhaddon ...;grandson of Sennacherib ..." (Luckenbill, op. cit., #’s 765, 766,767, p. 291). My own explanation of this unorthodox situation takes its leadfrom Russell's phrase above, "... disapproval of[predecessor's] policies." And I suggest it can be accountedfor only if Sennacherib be merged with Sargon II, who, at thevery beginning of his reign had to undo the unpopular policiesof his hated predecessor, Shalmaneser. Thus A. Olmstead (Historyof Assyria, NY, Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1923, pp. 206-7):

A slight laid upon the city of Ashur by Shalmaneser provedhis undoing. Ashur became angry at the sacrilegious wretchwho feared not the lord of all, overthrew his rule in thewrath of his heart, called Sargon to the kingship, lifted

up his head, gave him scepter, throne, and crown. Toestablish his royalty, Sargon granted freedom from tributeto the sacred cities of Ashur and Harran, and every citizenfound his privileges increased as never before. They werefreed from the levy of the whole land for militarypurposes, from the summons of the levy master; like theother temple cities of Assyria, they were freed of alldues. The charter containing the grant of privileges waswritten on a great silver tablet which was set up beforethe image of Ashur.

Clearly Sargon did not want to include in his titulary a king(albeit his father, as I think) who had made himself sounpopular with the masses. And the same comment applies toSennacherib if he and Sargon II are one - and does not theBook of Tobit (1:15) tell us after all that Sennacherib'sfather was named “Shalmaneser”? It is therefore possible thatSennacherib's faithful son, Esarhaddon, had also wanted toavoid mention of the unpopular Shalmaneser, whilst retainingthe traditional form of titulary, and so came up with adeliberately tautologous genealogy, carrying this meaning:'Esarhaddon, Son of Sennacherib. Esarhaddon, Son of Sargon'.

(ii) Secondary

On a secondary level, there are certain factors seemingly infavour of the standard view that Sargon and Sennacherib weretwo separate kings. Thus:

There is, for instance, the obvious name difference.

There is a seeming difference in personality. Sargon isuniversally regarded as being a great king of kings.Sennacherib is sometimes depicted as weak, cowardly andtreacherous; though not all historians are so quick tocondemn him outright (E.g. Boutflower, op. cit., ch. xxiv:Sennacherib. See also G. Roux's qualification, AncientIraq, p. 323).

There is a certain difference in location. Sargon is said tohave concentrated his activities at home initially atCalah (Nimrud), and, most especially, later, inbuilding his new city of Dur-Sharrukin at Khorsabad.

Sennacherib, on the other hand, focussed passionatelyupon Nineveh.

There is a difference in recording. Sargon records hisactivities by regnal years; Sennacherib, by campaignnumber. Sargon's list of officials is detailed.Sennacherib's is not.

I - Regarding names, I have already suggested the personalname and title dichotomy.

II - One cannot say too much about the personality factorbecause, as Russell has concluded, after an exhaustive studyof Sennacherib, "not much is known about Sennacherib the man ..." (op. cit.,p. 241.)

III - The other differences noted above could well be twosides of the one coin. For example, one might ask thequestion, in regard to Russell's statement: "... Nineveh, where thereis little evidence of Sargon's activites": Why would such a mighty king soneglect Assyria's chief city? Conversely, why did Sennacheribtotally avoid the brand new Dur-Sharrukin?

IV - Again, why did Sennacherib not record his regnal years?John Bright muses without much confidence on a possible laterdiscovery "of Sennacherib's official annals for approximately the last decade ofhis reign (if such ever existed)" (A History of Israel, London, SCM PressLtd., 1972, p. 296.) But what I am proposing is that such"official annals" are available, at the Khorsabad site. No need forrepetition at Nineveh. And we shall also discover in Part Twothat, where Sargon goes into detail about a certain campaignor project, Sennacherib tends to be brief, and vice versa.

Conventional Theory's Weaknesses

The conventional arrangement does already have its inherentweaknesses or cracks which certain intrepid revisionists arenow in the process of prising open. Peter James, for instance,has done this in a far-reaching fashion (Centuries of Darkness,London, Jonathan Cape, 1991. Most notably in ch.11, "Riddles ofMesopotamian Archaeology".) And Eric Aitchison has written theaforementioned critique of the over-reliance by Assyriologistson the sacrosanct Limmu lists.

But getting down specifically to the era in question, c. 700BC, there are some very disconcerting types of problems withthe conventional structure. Consider these categories:

Worrying Duplications.

- The ubiquitous king of Babylon, Merodach-baladan, wasalready giving trouble to Assyria in the days of Tiglath-pileser III (c. 744-727 BC). He then becomes a complete thornin Sargon's side for the latter's first 12 years of reign (c.721-710). He then resurfaces at the time of Sennacherib, whodefeats him in his first campaign and then, finally, in hisfourth campaign (c. 704-700). Kings can reign over longperiods of time, but this Merodach-baladan seems greatly tohave overstayed his welcome.

And

- Whilst it is not difficult to believe, for instance, thatSargon might have sent his 'son' on certain campaigns and thenclaimed the credit himself, it may be less easy to believethat Sargon destroyed the Chaldean king Merodach-baladan'scity of Dur-Yakin, and then that Sennacherib did the same onlya few years later. Thus Eric Aitchison: "The city of Dur Iakinis destroyed twice according to the detailed records of Sargonand Sennacherib. Sargon records its destruction in his year 13whilst Sennacherib records it in his campaign one".

Eponym Irregularity.

This factor, in the case of Sargon II/Sennacherib, was pointedout by Professor Newton, as quoted by conventionalistdefender, Carl Olaf Jonsson (op. cit., pp. 20-21):

... the king Sargon II is believed from other evidence tohave reigned only 17 years, but the number of limmu listedfor his reign is 32, according to Mr Couture (privatecommunication); I have not verified this numberindependently. Thus we must allow the possibility thatthere are gaps in the list.

Jonsson then proceeds to take Professor Newton to task forthis conclusion:

Such a conclusion rests upon the erroneous assumption thatthe Eponym Canon indicates that kings regularly held theeponymy in their first regnal year. But an examination ofthe Eponym Chronicle as well as other contemporarydocuments clearly demonstrates that this is not intended bythe Canon. It is certainly true that in the earlier periodsthe kings held the eponymy in their first or second regnalyears, but in later times they deviated from this practice.For example, Shalmaneser V (726-21 BC) held the eponymy inhis fourth regnal year.

