According to the narrative, no enemy, not even the powerful king of Assyria, would have been able to triumph over Hezekiah as the Judean king had God on his side. [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. The two fleets then combined into one and continued down to the Persian Gulf. [] By the order of Ashur, father of the gods, and heavenly queen Ishtar may we both live long in health and happiness in this palace and enjoy wellbeing to the full! 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. 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. Evidence of the increased standing of the royal women includes the larger number of texts referencing Assyrian queens from Sennacherib's reign compared to queens of earlier times, and evidence that Sennacherib's queens had their own standing military units, just like the king. Sennacherib ignored Arda-Mulissu's repeated appeals to be reinstated as heir, and in 681BC, Arda-Mulissu and his brother Nabu-shar-usur murdered Sennacherib,[b] hoping to seize power for themselves. . [118] The legend of the 4th-century Saints Behnam and Sarah casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib, as their royal father. For unknown reasons, Sargon never took him on his military campaigns. [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. Unlike many preceding and later Assyrian kings (including his father), Sennacherib did not portray himself as a conqueror or express much desire to conquer the world. [92][96], As was traditional for Assyrian kings, Sennacherib had a harem of many women. 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. The name probably derives from Sennacherib not being Sargon's first son, but all his older brothers being dead by the time he was born. Sennacherib (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: Sn-ahh-erba[3] or Sn-a-erba,[4] meaning "Sn has replaced the brothers")[5][6][a] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father SargonII in 705BC to his own death in 681BC. The hands of my people laid hold of the gods dwelling there and smashed them; they took their property and goods.I destroyed the city and its houses, from foundation to parapet; I devastated and burned them. When the Philistine city of Ashkelon succumbed, Sennacherib removed the king, his wife, sons, daughters, brothers, and kin, and exiled them back to Assyria. [28] Sennacherib was about 35 years old when he ascended to the Assyrian throne in August of 705BC. The Assyrians had not marched on Babylon immediately, however, as military actions are recorded elsewhere. [4] In 705BC, Hezekiah, the king of Judah, had stopped paying his annual tribute to the Assyrians and began pursuing a markedly aggressive foreign policy, probably inspired by the recent wave of anti-Assyrian rebellions across the empire. There is a tent behind him, his chariot is in the foreground, and his bodyguard are stationed around. In his stead, Sennacherib proclaimed a noble by the name Ethbaal as the new king of Sidon and his vassal and oversaw the submission of many of the surrounding cities to his rule. Sennacherib (d.681 bc) King of Assyria (704-681 bc). 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. This was not necessarily because of personal pride; his subjects would have viewed a failed campaign as a sign that the gods no longer favored his rule. Sennacherib's annals locate that encounter at Eltekeh in Philistia, while his army was on its way from Joppa to Ekron. A tent is behind him; there is a chariot in the foreground and bodyguards stationed around. As the Assyrians were preparing to retake Ekron, Hezekiah's ally, Egypt, intervened in the conflict. [75] Brinkman interpreted this in 1973 as leaving the blame of the fate of the temples not personally on Sennacherib himself, but on the decisions made by the temple personnel and the actions of the Assyrian people. Sennacherib oversaw domestic affairs and often informed Sargon of the progress being made on building projects throughout the empire. [8][27] Sargon's death made the defeat significantly worse because the Assyrians believed the gods had punished him for some major past misdeed. 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. [31] Frahm characterized Sennacherib's reaction as "one of almost complete denial", writing that Sennacherib "apparently felt unable to acknowledge and mentally deal with what had happened to Sargon". [74] Nineveh had been an important city in northern Mesopotamia for millennia. [71] In 1973, the Assyriologist John A. Brinkman wrote that it was likely that the southerners won the battle, though probably suffering many casualties, since both of Sennacherib's enemies still remained on their respective thrones after the fighting. 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. [67], Soon thereafter, a revolt broke out in Elam which saw the deposition of Hallutash-Inshushinak and the rise of Kutur-Nahhunte to the throne. He built a large second palace at the city's southern mound, which served as an arsenal to store military equipment and as permanent quarters for part of the Assyrian standing army. Like the inscriptions of other Assyrian kings, his show pride and high self-esteem, for instance in the passage: "Ashur, father of the gods, looked steadfastly upon me among all the rulers and he made my weapons greater than (those of) all who sit on (royal) daises." Accession. Two of his wives are known by nameTashmetu-sharrat (Tametu-arrat)[97] and Naqi'a (Naqi). [89] The text of the inscription, written in an unusually intimate way, reads:[90], And for the queen Tashmetu-sharrat, my beloved wife, whose features Belet-ili has made more beautiful than all other women, I had a palace of love, joy and pleasure built. [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. [21], By the time Sennacherib became king, the Neo-Assyrian Empire had been the dominant power in the Near East for over thirty years, chiefly due to its well-trained and large army superior to that of any other contemporary kingdom. The son of Sargon II, it's believed Sennacherib became king around 705 when his father was killed in battle. [7] Marduk-apla-iddina rallied large portions of Babylonia's people to fight for him, both the urban Babylonians and the tribal Chaldeans, and he also enlisted troops from the neighboring civilization of Elam, in modern-day south-western Iran. [40] As the Assyrians appeared on the horizon, Babylon opened its gates to him, surrendering without a fight. He made Nineveh his capital, building a new palace, extending and beautifying the city, and erecting inner and outer city walls that still stand. Sennacherib was the second king of the Sargonid Dynasty of Assyria, who ruled from 705 B.C. Instead, his inscriptions often portrayed the most important parts of his reign as his large-scale building projects. 