Sargon II Palace Inscriptions (Khorsabad)

Overview

In March 1843 Paul-Émile Botta, the French consular agent at Mosul, found carved and inscribed stone rooms at Khorsabad. They were the palace of Sargon II in his new capital Dūr-Šarrukīn ('Fortress of Sargon'). Botta dug until 1844, Victor Place continued in 1852-54, and the Oriental Institute of Chicago excavated again in 1928-35. Botta published his copies in Monument de Ninive (1849-50), thinking he had found biblical Nineveh.

The inscriptions include annals carved room by room on wall slabs (Rooms II, V, XIII, XIV and the throne room), the 'Display Inscription' (a summary of the reign to year 15), texts on the bull colossi and pavement slabs, and short captions over reliefs. Grant Frame's edition (RINAP 2, 2021) covers about 130 historical inscriptions of Sargon.

For biblical history the key passages are the capture of Samaria (see separate entry), the revolt of Hamath with Arpad, Ṣimirra, Damascus and Samaria (720 BCE), the defeat of Hanno of Gaza and an Egyptian army at Raphia, and the Ashdod campaign against Iāmānī in 712/711 BCE. The Ashdod campaign is the event Isaiah 20:1 dates by 'the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him'. Isaiah 20:1 is the only verse in the Bible that names Sargon.

In its own words

(97) In the anger of my heart I did not collect the mass of my troops, (98) I did not rally my forces. (99) With my soldiers, who do not depart from my side, ... (100) I marched against Ashdod. (101) Yamani, who heard from afar (102) the approach of my column, fled to the borders of Egypt, (103) which lies before Melucha, and was seen no more. (104) Ashdod, Gimtu [Gath], Ashdudimmu (105) I besieged [and] conquered.R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (New York, 1912), pp. 328-329 (Display/'General' Inscription ll. 97-105)

What the evidence shows

• Display Inscription (RINAP 2 no. 7) ll. 90-109: Azūri of Ashdod stops tribute and is replaced by his brother Aḫī-Mīti; the people put up Iāmānī; Sargon marches 'with (only) my warriors who never leave my side'; Iāmānī flees 'to the (far) edge of Egypt, on the border with the land Meluḫḫa'; Ashdod, Gath and Ashdod-Yam are conquered and resettled under an Assyrian governor.
• Display Inscription ll. 109b-112: the king of Meluḫḫa (Nubia) later sent Iāmānī to Assyria in iron fetters.
• Khorsabad Annals date the Ashdod campaign to Sargon's 11th regnal year (711 BCE); the Nineveh Prism (RINAP 2 no. 82) puts it in the 9th regnal year (RINAP 2 Introduction, note 96).
• Display Inscription l. 33: Ilu-bi'dī (Iaū-bi'dī) of Hamath 'incited the cities Arpad, Ṣimirra, Damascus, (and) Samaria to rebel'; Sargon captured him at Qarqar and flayed him.
• Pavement and bull inscriptions give short titularies: 'conqueror of the city Samaria and all of the land Bīt-Ḫumria (Israel)' (RINAP 2 no. 13); Display Inscription of Room XIV: 'I plundered the city Šinuḫtu, the city Samaria, and all of the land Bīt-Ḫumria' (no. 8).
• Text preservation: RINAP 2 states that text nos. 1-4, 6-14 and 23-41 are unavailable in the original because the slabs were lost in the Tigris in 1855 or reburied at Khorsabad; for these the edition depends on Botta's copies ('numerous anomalous/unexpected signs') and Winckler's later copies.
• Botta's room numbering used Roman numerals for spaces he took to be courts; several (II, V, X, XIII, XIV and 'Court VII', the throne room) were actually rooms (RINAP 2 Introduction).

Open questions

• Who led the Ashdod campaign? Isaiah 20:1 says the turtānu (field marshal) came to Ashdod, sent by Sargon. The Display Inscription has Sargon marching himself 'with (only) my warriors who never leave my side'. RINAP 2 (Frame 2021, n. 118) identifies Isaiah's campaign with the capture of Ashdod in 711 and notes that Isaiah has the army led by the tartan, not the king. Whether the king was actually present, or the royal text credits him with his general's campaign, is not decided by the texts.
• 711 or 713/712? The Khorsabad Annals put the Ashdod campaign in Sargon's 11th regnal year and the Nineveh Prism in his 9th (RINAP 2 n. 96). Hayim Tadmor (JCS 12, 1958) is the classic chronological study of Sargon's regnal-year (palû) counting; the discrepancy affects how Isaiah 20's 'three years' sign is dated.
• How reliable is the received text? For most Khorsabad slabs the originals are gone (Tigris 1855) and editors rely on Botta's 1840s copies. Frame's RINAP 2 lists the problems with those copies; any single reading from a lost slab is only as good as Botta's copy.

Sources

1. Grant Frame, The Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, King of Assyria (721-705 BC), RINAP 2 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2021); online at Oracc, text no. 7 (Display Inscription) = Q006488 link editio princeps
2. Grant Frame, RINAP 2 Introduction: 'Overview of Previous Publications', 'Lost Inscriptions' and 'Military Campaigns' (Oracc, 2021) link excavation report
3. R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1912), pp. 326-331 link translation
4. Hayim Tadmor, 'The Campaigns of Sargon II of Assur: A Chronological-Historical Study', Journal of Cuneiform Studies 12/1 (1958): 22-40 and 12/3 (1958): 77-100, doi:10.2307/1359580 and 10.2307/1359150 link study
5. Eckart Frahm, 'Samaria, Hamath, and Assyria's Conquests in the Levant in the Late 720s BCE: The Testimony of Sargon II's Inscriptions', in S. Hasegawa, C. Levin and K. Radner (eds.), The Last Days of the Kingdom of Israel (BZAW 511; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 55-86, doi:10.1515/9783110566604-004 link study

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