.... Shalmaneser's successor, Sargon II, held the eponymyin his third regnal year.

.... But the greatest departure from the earlier 'rule' islisted for Sennacherib, Sargon's successor [sic], who heldthe eponymy in his eighteenth year! ...."

Sennacherib's eponymy in his eighteenth year is certainly ahuge departure from Assyrian tradition. Perhaps easier tobelieve that, in the context of this paper, this wasSennacherib's second eponymy; his first being in (Sargon's)Year 3.

Clear Statements Contravened.

There is the problem that Sennacherib, with reference to histhird campaign in the west, mentions that he had already beenreceiving tribute from king Hezekiah of Judah prior to that.Yet Sennacherib's two previous campaigns (first and second)were nowhere near Judah in the west; but were waged in theeast (Sennacherib's First Campaign was directed against Merodach-baladan in Babylonia; whilst his Second Campaign was against theKassites also in the east). So one wonders when had the kingof Assyria managed initially to enforce his supremacy overHezekiah?Similarly, Sennacherib claims to have employed Manneans asslave labourers, even though he is thought never to havecampaigned against this people. Russell queries thispeculiarity (op. cit., p. 227.)

Sennacherib says, ‘The people of Chaldea, the Aramaeans,the Manneans ... who had not submitted to the yoke, Iremoved from hither, and made them carry the basket andmold bricks.’ Where did Sennacherib find these workers? Hisfirst and only campaign at this point had been directedagainst the south. There he encountered Chaldeans andAramaeans .... he does not, however, mention Manneans ...among the enemy .... he apparently never campaigned inMannea at all. ... the best way [sic] to account for thecaptives from Mannea ... this early in Sennacherib's reignis to assume that they were left over from the reign ofSargon II, who did campaign in these areas.

Destroys Integrity of Israel's Writings

2 Kings

The chronology of 2 Kings absolutely forbids adequate spacefor the reign of Sargon as an entity separate fromSennacherib. I know that it is no longer popular to regard theHebrew Scriptures as any sort of reasonable historical guide.In fact, according to the University of Bremen's ProfessorGunnar Heinsohn, much of Israel's past is currently beingwritten out of history ("The Restoration of Ancient History", (www.specialtyinterests.net/heinsohn.html):

Mainstream scholars are in the process of deleting AncientIsrael from the history books. The entire period fromAbraham the Patriarch in the -21st century (fundamentalistdate) to the flowering of the Divided Kingdom in the -9thcentury (fundamentalist date) is found missing in thearchaeological record. ....

In a similar vein a Jewish speaker lecturing at the Universityof Sydney on the subject of Chronicles I and II, denied realhistorical relevance to these books whose composition (as withI and II Kings) scholars date to around the C6th BC. Despitethis current mood in academic thinking, though, let us notforget that: "... for long ages the only mention of this greatking [Sargon] was found in the opening verse of Isa. xx."Moreoever, there is some heavily interlocking chronology in 2Kings for the incident of the Fall of Samaria. This, Isuggest, should not be lightly dismissed. Sargon II claims

that this event occurred (i.e. he caused it) in his first year(Luckenbill, #4.): "[At the beginning of my rule, in my firstyear of reign ... Samerinai (the people of Samaria) ... 27,290people, who lived therein, I carried away ...]".2 Kings 18:10 fills us in with even more detail, telling usthat "in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of king Hoshea ofIsrael, Samaria was taken".This last is considered to be the same incident as that towhich Sargon II refers in connection with his "first year", inwhich case we have a four-way cross-reference: namely

(a) fall of Samaria;(b) first year of Sargon;(c) sixth year of Hezekiah;(d) ninth year of Hoshea.

We can even confidently add to this list the first year ofMerodach-baladan in Babylonia, according to Sargon's testimony(ibid., # 31): "In my twelfth year of reign, (Merodach-baladan) .... For 12 years,against the will (heart) of the gods, he held sway over Babylon ...".From the above it is apparent that Sargon II was in the westin his very first year of reign. In his second year heventured even southwards of Gaza, to defeat an Egyptian armyat Raphia. It is at this early stage of his kingship that theAssyrian king would have been able to collect his firsttribute from the kingdom of Judah; more specifically, fromHezekiah himself, already in his sixth year. This is a furtherevidence in support of my reconstruction, validatingSennacherib's boast that he had already, by his thirdcampaign, been receiving tribute from Jerusalem.The conventional system, on the other hand, now runs into thefollowing alarming mathematical problem when faced with thescriptural data:

A mere eight years later than this crucial sixth year of kingHezekiah, in that same king's fourteenth year - whichmathematically should be only about the ninth year of Sargon -Sennacherib is found to be the king of Assyria. Thus we readonly 3 verses later, in verse 13:

"In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came upagainst all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them".

Sargon, it appears, has disappeared from the Assyrian scene ata point about mid-way through his presumed 17-year reign! Thatis a real problem for the textbook writers who, meanwhile,entirely ignore the four-way correlation (a-d above) - whichtheir fixed chronological scheme cannot possibly accommodate.They instead make Hezekiah a late contemporary of Sargon's,dating the Judaean king to c. 716-687 BC. This means thatHezekiah would have begun to reign about a decade later thanwhere 2 Kings locates him (18:1ff; 20:21); way too late forhim to have been king of Judah during the Fall of Samaria asthe Bible says he was. Aitchison tells how the Assyriancomputation mesmerised even biblicist, Edwin Thiele:

Clearly there is a great deal of scholarly acceptance tothe resulting Near Eastern chronological structure andEdwin Thiele could but bow the knee to Convention. This isa particularly interesting concession for ... at page 2 ofhis introduction, he offers the revelation that, left toits own devices, the Biblical chronology would argue forthe deportation of Samaria by the Assyrian juggernaut ofthe day in 711. Throughout his Chapters 6, 8 and 9, Thielecounters this "free fall" offering by the force fit ofHebrew chronology into the Assyrian mould.

[Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, p. 17: “Tomy surprise and dismay the fourteenth year of Hezekiahon this pattern turned out to be 702 instead of 701, asshould have been the case by a comparison with Assyrianchronology. The last year of Hoshea and the fall ofSamaria was 711”]

Isaiah

The Isaian verse (20:1): "The year that the Turtan came toAshdod, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him", might at firstseem to upset my Sargon II/Sennacherib merger, consideringthat the same Book of Isaiah later refers to Sennacherib byname (36:1). But wait, aren't these the exact same words thatwe just read above in 2 Kings? This verse has presumably beenlifted straight out of the narrative of 2 Kings and slotted

into Isaiah, which reads in part like an appendix to thehistorical books. Now it is interesting that nowhere in Kings and Chronicles,nor in any other of the books traditionally called'historical', do we encounter the name Sargon. Yet we wouldexpect mention of him if his armies really had made anincursion as close to Jerusalem as Ashdod. In respect of this, in Part Two, I shall show that there is avital connection between Sargon's Turtan's coming to Ashdod, andSennacherib's coming to Judah.Sargon! Sennacherib! It is not unknown for a particular king to begiven different names in the one book of Scripture. In fact wehave actually two different names for a neo-Assyrian king inthe space of 10 verses in 2 Kings.

In 15:19 we read: "King Pul of Assyria came againstthe land ...". And in 15:29 that king is called "King Tiglath-pileserof Assyria".

No historian doubts that the same king is meant in bothcases.

Pseudepigrapha

The books of Judith and Tobit also, in my opinion, play havocwith the conventional chronology for the era of SargonII/Sennacherib.

(i) Judith

The composition of Judith is currently dated to c. 150 BC,because the incident is thought to have happened in theMaccabean period. It cannot properly be accommodated there,though. The only incident to which the climax of the Judithdrama could possibly be referring, if historical, is thedefeat of Sennacherib's army of 185,000. Yet the Assyrianking, "Nebuchadnezzar", to whom we are first introduced in Judith1, seems to square perfectly with Sargon II inasmuch as hedefeats a Chaldean king in his Year 12. So: Was the Book of Judith's Assyrian king, Sargon or Sennacherib?The question becomes irrelevant if it is all one and the sameking.

(ii) Tobit

The incidents described in the Book of Tobit - whosecomposition is currently late dated to about 200 BC - arewritten down as having occurred during the successive reignsof C8th-7th kings "Shalmaneser", "Sennacherib" and "Esarhaddon". Thereis no mention at all in Tobit of a Sargon, not even as fatherof Sennacherib. Instead, we read: "But when Shalmaneser died, and hisson Sennacherib reigned in his place ..." (Tobit 1:15). Moreover thisShalmaneser, given as father of Sennacherib, is also referredto as the one who had taken Tobit's tribe of Naphtali intocaptivity (Tobit 1:1-2); a deed considered by historians tohave been accomplished by Tiglath-pileser III, significantlybefore the reign of Sargon II.

Another discrepancy. Conventional wisdom has Sennacherib reigningon a further 20 years (approximately) after the débâcle inJudaea. But that is by no means the impression that one gainsfrom Tobit 1, which seems to point to Sennacherib'sassassination at the hands of his two sons as having occurrednot very long after his army's defeat by the Jews:

15 On the death of Shalmaneser his son Sennacherib succeeded; the roadsinto Media were barred, and I could no longer go there.16 In the days of Shalmaneser I had often given alms to the people ofmy race;17 I gave my bread to the hungry and clothes to those who lacked them;and I buried, when I saw them, the bodies of my country-folk thrownover the walls of Nineveh.18 I also buried those who were killed by Sennacherib. When Sennacheribwas beating a disorderly retreat from Judaea after the King of heavenhad punished his blasphemies, he killed a great number of Israelitesin his rage. So I stole their bodies to bury them; Sennacherib lookedfor them and could not find them.19 A Ninevite went and told the king it was I who had buried themsecretly. When I knew that the king had been told about me and sawmyself being hunted by men who would put me to death, I was afraid andfled.20 All my goods were seized; they were all confiscated by the treasury;nothing was left me but my wife Anna and my son Tobias.21 Less than forty days after this, the king was murdered by his twosons, who then fled to the mountains of Ararat. His son Esarhaddonsucceeded.

A Concluding Note to Part I

New foundations are needed, for indeed "we wax so bold as to challengethis perceived snug arrangement" (Eric’s words) of conventionalAssyro-Babylonian history. To establish the era of Hezekiah onfirm foundations one ought to take more seriously than Thieleand company that four-fold synchronism cross-checking

(i) HEZEKIAH and(ii) his northern contemporary, HOSHEA, with(iii) the FALL OF SAMARIA at the hands of(iv) SARGON.

We have seen, and shall see even more clearly in PART TWO,that identifying Sargon II with Sennacherib solves a host ofchronological and interpretative problems.

Part Two:The Merger

Psycho-historians may be right in their belief that the humanmind can vastly transform its environment - that even, in abroad sense, it can cause duplications in history over periodsof time. However, I do not think that the precise duplicationsthat are the subject of this article - the detailed eventscommon to the Annals of Sargon and Sennacherib - can be putdown simply to mind games. I am hopeful that even psycho-historians might consider the match-up below between Sargon IIand Sennacherib to be too interlocking to be a product of theduplication of two distinct eras. I intend to show that the eight campaigns of Sennacherib canbe matched, in perfect chronological order, with year eventsduring the reign of Sargon II. My conclusion will be that weare dealing here with one and the same king, one and the samereign, and the same campaigns. In this way I hope to expandthe reign of he who I consider to be the one Assyrian king whoreigned as a younger contemporary of king Hezekiah during thelatter's most climactic years.The accounts of Sargon II's regnal years will be taken mainlyfrom his Annals as recorded on the walls of his palace atKhorsabad. The eight campaigns of Sennacherib will be takenfrom the famous Taylor Prism (I shall be drawing from

Luckenbill, op. cit., #'s 4-47 for Sargon II and #'s 234-252 forSennacherib). Sargon II lists his Annals according to his regnal years, fromYear 1 as far as his Year 15. Sennacherib does not connect hiscampaigns to his regnal years. Some think that Sennacherib'seight listed campaigns were the ones personally conducted bythe king; for Sennacherib is can be thought to have beensomewhat cowardly, with "most of his wars fought by his generals" (thusRoux, op. cit., p. 323). Whether or not this last is a trueassessment of the man, I do think that the view about hispersonal involvement in his listed campaigns is a correctinterpretation.

Sennacherib's First Campaign Corresponds to Sargon's Year 1Historians seem unsure whether it was Shalmaneser V or SargonII who actually captured Samaria in 722 BC (conventional). SeeBoutflower's useful explanation given below.

Sargon Year 1Sargon, as we have alreadyseen, tells us plainly that hecaptured Samaria at thebeginning of his rule in thefirst year of his reign. Heappears to have been co-regentwith Shalmaneser at thispoint.Also in this year Sargon wentagainst Merodach-baladan, nowruler of Babylon, whose reignbegan at the same time asSargon's.

