The identity of Sennacherib's mother is uncertain. In the Levantine War, the states in the southern Levant, especially the Kingdom of Judah under King Hezekiah, were not subdued as easily as those in the north. Thus, Jerusalem was blockaded in some capacity, though the lack of massive military activities and appropriate equipment meant that it was probably not a full siege. [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. They took the cities of Ekron and Timnah and Judah stood alone, with Sennacherib setting his sights on Jerusalem. Just seven days after taking Uruk, the Assyrians and Babylonians met in battle at Nippur, where the Assyrians won a decisive victory; routing the Elamite-Babylonian army and capturing Nergal-ushezib, finally free from their entrapped position in the south. [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. [118] The legend of the 4th-century Saints Behnam and Sarah casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib, as their royal father. In reliefs depicting both Sargon and Sennacherib, they are portrayed in discussion, appearing almost as equals. 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. They probably received a scribal education, learning arithmetic and how to read and write in Sumerian and Akkadian. They also served as intimidating tools for propaganda and psychological warfare. [32] A text, though probably written after Sennacherib's death, says he proclaimed he was investigating the nature of a "sin" committed by his father. [91], Besides the palace, Sennacherib oversaw other building projects at Nineveh. 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. To transform Nineveh into a capital worthy of his empire, he launched one of the most ambitious building projects in ancient history. [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. He never disobeyed his father, and his letters indicate he knew Sargon well and wanted to please him. . [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. [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. [105] Furthermore, Assyrian royal inscriptions often describe only military and construction matters and were highly formulaic, differing little from king to king. After Behnam converts to Christianity, Sinharib orders his execution, but is later struck by a dangerous disease that is cured through being baptized by Saint Matthew in Assur. 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. [93] Despite his dismissal, Arda-Mulissu remained a popular figure, and some vassals secretly supported him as the heir to the throne. Sennacherib was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, when his sons smote him with the sword. [40] As the Assyrians appeared on the horizon, Babylon opened its gates to him, surrendering without a fight. The rooms and courtyards of his Neo-Assyrian Southwest Palace at Nineveh were decorated with a series of detailed carved stone panels. [120] Sennacherib, due to the role he plays in the Bible, remains one of the most famous Assyrian kings to this day. Sargon continued to live in Nimrud long after he had become king, leaving the city in 710BC to reside at Babylon, and later at his new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, in 706 BC. In the stories, Sennacherib's armies are destroyed when Hezekiah recites Hallel psalms on the eve of Passover. Though the blockade of Jerusalem was not a proper siege, it is clear from all available sources that a massive Assyrian army was encamped in the city's vicinity, probably on its northern side. [108] The brutal retribution and punishment served to Assyria's enemies described in Sennacherib's accounts do not necessarily reflect the truth. [51] An alternative hypothesis, first advanced by journalist Henry T. Aubin in 2001, is that the blockade of Jerusalem was lifted through the intervention of a Kushite army from Egypt. They will be called my War Eagles. He also claimed that he besieged King Hezekiah of the Judah in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage." [8] 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 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. At the head of the Persian Gulf, a storm flooded the Assyrian camp and the Assyrian soldiers had to take refuge on their ships. Instead, his inscriptions often portrayed the most important parts of his reign as his large-scale building projects. [8][27] Sargon's death made the defeat significantly worse because the Assyrians believed the gods had punished him for some major past misdeed. Babylonia and the Levant welcomed his death as divine punishment, while the Assyrian heartland probably reacted with resentment and horror. There, he subdued the Yasubigallians, a people from east of the Tigris river, and the Kassites, a people who had ruled Babylonia centuries before. When he returned to Assyria his own sons murdered him. [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. [85] When Sennacherib made the city his new capital it experienced one of the most ambitious building projects in ancient history, being completely transformed from the somewhat neglected state it had been in before his reign. Though it is clear that the blockade of Jerusalem ended without significant fighting, how it was resolved and what stopped Sennacherib's massive army from overwhelming the city is uncertain. Assyria and Babylonia also shared the same language (Akkadian). [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". The vast responsibilities entrusted to Sennacherib suggests a certain degree of trust between the king and the crown prince. 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. [92] Esarhaddon's influential mother, Naqi'a, may have played a role in convincing Sennacherib to choose Esarhaddon as heir. Though Babylonia to the south had also once been a large kingdom, it was typically weaker than its northern neighbor during this period, due to internal divisions and the lack of a well-organized army. He destroyed Babylon in 689 bc and, with the peace of his empire thus assured, devoted himself to rebuilding his capital, Nineveh. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. [104][105] Sennacherib's decision to keep his birth name when he became king rather than assuming a throne name, something at least 19 of his 21 immediate predecessors had done, suggests self-confidence. Any logical movement of troops here . [76], After the final war with Babylon, Sennacherib dedicated his time to improving his new capital at Nineveh rather than embarking on large military campaigns. 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. [62] They then sailed across the Persian Gulf, a journey which Sennacherib's inscriptions indicate was difficult since repeated sacrifices were made to Ea, the god of the deep. [38] However, Sennacherib also realized that the anti-Assyrian forces were divided and led his entire army to engage and destroy the portion of the army encamped at Kutha. 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. [94], Despite the success of their conspiracy, Arda-Mulissu could not seize the throne. 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. [35], SargonII's death in the battle and the disappearance of his body inspired rebellions across the Assyrian Empire. Because of the infighting of these three major groups, Babylonia often represented an appealing target for Assyrian campaigns. Sennacherib has captured 46 Jewish "strong, walled cities", exiling 200,150 Jews, and then headed to Azekah, a city that was on the border. [74] Although the Babylonians were successful initially, that was short-lived, and in the same year, the siege of Babylon was already well underway. They will ride the wave of my presence and as my war Eagles they will begin to fly carried by the waves of my presence." [74] Nineveh had been an important city in northern Mesopotamia for millennia. [68], Despite the defeat of Nergal-ushezib and the flight of the Elamites, Babylonia did not surrender to Sennacherib. Sargon is never mentioned in Sennacherib's inscriptions. (Adaside dynasty1700722 BCE)Bel-bani Libaya Sharma-Adad I Iptar-Sin Bazaya Lullaya Shu-Ninua Sharma-Adad II Erishum III Shamshi-Adad II Ishme-Dagan II Shamshi-Adad III Ashur-nirari I Puzur-Ashur III Enlil-nasir I Nur-ili Ashur-shaduni Ashur-rabi I Ashur-nadin-ahhe I Enlil-Nasir II Ashur-nirari II Ashur-bel-nisheshu Ashur-rim-nisheshu Ashur-nadin-ahhe II, Second Intermediate PeriodSixteenthDynasty Caught in a dreadful quandary, the priest [Sethos, who was also Pharaoh] entered the [22] The Arameans lived on the fringes of settled land and were notorious for plundering surrounding territories. [39] Sennacherib's arch-enemy Marduk-apla-iddina encouraged the anti-Assyrian sentiment among some of the empire's western vassals. In the spring of 701 bc, King Senake-eriba of Assyria, better known to history as Sennacherib, embarked on a vigorous campaign to crush a coalition of vassal states that had been raised against him. 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 . [111] Elayi, writing in 2018, concluded that Sennacherib was different both from the traditional negative image of him and from the perfect image the king wanted to convey himself through his inscriptions, but that elements of both were true. Sennacherib's troops seems to have been remembered later, in a greatly mod-ified form, by the Greek historian Herodotus (Histories, 2.141), who recount-ed that: "Sennacherib . SENNACHERIB s nk' r b (, Akkad. [56] In the meantime, Sennacherib campaigned elsewhere. Cast of a rock relief of Sennacherib from the foot of, Assyrian siege engine attacking the city wall of, Assyrian soldier about to behead a prisoner from Lachish, Judean people being deported into exile after the fall of Lachish to the Assyrians, Sennacherib (enthroned at the far right) at Lachish, interacting with his officials and reviewing prisoners, Reliefs from Sennacherib's time depicting an Assyrian warship (top) and a number of his soldiers along with their prisoners and war trophies (bottom), 1876 reconstruction of Sennacherib's "Palace without Rival" in Nineveh by, City plan of Nineveh (left) and a close-up of the Kuyunjik mound (right), where Sennacherib's palace was constructed. [18], Sennacherib's name, Sn-a-erba, means "Sn (the moon-god) has replaced the brothers" in Akkadian. As his name implies Sennacherib was not the eldest son of Sargon II, but was chosen as crown prince and made military governor of the troublesome northern frontier. The Assyrians began by taking Ashkelon and defeating Sidqia. Tashmetu-sharrat is likely to have been the mother of at least some of them. [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. Though assembling all these forces took time, Sennacherib reacted slowly to these developments, which allowed Marduk-apla-iddina to station large contingents at the cities of Kutha and Kish. [77] This caused consternation in Assyria itself, where Babylon and its gods were held in high esteem. [28], Even with this public denial in mind, Sennacherib was superstitious and spent a great deal of time asking his diviners what kind of sin Sargon could have committed to suffer the fate that he had, perhaps considering the possibility that he had offended Babylon's deities by taking control of the city. [44] While a portion of Sennacherib's troops prepared to blockade Jerusalem, Sennacherib himself marched on the important Judean city of Lachish. 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. Although Sennacherib was successful in conquering Lachish and many other Judahite cities and towns, he did not conquer Jerusalem. Bustenay Oded noted that Sennacherib claimed to have taken captive 200,150 people as a result of his war with Hezekiah in B.C. They will be called my War Eagles. Puzur-Sin Ashur-dugul Ashur-apla-idi Nasir-Sin Sin-namir Ipqi-Ishtar Adad-salulu Adasi Reade believes that the collapse of the Assyrian Empire within seventy years of Sennacherib's death can be partly attributed to later kings ignoring Sennacherib's policies and reforms. 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. 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). [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. 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