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. In any event, Sennacherib never took action against Sargon or attempted to usurp the throne despite being more than old enough to become king himself. I dug canals through the midst of that city, I overwhelmed it with water, I made its very foundations disappear, and I destroyed it more completely than a devastating flood. By the time Sargon moved to Babylon, Sennacherib, who served as the crown prince and designated heir, had already left Nimrud, living in a residence at Nineveh. Other events of his reign include his destruction of the city of Babylon in 689 BC and his renovation and expansion of the last great Assyrian capital, Nineveh . He expanded the size of the city and constructed great city walls, numerous temples and a royal garden. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Part of Tim's prophetic word was: "There is coming a tsunami generation that will ride the wave of my Spirit. [49] [40] Sennacherib's inscriptions state that over two hundred thousand prisoners were taken. [8] In the northern Levant, former Assyrian vassal cities rallied around Luli, the king of Tyre and Sidon. [74] Although the Babylonians were successful initially, that was short-lived, and in the same year, the siege of Babylon was already well underway. In 703BC, after the Tabal expedition had been completed, Sennacherib gathered the Assyrian army at Assur, often used as a mustering spot for campaigns against the south. Cotton plants may have been imported from as far away as India. 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 Assyrians began by taking Ashkelon and defeating Sidqia. This text is fragmentary, but it seems Marduk is found guilty of some grave offense. Ultimately, Sennacherib decided to destroy Babylon. Part of Tim's prophetic word was: "There is coming a tsunami generation that will ride the wave of my Spirit. Rulers with names in italics are considered fictional. 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. Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE) was the second king of the Sargonid Dynasty of Assyria (founded by his father Sargon II, r. 722-705 BCE). [6] According to a 670BC document, it was illegal to give the name Sennacherib (then the former king) to a commoner in Assyria, as it was considered sacrilege. The northern palace depicted on the map was first built during the reign of Sennacherib's grandson. [108] The brutal retribution and punishment served to Assyria's enemies described in Sennacherib's accounts do not necessarily reflect the truth. [64], The Assyrian army, by now surrounded by the Elamites in southern Babylonia, managed to kill the son of Hallutash-Inshushinak in a skirmish but remained trapped for at least nine months. Panels 14-16 One of Sennacherib's first actions as king was to rebuild a temple dedicated to the god Nergal, associated with death, disaster and war, at the city of Tarbisu. The murder of the king caused some resentment against him by his own supporters which delayed his potential coronation, and in the meantime, Esarhaddon had raised an army. Babylonia and the Levant welcomed his death as divine punishment, while the Assyrian heartland probably reacted with resentment and horror. 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". In the Aggadah 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. The Assyrians often represented men with eagles heads, and frequently portrayed an eagle-headed figure overcoming a lion, or bull, which, as Mr. Layard suggests, "may denote the superiority of intellect over the lower faculties." [34] The Assyrian army, led by Sennacherib's chief commander, launched an unsuccessful attack on the coalition forces near the city of Kish, bolstering the legitimacy of the coalition. 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. The King's face has been deliberately slashed, perhaps by an enemy soldier at the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC. [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. He also claimed that he besieged King Hezekiah of the Judah in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage." [8] They also served as intimidating tools for propaganda and psychological warfare. An inscription on a stone lion in the quarter associated with Sennacherib's queen, Tashmetu-sharrat, contains hopes that the king and queen would both live healthily and long within the new palace. 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. [86] Whereas his father's new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, was more or less an imitation of the previous capital of Nimrud, Sennacherib intended to make Nineveh into a city whose magnificence and size astonished the civilized world. The Assyrians thus invaded Judah. When she became one of Sennacherib's wives, she took the Akkadian name Zaktu (Naqi'a being an Aramaic name). Sennacherib claims in his annals that Humban-undasha was killed and that the enemy kings fled for their lives whereas the Babylonian chronicles claim that it was the Assyrians who retreated. Sennacherib is remembered as a great builder; he enlarged and embellished Nineveh, built and restored various temples and public buildings all over Assyria, and undertook very important hydraulic works. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . They probably received a scribal education, learning arithmetic and how to read and write in Sumerian and Akkadian. [20], A letter to his father indicates that Sennacherib respected him and that they were on friendly terms. The Biblical account of the end of Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem holds that though Hezekiah's soldiers manned the walls of the city, ready to defend it against the Assyrians, an entity referred to as the destroying angel, sent by Yahweh, annihilated Sennacherib's army, killing 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in front of Jerusalem's gates. The first reason for this is Sennacherib's negative portrayal in the Bible as the evil conqueror who attempted to take Jerusalem; the second is his destruction of Babylon, one of the most prominent cities in the ancient world. 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