He also tells that, duringthis year: "On the Tu'munutribe I imposed Assur's yoke".

Sennacherib's First CampaignThere is some goodcorrespondence here.Sennacherib also encounteredMerodach-baladan at thebeginning of his campaigning.He tells it in much moredetail than does Sargon:"In my first campaign Iaccomplished the defeat ofMerodach-baladan, king ofBabylonia, together with thearmy of Elam, his ally, in theplain of Kish ....". Afterdescribing his subsequententry into Babylon,Sennacherib also mentions - asdoes Sargon - that he broughtthe Tu'munu tribe to heel: "Onmy return (march), the Tu'muna... not submissive ... Iconquered.

It was no doubt with the spoils and slaves gained from thesevictories that Sennacherib was able to commence building his"Palace Without Rival" at Nineveh. This project, we can nowappreciate in the context of this article, was the prototype,since the foundations for the new city at Khorsabad were notlaid until about a decade later.Sargon II's armies were in the west again in his Year 2 (whichdoes not appear to correspond to any of Sennacherib'scampaigns), when he defeated Hanno of Gaza and routed anEgyptian force at Raphia. No doubt, Hezekiah was alreadypaying tribute to Assyria.

Sennacherib's Second Campaign Corresponds to Sargon's Year 8Sargon was obviously immensely proud of this campaign which isone of the most detailed accounts in ancient records.It is noticeable, generally speaking, that wherever Sargonrecords at great length, Sennacherib's corresponding accountis brief. And vice versa. It is certainly true here.

Sargon Year 8It was Sennacherib's secondcampaign that I had originallythought corresponded soclosely to Sargon's 15th yearcampaign.Now I can revise this becauseSargon, in his 15th year, saysthat he had previously, "inthe course of my formercampaign", subdued Taltâ ofEllipi. Sennacherib's secondcampaign can be seen as therecord of this "formercampaign" which is lacking inSargon's Annals. It probablyoccurred in Sargon's Year 8."In my eighth year of reign Iwent against the lands ofthe ... Medes .... I carriedoff their spoil".

Sennacherib's First CampaignHistorians wonder whySennacherib had so littlecontact with the Medes whoposed such a problem for otherAssyrian kings.Sennacherib's brief mention ofthe Medes at the end of hissecond campaign is consideredby historians to beinsignificant - mere giftreceiving.

But perhaps we should listento Sennacherib more closely,for he claims that he"received the heavy tribute ofthe distant Medes."

Whilst Sennacherib's statement, taken on its own, might appearto be bravado on his part, it becomes worthy of seriousattention in the context of this revision.

Deioces the Mede

We need to pause here for a moment on the subject of theMedes, because a study of their famous king Deioces, in relationto the neo-Assyrian kings who were contemporaries of Hezekiah,would tend to support my argument that this period stands inneed of a time reduction. Sargon, in his Annals for c. 715 BC,refers to Deioces ( , Daiukku) as ruler ofMannai (the Minni of the Bible). As we saw above the Mannaeanswere allies of the Medes. Most scholars consider this king tobe the same as the Deioces of the Greek sources, the founder ofthe Median empire. Daiukku followed Aza and Ullusuv as rulerof Mannai. But he had a very short reign as Sargon II deposedhim from the throne after only a year in power and exiled himto the west (Luckerman, M., "Problems of Early AnatolianHistory (Part 1)", Vol. 1, pt. 1 Catastrophism and Ancient History,August 1978, p. 17). On the other hand, Herodotus makesDeioces an approximate contemporary of Gyges, who made atreaty with Ashurbanipal, thought to be Sargon II's great-grandson. Herodotus wrote that Alyattes, the son of Sadyattes,the son of Ardys, the son of Gyges, made war with Cyaxares,the son of Phraortes, the son of Deioces (The Histories, PenguinClassics, 1972, Book One, cf. pp. 46-47 and 81). Luckerman, not surprisingly, has some problem with thechronology of this (op. cit., p. 18): "If this be the case, thenDeioces would be a contemporary of the early part of Ardys'reign or the late part of Gyges' reign. However, if we recallthat in 660 BC Gyges made a treaty with Ashurbanipal, it wouldseem strange to find Deioces, who was transported by Sargon in715 BC to Hamath, to be still found at the time ofAshurbanipal”.A span of 55 years (715-660 BC) for Deioces, though humanlypossible, is rather unlikely. Thus Luckerman, in order tomaintain the traditional identification between Deioces andDaiukku, feels it necessary to stretch the matter a bit:

It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Daiukku, ifhe is correctly identified with Deioces, was only a child

ruler when first overthrown by Sargon of Assyria. Later,while the successors of Sargon expended Assyria's power indebilitating warfare, Daiukku/Deioces was able to takeadvantage of the situation to found a Median dynasty.

And such a stretching is indeed necessary if one maintains theconventional succession of Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddonand Ashurbanipal. According to the model being proposed hereon the other hand, with Sargon II identified as Sennacherib,then the conventional 55 years for Deioces is reduced byalmost 20 years. In that case Luckerman's "child ruler" theory forDeioces need no longer be proposed.

Sennacherib's Third Campaign Corresponds to Sargon's Year 9(to Year 11)

Sargon's Year 9 (-Year 11)This year, according to what was determined in Part One,should coincide mathematically with the fourteenth year ofking Hezekiah. Thus it should tell us of an Assyrian incursioninto southern Palestine. It does not - at least not at firstglance! Sargon II's armies, in Year 9 of the Annals, are stillfighting the Medes and the Persian rebels in the east. But adeeper probing into Sargon's records - which we are going tohave to do now in some detail with the assistance ofBoutflower - will confirm an Assyrian invasion of the west. Weshall find that his Year 9 was in fact the very year thatSargon sent his Turtan to Ashdod, as recorded in Isaiah 20:1.Sargon was intending soon to follow up the conquest by hisTurtan.Both Sargon and the Bible telescope what was actually alengthy campaign, waged in various stages. The Assyrian king,as we shall see, by no means followed his Turtan immediatelyto the west.Now, when Sargon refers to Ashdod, we need to be clear as towhich location he had in mind, for he also refers in the sameaccount to an 'Ashdod-by the Sea'. Thus we read:

"Ashdod, Gimtu [Gath?], Ashdudimmu [Ashdod-by-the-Sea], I besieged andcaptured". (Pritchard, `Assyrian and Babylonian Historical Texts', p. 197).

