He is primarily remembered for his military campaigns in Babylon and Jerusalem. 701. During Sargon's longer absences from the Assyrian heartland, Sennacherib's residence would have served as the center of government in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, with the crown prince taking on significant administrative and political responsibilities. [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. Sennacherib immediately abandoned Sargon's great new capital city, Dur-Sharrukin, and moved the capital to Nineveh instead. People throughout the Near East received the news with strong emotions and mixed feelings. 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. [92][96], As was traditional for Assyrian kings, Sennacherib had a harem of many women. Cotton plants may have been imported from as far away as India. [30] His reaction to his father's fate was to distance himself from Sargon. [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. [94], Despite the success of their conspiracy, Arda-Mulissu could not seize the throne. In his annals, Sennacherib claimed that he destroyed 46 fortified cities and towns of Judah and took 200,150 captives, although the number of captives is seen today widely as exaggeration. Sennacherib, Akkadian Sin-akhkheeriba, (died January 681 bce, Nineveh [now in Iraq]), king of Assyria (705/704-681 bce ), son of Sargon II. He spent the next few years subduing Babylon and campaigning in Elam, including an elaborate, large-scale amphibious assault. SeventeenthDynasty, (15001100 BCE)Kidinuid dynastyIgehalkid dynastyUntash-Napirisha, Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II, Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini Sennacherib has captured 46 Jewish "strong, walled cities", exiling 200,150 Jews, and then headed to Azekah, a city that was on the border. 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. . Once he rejoined his southern army, the war with Babylonia was already won. 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. In Hebrew, his name was rendered as Snryb and in Aramaic it was nryb. [97], Whether Naqi'a ever held the title of queen is unclear. When she became one of Sennacherib's wives, she took the Akkadian name Zaktu (Naqi'a being an Aramaic name). In Mesopotamian mythology, the afterlife suffered by those who died in battle and were not buried was terrible, being doomed to suffer like beggars for eternity. [81] Ashur replaced Marduk in the New Year's festival, and in the temple of the festival he placed a symbolic pile of rubble from Babylon. Sennacherib was born around 740 BCE. 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." Thereafter, he moved to attack the contingent at Kish, winning this second battle as well. 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." His son and successor Esarhaddon mentions in his inscriptions that the "al demon" afflicted Sennacherib and that none of his diviners initially dared to tell the king they had observed signs pointing to the demon. Sennacherib transferred the capital of Assyria to Nineveh, where he had spent most of his time as crown prince. Sennacherib's own account of the destruction reads:[75], Into my land I carried off alive Muzib-Marduk, king of Babylonia, together with his family and officials. So that it might be impossible in future days to recognize the site of that city and its temples, I utterly dissolved it with water and made it like inundated land. 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. He never disobeyed his father, and his letters indicate he knew Sargon well and wanted to please him. His reliefs show larger scenes, some almost from a bird's-eye point of view. [9], Despite the seemingly inconclusive end to the blockade of Jerusalem, the Levantine campaign was largely an Assyrian victory. [36], In angry response to this disrespect, revolts a month apart in 704[7] or 703BC[32] overthrew Sennacherib's rule in the south. Instead, his inscriptions often portrayed the most important parts of his reign as his large-scale building projects. The son of Sargon II, it's believed Sennacherib became king around 705 when his father was killed in battle. [93] Despite his dismissal, Arda-Mulissu remained a popular figure, and some vassals secretly supported him as the heir to the throne. tian army engaged the Assyrian army. He may have been compensating for the way he treated his father's memory. [2], Sennacherib had several brothers and at least one sister. Fearing for his life, Marduk-apla-iddina had already fled the battlefield. [57], Ashur-nadin-shumi was also titled mru rt, a title that could be interpreted either as the "pre-eminent son" or the "firstborn son". [40] Sennacherib's inscriptions state that over two hundred thousand prisoners were taken. [30], Frahm and the Assyriologist Julian E. Reade have pondered the idea that Sennacherib could be classified as a feminist. He was assassinated by one of his own sons in a temple of Nineveh. [32], After the Babylonian war, Sennacherib's second campaign was in the Zagros Mountains. Sennacherib oversaw domestic affairs and often informed Sargon of the progress being made on building projects throughout the empire. [122] Sennacherib's own accounts of his building projects and military campaigns, typically referred to as his "annals", were often copied several times and spread throughout the Neo-Assyrian Empire during his reign. I barricaded him with outposts, and exit from the gate of his city I made taboo for him." Sennacherib surrounded the cities that had high walls around them. Though Sennacherib reclaimed the south in 700BC, Marduk-apla-iddina continued to trouble him, probably instigating Assyrian vassals in the Levant to rebel, leading to the Levantine War of 701 BC, and himself warring against Bel-ibni, Sennacherib's vassal king in Babylonia. [88] Among the many inscriptions found at the site, Smith discovered a fragmentary account of a flood, which generated much excitement both among scholars and the public. [121], The discovery of Sennacherib's own inscriptions in the 19thcentury, in which brutal and cruel acts such as ordering the throats of his Elamite enemies to be slit, and their hands and lips cut off, amplified his already ferocious reputation. Sennacherib's annals locate that encounter at Eltekeh in Philistia, while his army was on its way from Joppa to Ekron. [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. [29], Letters associated with Sennacherib are fewer in number than those known from his father and the time of his son Esarhaddon; most of them are from Sennacherib's tenure as crown prince. [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. For the first six years of his reign, they were written on clay cylinders, but he later began using clay prisms, probably because they provided a greater surface area. The siege is discussed not only in contemporary sources, but in later folklore and traditions, such as Aramaic folklore, in later Greco-Roman histories of the Near East and in the tales of medieval Syriac Christians and Arabs. [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. 200,150 people, great and . They then besieged and took numerous cities. The vast responsibilities entrusted to Sennacherib suggests a certain degree of trust between the king and the crown prince. 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. His most famous work in the city is the Southwest Palace, which Sennacherib named his "Palace without Rival". The Assyrian king Sennacherib trained eagles for warfare. His appointment as king of Babylon and the new title suggests that Ashur-nadin-shumi was being groomed to succeed Sennacherib as the king of Assyria upon his death. to 681 B.C. The king's face has been deliberately damaged in antiquity. 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). 32 Hezekiah had been completely faithful to the Lord. Medieval Syriac tales characterize Sennacherib as an archetypical pagan king assassinated as part of a family feud, whose children convert to Christianity. As regent, Sennacherib's primary duty was to maintain relations with Assyrian governors and generals and oversee the empire's vast military intelligence network. He also claimed that he besieged King Hezekiah of the Judah in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage." [8] Humban-menanu and his commander, Humban-undasha, led the Babylonian and Elamite forces. Ultimately, Sennacherib decided to destroy Babylon. [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. 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