Archaeologist's Discovery May Back Up Epic Biblical Siege

An archaeologist's discovery may corroborate parts of an epic biblical story detailing an infamous siege of Jerusalem.

In a study published in the journal Near Eastern Archaeology, researcher Stephen Compton proposed the likely locations for a trail of lost ancient military camps set up by the Assyrian King Sennacherib in the Levant.

These royal camps were constructed during a military campaign conducted by Sennacherib around the year 700 B.C. This campaign was undertaken to bring the Israelite Kingdom of Judah back under the control of the Neo-Assyrian Empire following a rebellion against its rule a few years earlier.

Assyria was a major civilization of ancient Mesopotamia—a historical region that primarily corresponds to the territory of present-day Iraq, as well as parts of Iran, Turkey, Syria and Kuwait.

Historical sources indicate that Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant ended with a siege of Jerusalem, then the capital of Judah. Although the king did not capture the city, Sennacherib's Annals detail how he returned to Assyria after receiving tribute from King Hezekiah of Judah, who was allowed to stay in power as a vassal of the empire.

The biblical story of these events adds a somewhat more colorful twist to the tale. It describes how an "angel of the Lord" passed through Sennacherib's camp outside Jerusalem in the night and "struck down" 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, prompting the king's retreat to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire.

The locations of the camps constructed during Sennacherib's campaign had never been found, so Compton spent years trying to track them down. In the study, Compton proposed the probable locations of several of them, including the one from Sennacherib's infamous siege of Jerusalem.

The latest findings represent possible historical evidence for the siege that is referenced in the Bible.

A hilltop site near Jerusalem shows features consistent with Sennacherib's campsite, the researcher wrote in the online magazine Popular Archaeology.

Images of military conquest on Sennacherib's palace walls often featured his siege camps. Compton identified the likely locations of the camps by comparing the visual and textual references to them with the actual landscapes around the cities the Assyrian king besieged. This study involved on-site surveys, examinations of aerial and satellite imagery, and reviews of archaeological and historical data.

According to Compton, these camps all had the same place name on early maps. All the names featured the word "Mudawwara," which, in Arabic of the Middle Ages, denoted the enormous tent that housed the sultan on military expeditions.

The initial discovery of Compton's study came from a scene carved into the stone walls of Sennacherib's palace. This relief depicts one of his fortified siege camps near Lachish, an ancient city located to the south of Jerusalem.

The researcher was able to map the landscape depicted in this carving to the actual surroundings of the ancient city, using early aerial photographs of the Lachish site prior to modern development.

Examining the aerial photographs revealed the remains of an oval, walled structure adjacent to an ancient road connecting Lachish to another settlement that is characteristic of Assyrian military camps. The structure's long axis points toward Lachish, as does that of the camp in the relief. In addition, as in the relief, a hill is positioned between Lachish and this structure but closer to the latter.

An archaeological survey of this site conducted by Compton uncovered evidence of human habitation, in the form of pottery sherds, from a period of prehistory known as the Chalcolithic. Following this period, there appears to be no further evidence of human activity for another 2,600 years or so.

But intriguingly, the next evidence for human activity corresponds to pottery sherds from right around the time of Sennacherib's invasion of Lachish, according to Compton. It appears that the site was then abandoned again for centuries. This is consistent with it having been used for Sennacherib's camp.

Furthermore, this site was labeled on early maps as "Khirbet al Mudawwara," which means "The Ruins of the Camp of the Invading Ruler" in Arabic.

In the 1880s, an archaeological survey identified a very similar ruin to the north of Jerusalem and found it to be consistent with a military camp. At the time, these remains were suspected to have been a Roman military camp from one of Emperor Titus' attacks on Jerusalem, which took place several centuries after Sennacherib's campaign.

But Roman military camps were always rectangular, whereas this one was oval—in the style of the Assyrian army. According to Compton, the hill this site occupied was known in Arabic as "Jebel el Mudawwara," meaning "The Mountain of the Camp of the Invading Ruler."

Taking into account the findings regarding these two sites, including the distinctive place name Mudawwara, Compton was able to identify the likely locations of additional Assyrian military camps. This revealed a distribution consistent with what is known of Sennacherib's invasion route and of the cities his forces besieged.

The results even enabled Compton to identify the potential sites of two lost ancient cities, Libnah and Nob, that were known to have been besieged by the Assyrians but whose locations were unknown or uncertain.

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