It is the 'Ashdod by the Sea' that I am going to propose -contrary to the usual view - is the well-known Ashdod of the

Philistine plain; whilst the "Ashdod" mentioned first by SargonI am going to identify as the mighty stronghold of Lachish(S.W. of Jerusalem). These three cities of Lachish, Gath andAshdod, taken together, form a cuneiform shaped wedge offormidable forts in the Shephelah. Assyria had to take them asthey were a dangerous base for an aggressive Egypt.The fortress of Lachish was the focal point of Sennacherib'sinitial thrust. To no city in the plain would the descriptionof Ashdod, that is, a very strong place - {Ashdod, from theroot shádad, "to be strong", signifies "a stronghold"} - applymore aptly than Lachish. "What a surprise, then", writesRussell, regarding the surrender of Lachish, the high point ofSennacherib's western campaign, "to turn to the annalisticaccount of that same campaign - inscribed on the bulls at thethrone-room entrance - and discover that Lachish is notmentioned at all" (op. cit., pp. 253-4. Emphasis added) But, I answer, had not Sargon II already covered it adequatelyin his Ashdod account?Now, let us listen to Boutflower in his reconstruction of thissomewhat complex campaign. Referring to the fragment Sm. 2022of Sargon's Annals, which he calls "one particularly preciousmorsel", Boutflower draws this crucial substance from it (op.cit., pp. 110ff):

The longer face [of this fragment], with which we areconcerned, is about 1½ inches in height, and has a dividingline drawn across it near the bottom. Immediately belowthis line, and somewhat to the left, there can be seen withthe help of a magnifying-glass a group of nine cuneiformindentations arranged in three parallel horizontal rows.Even the uninitiated will easily understand that we havehere a representation of the number "9". It is this figure,then, which gives to the fragment its special interest, forit tells us, as I am about to show, "the year that theTartan came unto Ashdod.

After further probing analysis, Boutflower concludes that thefragment in question "is one year later than the reckoningadopted in the Annals".

In other words, the Annals make Sargon's reign to commencein the year 722 BC, styled the rish sharutti or "beginning

of the reign", 721 being regarded as the first year of thereign; whereas our cylinder, which after Winckler we willcall Cylinder B, regards 721 as the "beginning of thereign", and 720 as the first year of the reign. From thisconclusion we obtain the following remarkable result.The capture of Samaria is assigned by the Annals to the"beginning of the reign" of Sargon, i.e. to the last threemonths of the year 722, and it is recorded as the firstevent of the reign. But according to this new reckoning oftime on Cylinder B that event would not be included in thereign of Sargon at all, but would be looked upon as fallingin the reign of his predecessor Shalmaneser V.

Boutflower now moves on to the focal point of Assyria'sconcerns: the city of Ashdod. Here we shall need to follow hiscrucial argument at some considerable length (pp. 113, 114)::

The second difficulty in Sm. 2022 is connected with themention of Ashdod in the part below the dividing line.According to the reckoning of time adopted on this fragmentsomething must have happened at Ashdod at the beginning ofSargon's ninth year, i.e. at the beginning of the tenthyear, the year 712 BC, according to the better-knownreckoning of the Annals. Now, when we turn to the Annalsand examine the record of this tenth year, we find nomention whatever of Ashdod. Not till we come to the secondand closing portion of the record for the eleventh year dowe meet with the account of the famous campaign againstthat city.

What, then, is the solution to this second difficultyBoutflower asks?

Simply this: that the mention of Ashdod on the fragment Sm.2022 does not refer to the siege of that town, which, asjust stated, forms the second and closing event in therecord of the following year, but in all probability doesrefer to the first of those political events which led upto the siege, viz. the coming of the Tartan to Ashdod. Tomake this plain, I will now give the different accounts ofthe Ashdod imbroglio found in the inscriptions of Sargon,

beginning with the one in the Annals (lines 215-228)already referred to, which runs thus:

"Azuri king of Ashdod, not to bring tribute his heartwas set, and to the kings in his neighbourhoodproposals of rebellion against Assyria he sent. Becauseof the evil he did, over the men of his land I changedhis lordship. Akhimiti his own brother, to sovereigntyover them I appointed. The Khatte [Hittites], plottingrebellion, hated his lordship; and Yatna, who had notitle to the throne, who, like themselves, thereverence due to my lordship did not acknowledge, theyset up over them. In the wrath of my heart, riding inmy war-chariot, with my cavalry, who do not retreatfrom the place whither I turn my hands, to Ashdod, hisroyal city, I marched in haste. Ashdod, Gimtu [Gath?],Ashdudimmu [Ashdod-by-the-Sea], I besieged andcaptured. The gods dwelling therein, himself togetherwith the people of his land, gold, silver, thetreasures of his palace, I counted for spoil. Thosetowns I built anew. People of the countries conqueredby my hands I settled therein. My officers as governorsover them I set, and with the people of Assyria Inumbered them, and they bore my yoke.

Typical Assyrian war records! Boutflower now shows that the Assyrian extracts connect Year 9and Year 11:

The above extract forms, as already stated, the second andclosing portion of the record given in the Annals underSargon's 11th year, 711 BC., the earlier portion of therecord for that year being occupied with the account of theexpedition against Mutallu of Gurgum. …. In the GrandInscription of Khorsabad we meet with a very similaraccount, containing a few fresh particulars. The usurperYatna, i.e. "the Cypriot", is there styled Yamani, "theIonian", thus showing that he was a Greek. We are also toldthat he fled away to Melukhkha on the border of Egypt, butwas thrown into chains by the Ethiopian king and despatchedto Assyria. ....

In order to effect the deposition of the rebellious Azuri, andset his brother Akhimiti on the throne, Sargon sent forth anarmed force to Ashdod:

It is in all probability the despatch of such a force, andthe successful achievement of the end in view, which wererecorded in the fragment Sm. 2022 below the dividing line.As Isa 20:1 informs us - and the statement, as we shallpresently see, can be verified from contemporary sources -this first expedition was led by the Tartan. Possibly thismay be the reason why it was not thought worthy to berecorded in the Annals under Sargon's tenth year, 712 BC.But when we come to the eleventh year, 711 BC, and theannalist very properly and suitably records the wholeseries of events leading up to the siege, two things atonce strike us:

1. first, that all these events could not possibly havehappened in the single year 711 BC; and

2. secondly, as stated above, that a force must havepreviously been despatched at the beginning of thetroubles to accomplish the deposition of Azuri and theplacing of Akhimiti on the throne.

