Summary: Archaeological evidence reveals how the military campaign of Assyrian King Sennacherib impacted the Kingdom of Judah’s economy.
In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. – 2 Kings 18:13-14 (ESV)
New Evidence for Sennacherib’s Siege
Archaeologists have uncovered new evidence of the Assyrian military campaign against the Kingdom of Judah, revealing the destruction of a key administrative building in Jerusalem dating back to the 8th century BC.
This discovery offers a deeper understanding of the events surrounding the siege of Jerusalem in 701 BC, a well-documented occurrence in Assyrian, Biblical and other ancient historical records. This event was also featured in our recent film release, Patterns of Evidence: The Israel Dilemma.
Numerous stamped handles used for tax collection were uncovered at the site. The inscriptions on the handles indicate that taxes once collected for the Judean ruler, King Hezekiah, stopped after the siege, and began to be gathered instead for the Assyrian Empire. This evidence affirms that, although Hezekiah remained in power, Assyria took control of Jerusalem’s economic and administrative functions.
Rebellion Against Assyrian Taxes
Hezekiah’s story is told in the Old Testament books of 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles and Isaiah. He is also mentioned in Proverbs, Jeremiah, Hosea and Micah. During his reign, the prophets Isaiah and Micah ministered in Judah. Hezekiah began his reign at age 25 and ruled over the southern kingdom of Judah for twenty-nine years from c. 715 to 686 BC.
After the reign of his wicked father Ahaz, Hezekiah boldly led reform by destroying pagan altars, idols, and temples. He reopened the doors of the Jerusalem temple which had been shut up by his father. The Bible says that Hezekiah was more zealous for the Lord than any of his predecessors (2 Kings 18:5).
Hezekiah refused to pay tribute to Assyria, the dominant world power at the time who had already conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. In response to Hezekiah’s rebellion, King Sennacherib launched a military campaign against Judah conquering much of the region, including its second most important city, Lachish but miraculously, failing to take the capital, Jerusalem.
According to Biblical accounts, divine intervention saved the city. An “angel of the Lord” caused thousands of deaths among the Assyrian troops (2 Kings 19:20-37). Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, only being able to brag that he had trapped Hezekiah in Jerusalem “like a caged bird.”
This siege is one of the best-known military events from ancient history and has been widely studied by scholars. The latest discovery adds more insight into Assyria’s campaign against Judah and their failure to capture the city of Jerusalem.
Economic Impact on the Kingdom of Judah
Recent archeological excavations have found evidence, for the first time, showing the economic impact of Sennacherib’s military campaign on the kingdom of Judah and how Judean tributes to Assyria were organized, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) who conducted the dig. Excavations began in preparation for construction of Mordot Arnona, a new neighborhood in southern Jerusalem being built near Kibbutz Ramat Rachel.
The dig revealed two large 8th century BC agricultural administrative buildings, one built on top of the other. The site’s original Judahite administrative structure was completely destroyed and replaced by another building. Archaeologists also uncovered 180 ceramic jar handles engraved with Hebrew inscriptions identifying ownership.
“We discovered remains of a significant royal administrative center from the days of King Hezekiah, and perhaps even from the reign of his father, King Ahaz,” said IAA excavation directors Neria Sapir, Natan Ben-Ari, and Benyamin Storchan.
“The center functioned in the last third of the 8th century BCE but was destroyed down to its foundations and buried under a massive heap of stones. The stone pile formed a platform upon which a subsequent structure was erected, holding a commanding view of all the agricultural areas east of the Armon Ha-Natziv – Ramat Raḥel ridge and could be seen from afar. Large building stones originating from the early structure were deliberately incorporated into the heap,” the directors said.
The Assyrians wanted to project a message of power and domination by utterly destroying the Judahite building and then rebuilding their own structure in its place. “We interpret these dramatic changes as a statement by the Assyrian imperial government, intended to convey a political-diplomatic message to the surrounding region and make it clear ‘who is really in charge’ by overhauling the administrative structure and its function,” the archaeologists explained.
The Assyrians allowed for the continuation of an independent administration in Judah due to the taxes and agricultural produce they could collect through tributes, which were heavily intensified after the siege.
Ceramic Storage Jars for Taxes
Both unearthed structures were “monumental public buildings” used to consolidate agricultural produce which farmers used to pay taxes to the kingdom. The produce was transported and delivered in large ceramic storage jars and stored in these buildings as a reserve for times of scarcity. In addition, wine and possibly olive oil were also produced in the Mordot Arnona neighborhood.
The inscribed jar handles offer clues to the changes in the Judahite administration and how the agricultural production was reorganized after the rebellion, said Ben-Ari, a PhD student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “The long chronology of the seal assemblage portrays the significance of the area and continuity across changing administrative stages.”
Dozens of lmlk – ‘(belonging) to the king’ stamp impressions were discovered, as well as 17 handles with ‘private’ names written in Hebrew script, dating from the 8th century BC onwards. Among the names on the ‘private’ jar-handle stamps are Menachem Yubna (lmnḥm/ywbnh), Peqach Tavra (lṗqḥ/tbr’), Tzophen Azaryahu (ṣpn.ʿ/zryhw), and others. These names may have belonged to elite estate landowners or senior Judahite officials.
These findings strengthen the hypothesis that the ‘private’ stamp impressions are part of a short-lived administrative system led by King Hezekiah in preparation for Judah’s rebellion against Assyria. From the beginning of the 7th century BC onward, the lmlk stamp impressions differ from the earlier types and mark the return of Assyrian taxation in the aftermath of Sennacherib’s campaign.
Brutality of the Assyrians
The Assyrians dominated the Biblical Middle East from the 9th to the 7th century BC. They were a fierce and cruel nation who showed little mercy to those they conquered. Hezekiah’s decision to stop paying the required tribute to Assyria was a bold act of rebellion. Assyria documented their ruthlessness in written records, inscriptions and reliefs that consist almost solely of military campaigns and battles.
Their history is as gruesome and horrific as any we know. Their reliefs depict soldiers impaling prisoners on stakes, piling up heads of conquered peoples, dismembering victims and using their body parts to decorate temple or palace gates and other grisly torture methods.
The northern kingdom of Israel was conquered in approximately 740 BC by King Pul (1 Chron. 5:26) with the tribes located east of the Jordan River the first defeated.
But [northern Israel] broke faith with the God of their fathers, and whored after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and he took them into exile, namely, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river Gozan, to this day. – 1 Chron. 5:25-26
Later, in 701 BC, when King Hezekiah of Judah withheld Assyrian tribute, Sargon II’s successor, Sennacherib, marched into Judah, destroying 46 cities and besieging Jerusalem. Although Sennacherib failed to capture Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:32–36), records show Hezekiah no doubt resumed paying tribute to Assyria, to avoid future invasions.
Conclusion
The latest findings are connected to other recent work in the area, including in Ramat Rachel, Arnona and Armon Hanatziv, which “has changed the archaeological picture” of the region by giving deeper insights into how “the Judean Kingdom controlled the area and the redistribution of products,” said Ben-Ari.
“It is very moving to encounter messages from high-ranking officials in the Judahite administration from some 2,700 years ago,” said the Minister of Heritage, Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu. “The fascinating discovery by the Israel Antiquities Authority tells the millennia-long story of the Jewish people, who—despite crises and very difficult periods—have always known how to rise again, rebuild, and thrive.”
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TOP PHOTO: Some of the 180 jug handle stamp impressions discovered at Mordot Arnona in Jerusalem and dating from the 8th century BC. (credit: Yoli Schwartz/IAA)