On the retirement of this force sedition must again havebroken out in Ashdod, for it appears that the anti-Assyrianparty were able, after a longer or shorter interval, oncemore to get the upper hand, to expel Akhimiti, and to setup in his stead a Greek adventurer, Yatna-Yamani. The townwas then strongly fortified, and surrounded by a moat. Thiscould easily be done, owing to the abundance of water fromthe hills of Judah, which finds its way to the sea underthe plains of Philistia, a little below the surface of theground. These are the "underground waters" of which Sargonspeaks.

It is at about this stage, Year 11, that Sargon was stirred toaction:

Meanwhile, the news of what was going on at Ashdod appearsto have reached the Great King at the beginning of hiseleventh year, according to the reckoning of theannalist .... So enraged was Sargon that, without waiting

to collect a large force, he started off at once with apicked body of cavalry, crossed those rivers in flood, andmarched with all speed to the disaffected province.Such at least is his own account; but I shall presentlyadduce reasons which lead one to think that he did notreach Ashdod as speedily as we might expect from thedescription of his march, but stopped on his way to putdown a revolt in the country of Gurgum. In thus hasteningto the West Sargon tells us that he was urged on byintelligence that the whole of Southern Syria, includingJudah, Edom, and Moab, as well as Philistia, was ripe forrevolt, relying on ample promises of support from Pharaohking of Egypt.

A ringleader in all this sedition was king Hezekiah of Judah,so we find as we switch momentarily to Sennacherib'scorresponding Third Campaign account to learn how Assyria dealtwith the Egyptian factor:

The officials, nobles and people of Ekron, who had thrownPadi, their king, bound by (treaty to) Assyria, intofetters of iron and had given him over to Hezekiah, the Jew(Iaudai), - he kept him in confinement like an enemy, -they (lit., their heart) became afraid and called upon theEgyptian kings, the bowmen, chariots and horse of the kingof Meluh-ha (Ethiopia), a countless host, and these came totheir aid. In the neighbourhood of the city of Altakû(Eltekeh), their ranks being drawn up before me, theyoffered battle. (Trusting) in the aid of Assur, my lord, Ifought with them and brought about their defeat. TheEgyptian charioteers and princes, together with thecharioteers of the Ethiopian king, my hands took alive inthe midst of the battle. ....

Boutflower now explains why he believes that the firstexpedition against Ashdod was led, not by Sargon in person,but by his Turtan. Sargon in that his tenth year, he says,refers to himself as being "in the land"; the phrase used in thechrononogical lists to denote that the king stayed at home insuch and such a year, and did not lead his troops in person.Sargon was at the time quite occupied with the building of hisnew city of Dur Sharrukin:

The kings of Assyria, in the language they use in theirinscriptions, seem to have been guided by the motto,"quod facit per alium facit per se", and indicationsare not wanting that such was the case in the presentinstance, seeing that the record for the Annals forthis tenth year of Sargon is unique. The earlierportion, as in the previous years, is devoted to theking's warlike doings; but in line 196 an entirelyfresh subject is introduced with the words, "At thattime the treasures of the mountains of Khatte [i.e.Syria]" .... The king is telling us how he amassedtreasures of various kinds from the conqueredcountries, and he ends the recital with the words,"countless treasure, which my fathers had not received,within Dur-Sargon my town I heaped up." He is thus seento be busy over his darling scheme, the decoration ofthe new palace at Dur-Sargon, which is here mentionedfor the first time. It was with this object in viewthat Sargon remained "in the land" , i.e. at home,during the year 712, entrusting the first expedition toAshdod to his Tartan, as stated in Isaiah 20:1.

Sennacherib Storms Lachish and the Other Forts of Judah

There may be no annalistic account specifically of the siegeof Lachish, but there is abundant pictographic detail of it inSennacherib's Palace Without Rival at Nineveh. Sennacherib used thearea as his base whilst in Judaea. Lachish was a much-prizedtarget. "Recent excavations at Lachish", Russell tells us, "show thatSennacherib concentrated immense resources and expended tremendous energy inits capture." (op. cit., p. 256). But the formidable Assyrian armytook more than Lachish, which - according to the prophet Micah- was only "the beginning of sin to daughter Zion" (Micah1:13), referring specifically to Judah's reliance on Egypt.For "... disaster has come down from the Lord to the gate ofJerusalem" (Micah 1:12). Sennacherib is more circumstantial(James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the OldTestament, Princeton, 1969, p. 288.):

I laid waste the large district of Judah and made theoverbearing and proud Hezekiah, its king, bow insubmission. As for Hezekiah of Judah, who did not submit to

my yoke, 46 of his strong walled cities, as well as thesmall cities in their neighbourhood, which were withoutnumber - by levelling with battering-rams and advancing thesiege engines, by attacking and storming on foot, by mines,tunnels, and breaches, I besieged and captured. 200,150people, great and small, male and female, horses, mules,asses, camels, cattle and sheep without number, I broughtaway from them and counted as spoil.

Isaiah's Pantomime

Our merging of Sargon II's and Sennacherib's activities inPalestine enables for an explanation of a strange pantomimeperformed by Isaiah himself, imitating what will happen to theEgypto-Ethiopian allies upon whom Judah was then so dependent(Isaiah 20:1-5):

In the year that the Turtan, who was sent by king Sargon ofAssyria, came to Ashdod and fought against it and took it -at that time the Lord had spoken to Isaiah son of Amoz,saying, 'Go, and loose the sacklcloth from your loins, andtake your sandals off your feet', and he had done so ...Then the Lord said, 'Just as my servant Isaiah has walkednaked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portentagainst Egypt and Ethiopia, so shall the king of Assyrialead away the Egyptians as captives and the Ethiopians asexiles ... naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, tothe shame of Egypt. And they shall be dismayed andconfounded because of Ethiopia their hope and of Egypttheir boast.

This time-span of "three years", Jewish reckoning, is to be datedfrom the coming of the Turtan to Ashdod (as Isaiah makes clear)until Sennacherib's defeat of the Egypto-Ethiopian forces atEltekeh in his Third Campaign (Sargon's Year 9-11). Thus wereperfectly fulfilled the words of Isaiah. The Egyptians andEthiopians on whom the Palestinians were depending for supportwere taken off into captivity, barefoot and naked. As we lookat the Assyrian representation on the Gates of Balâwat ofcaptives being led away after this fashion, the Isaianicoracle seems to live before our eyes.

Boutflower's linking now of Sargon's Ashdod campaign with hisinvasion of Syria would square with Sennacherib's account ofhis Syro-Hittite assault before coming to Judaea:

.... it is not a little remarkable that in [Sargon's]Annals, which are strictly chronological, this [Ashdod]campaign is recorded, not as the first, but as the secondand closing event of the year, being preceded by thecampaign against Gurgum. How is this apparent discrepancyto be reconciled? A glance at the map will show us the wayout of the difficulty. The country of Gurgum lies a littleto the north-west of Carchemish, and therefore onlyslightly off the track of an army advancing to the West. Itwould, then, be a likely move, so one thinks, for theAssyrian king to set matters right in Gurgum, and put downthe rebellion which had broken out there, before advancingsouth to Ashdod. ....

Further in confirmation of this, he writes:

Now there are not wanting other indications that this wasthe course actually pursued by the Assyrian king. On theGrand Inscription of Khorsabad, lines 85,86, the march toGurgum is described thus: "In the rage of my heart, ridingin my war-chariot, with my cavalry, who do not retreat fromthe place whither I turn my hands. To Marqasa" - thecapital of Gurgum, represented by the modern Marash - "Imarched in haste." Here it will be observed that thelanguage used, except in one single instance, is word forword identical with that in which the king describes hishasty march to Ashdod in line 220 of the Annals givenabove.

Boutflower finds the whole account here highly dramatic andpersonal, leaving "no doubt upon the mind that both expeditions wereundertaken by the king in person". His reconstruction of events, inlight of Isaiah, enables for an estimation of the duration ofthe the siege of Ashdod (Lachish):

We are now in a position to discuss the three years whichwere to elapse between the giving of the sign and itsfulfilment .... The sign was enacted and the prophecy

uttered probably at the time of the Tartan's visit orshortly after, i.e, about midsummer 712 BC. Ashdod fell, asI imagine, some eighteen months later, in the winter of thefollowing year. How can this interval be spoken of as threeyears? The answer lies, first, in the Jewish mode ofreckoning time, according to which parts of years arespoken of as whole years; and secondly, in the arrangementof the Jewish civil and economic year. .... This economicor agrarian year commences on the first day of the monthTisri (September-October), which is still called in theJewish calendar Rosh Hashanah "the Beginning of the Year".On the supposition, then, that this civil year is the onereferred to in this prophecy, it is plain that the intervalwhich separated the giving of the sign and the prophecywhich accompanied it from its fulfilment in the fall ofAshdod would, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, bejustly described as three years, seeing that it embracesone civil year - viz. from Tisri 712 BC to Tisri 711 BC -and parts of two others; for my contention, as statedabove, is that the Tartan came to Ashdod before Tisri 712and that Sargon captured the city after Tisri 711.

Sennacherib Exacts Tribute from Jerusalem

Naturally the Assyrian army also placed Jerusalem under siegeas it went about diminishing Hezekiah's kingdom (See alsoWilliam Shea, ‘Jerusalem Under Siege’ in BAR, Vol. 25, Nov/Dec1999, p. 36-44):

[Hezekiah], like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem, hisroyal city. Earthworks I threw up against him, - the onecoming out of his city gate I turned back to his misery.The cities of his, which I had despoiled, I cut off fromhis land and to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king ofEkron, and Silli-bêl, king of Gaza, I gave them. And (thus)I diminished his land. I added to the former tribute, andlaid upon him (v., them) as their yearly payment, a tax (inthe form of) gifts for my majesty.

As for Hezekiah, the terrifying splendor of my majestyovercame him, and the Urbi (Arabs) and his mercenary (?)troops which he had brought in to strengthen Jerusalem, hisroyal city, deserted him .... In addition to 30 talents of

gold and 800 talents of silver, (there were) gems,antimony, jewels (?), large sandu-stones, couches of ivory,house chairs of ivory, elephant's hide, ivory (lit.,elephant's "teeth"), maple (?), boxwood, all kinds ofvaluable (heavy) treasures, as well as his daughters, hisharem, his male and female musicians, (which) he had (them)bring after me to Nineveh, my royal city. To pay tributeand to accept ... servitude he dispatched his messengers.

The Bible tells a similar sad tale and concurs that Hezekiahpaid 30 talents of gold, after Sennacherib had taken all ofhis strong cities (2 Kings 18:14-16):

King Hezekiah of Judah sent to the king of Assyria atLachish, saying, 'I have done wrong; withdraw from me:whatever you impose on me I will bear'. The king of Assyriademanded of king Hezekiah of Judah three hundred talents ofsilver and thirty talents of gold. Hezekiah gave him allthe silver that was found in the House of the Lord and inthe treasuries of the king's house ... [he] stripped thegold from the doors of the Temple of the Lord, and from thedoorposts that king Hezekiah of Judah had overlaid and gaveit to the king of Assyria.

That ends our account of Assyria's crucial western campaign. Wenow return again to the east, where our Assyrian king has totackle for the second time the wily king Merodach-baladan.Sargon II goes into great detail over this his Year 12campaign, culminating with his own triumphal entry intoBabylon. Sennacherib predictably gives a much shorter accountof the campaign. He, too, refers to Elam as an ally of theChaldean, and he also implies that he took control of Babylon,adding the detail that there he set his son upon the royalthrone.

Sargon's Year 12 Corresponds to Sennacherib's Fourth Campaign

Year 12In my twelfth year of reign, (Merodach-baladan), ... violated the oath and curse(invoked in the name of) the great gods,and withheld his tribute. ....

Fourth CampaignIn my fourth campaign .... Merodach-baladan, whose defeat I had broughtabout in the course of my firstcampaign, and whose forces I had

Humbanigash, the Elamite, came to hisaid. ....The might of Assur ... and Marduk,which I had made to prevail againstthose cities .... Babylon, the city of thelords, I entered amidst rejoicing ....

shattered ... his cities I destroyed, Idevastated, I made like ruin heaps.Upon his ally, the king of Elam, Ipoured out terror.On my return I placed on [Babylon's]royal throne, Assur-nâdin-shum, myoldest son, .... I made subject to him thewide land of Sumer and Akkad.

This is precisely where the Book of Judith opens, though in itSargon II/Sennacherib is named "Nebuchadnezzar" (his name asruler of Babylon), Merodach-baladan is given as "Arphaxad", hispeople curiously as "Medes", and his city of Babylon as"Ecbatana". Thus Judith 1:1: "It was the twelfth year of the reign ofNebuchadnezzar, who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. In thosedays Arphaxad ruled over the Medes in Ecbatana ..."Etc.

Fifth Campaign

According to Russell (op. cit., pp. 165, 258): “The fifth campaign... which militarily was ... relatively insignificant, may ...be completely absent from [Sennacherib’s] reliefs ... [it] isnotdepicted in the throne-room suite, nor for that matter in anyof the surviving palace reliefs...”.It most likely corresponds with Sargon’s Year 13, about whichTadmor has noted (op. cit., p. 96): “The account of palû [Year] 13in the Annals is not fully preserved. Due to its fragmentarystate one cannot decide whether a part of the materialassigned to this palû belongs in fact to 708 [Tadmor’s date forthe following year]”.

Year 13Another detailed account. Itfocusses on Sargon'sdestruction of the Chaldeanstrongholds previously ruledby Merodach-baladan,especially the capital, Dur-Iakin, and his defeat of theElamites.[420] Here are therelevant portions:

Sixth CampaignThis has exactly the sameelements as Sargon's account,most notably the deportationto Assyria of the "people of(from) Bît-Iakin". Even the samedescriptive (violent) languageis used for the destruction ofthe cities of Chaldea.The cities which were in those provinces

Dûr-Iakini, his stronghold, I burnedwith fire; its high defences I destroyed,I devastated; ... I made it like amound left by the flood.The people of Sippar, Nippur, Babylon,Borsippa, who were imprisoned thereinthrough no fault of theirs, - I broke theirbonds and caused them to behold thelight (of day).....I waged bitter warfare against thepeople of Elam .... people from Bît-Iakin [which myhands had conquered], I settled [ inCalah] ....

I destroyed, I devastated, I burnedwith fire. To mounds and ruins Iturned (them).

On my return march Shuzubu, theBabylonian, who during an uprising inthe land had turned to himself the ruleof Sumer and Akkad ....I accomplished his defeat in a battle ....The king of Elam .... His forces Iscattered and I shattered his host.... the people of Bît-Iakin ... not a rebel(lit., sinner) escaped. I had them ... onthe way to Assyria.

Sargon's Year 15 (?) Corresponds to Sennacherib's SeventhCampaignLuckenbill gives this, the last annalistic listing that wehave for Sargon - though we know he reigned on longer - with aquestion mark: Year 15(?). So apparently the date is notabsolutely established. It is not a long account. The text isbroken, but the gist of it seems to be information about thedemise of the king of Elam, ally of Ellipi. The Elamite,Shuturnahundu, Sennacherib calls Kudur-Nahundu. Whilst we mayhave here different phases of the same campaign, in each casethe Elamite flees to mountain regions for safety. Sennacheribonly refers to his death.

Year 15

.... Shuturnahundu, the Elamite. [Helent his aid and came] to [the king ofEllipi's] rescue. .... Seven of my officials,governors, I sent .... 4,500 Elamitebowmen, fled to save their lives andwent up into the city of Marubishti. ....Him, together with his fighters theybrought in bonds and fetters beforeme .... Over all [of Elam] ... people ofEllipi, to the farthest border, I caused todwell in habitations of peace, my royalyoke [I placed upon them], and they

Seventh Campaign

The Elamite, Kudur-nahundu, heard ofthe overthrow of his cities, terroroverwhelmed him, the (people of) therest of his cities he brought into thestrongholds. He himself left Madaktu,his royal city, and took his way to thecity of Haidala, which is in the distantmountains. .... Kudur-Nahundu, theking of Elam, did not live three monthslonger ... but died suddenly, before hisappointed time. After him, Umman-menanu ... his younger (?) brother, sat

were subject to me. on his throne.

Sargon II's regnal year accounts peter out at this stage. Buta double-dated eponym text tells us that his sixteenth year asking of Assyria corresponded with his fourth year as king ofBabylon.

For information covering the remainder of Sargon's reign, wecan now turn to Sennacherib's records, supplemented by theBook of Judith.Sennacherib goes on to record yet an Eighth Campaign againstthe new Elamite king, Umman-menanu. But this record is farmore famous - rather, notorious - for its account ofSennacherib's brutal destruction of Babylon - perhaps largelybecause its citizens had previously rejected the rule there ofhis eldest son.

Sargon's Year 17 (in Judith) Corresponds to Sennacherib'sEighth Campaign

Year 17In the seventeenth year [the Assyrianking] ... came to Ecbatana [i.e. Babylon],captured its towers, plundered itsmarkets, and turned its glory intodisgrace.(Still Year 17)Then he returned to Nineveh, he and allhis combined forces, a vast body oftroops; and there he and his forcesrested and feasted for one hundred andtwenty days.

Eighth CampaignI advanced swiftly against Babylon ....Like the on-coming of a storm I brokeloose .... I completely invested thatcity, with mines and engines .... Theplunder ....Sargon's Dedication Feast... with the princes of (all) countries, thegovernors of my land ... nobles,officials ... of Assyria, I took up myabode in that palace and instituted afeast of music.

The king of Assyria by now had much about which to be self-congratulatory. The persistent Babylonian menace had finallybeen crushed. Tribute was flowing in from the whole world.Nineveh was the grand city that he had always wanted it to be.And now he could take up residence in the palace of his jewelcity of Dur-Sharrukin.

The Book of Judith enables us to go a big step further.

Year 18(Judith 2:1): In the eighteenth year, on the twenty-second day of the firstmonth, there was talk in the Palace of [the] king of Assyrians about carrying out hisrevenge on the whole region, just as he had said. ….

Conclusion

When we combine all of this together in a simplechart, we can ask:

What are the chances of this happening bymere coincidence, in such perfectchronological sequence?

Merodach-baladan(Sargon)

Merodach-baladan(Sennacherib)

Ellipi, Medes and Tumunu (Sargon).

Ellipi, Medes and Tumunu (Sennacherib).

Egypt-backed Judah/Philistia (Sargon).

Egypt-backed Judah/Philistia (Sennacherib)

Merodach-baladanand Elam (Sargon).

Merodach-baladanand Elam (Sennacherib).

(Not fully preserved) (Sargon).

(Not fully preserved) (Sennacherib).

Babylon, Elam and Bit-Iakin (Sargon).

Elam (Sargon).

Babylon, Elam and Bit-Iakin (Sennacherib).

Elam (Sennacherib).